Integration of voice attractiveness and emotional semantics in spoken word processing: An ERP Study

Attractive voices can capture listeners’ attention and evoke positive emotions. However, our understanding of how the brain integrates voice attractiveness and emotional semantic information in speech, and the temporal unfolding of this process, remains limited. The present study explored this question using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Participants listened to disyllabic Chinese adjectives of different emotional semantic valence (positive, e.g., mature; negative, e.g., despicable; neutral, e.g., obvious), recited by speakers with voices that had been selected for high or low attractiveness in a previous study Participants performed separate voice attractiveness and semantic valence judgments on these voice stimuli. The early N1 component of the recorded ERPs revealed an early interaction between voice attractiveness, semantic valence, and task. At later stages, voice attractiveness and semantic valence were processed independently, showing distinct effects in specific time windows during the valence judgment task. These findings suggest that the integration of emotional semantics and voice attractiveness occurs mainly at an early stage, followed by more independent processing later on.