Replication Data for: Putting Salient Vocalizations in Context: Adults’ Physiological Arousal to Emotive Cues in Domestic and External Environments

Salient vocalizations are automatically processed and distinguished from emotionally irrelevant information. However, little is known of how contextual, gender and attentional variables interact to modulate physiological responses to salient emotive vocalizations. In this study, electrocardiogram (ECG) was utilized to investigate differences in peripheral nervous activity of men and women to infant cry (IC), infant laughter (IL) and adult cry (AC) in two different situational contexts: the domestic environment (DE) and the outside environment (OE). As the mental state of listeners can affect their response to vocalizations, a between-subject design was applied: one group was instructed to imagine being inside the scenes (Task 1: explicit task), and the other group was told to look at the scenes (Task 2: implicit task). Results revealed that females exhibited lower inter-beat interval (IBI) index in the OE condition, as compared to both males in OE and females in DE conditions, suggesting greater physiological arousal amongst females in response to vocalizations in an outside environment. Additionally, Task 1 revealed that males demonstrated higher Low Frequency/High Frequency (LFHF) index towards AC than IL. Task 2 showed the same association between these two sounds in females. The implicit task also elicited lower LFHF index in response to both IL and IC than control sound (CS), only amongst females. Findings highlight the important roles that contextual information and cognitive demand play in regulating physiological responses to salient emotive vocalizations. Integrated perspectives of physiological responses to emotive vocalizations that consider the influence of internal (adult mental states) and external (environment) contextual information will provide a better understanding of mechanisms underlying emotional processing of salient social cues.

显著发声（salient vocalizations）会被自动处理，并与情绪无关信息区分开来。然而，关于情境、性别和注意力变量如何相互作用以调节对显著情绪性发声的生理反应，目前知之甚少。本研究采用心电图（electrocardiogram, ECG）探究男性和女性在外周神经活动上的差异——这些差异源于他们在两种不同情境（家庭环境（domestic environment, DE）与户外环境（outside environment, OE））中对婴儿哭声（infant cry, IC）、婴儿笑声（infant laughter, IL）及成人哭声（adult cry, AC）的反应。由于听者的心理状态会影响其对发声的反应，本研究采用被试间设计：一组被试被指示想象自己身处场景中（任务1：外显任务（explicit task）），另一组则被要求观察场景（任务2：内隐任务（implicit task））。结果显示，与户外环境中的男性及家庭环境中的女性相比，户外环境中的女性表现出更低的心跳间期（inter-beat interval, IBI）指数，这表明女性在户外环境中对发声的生理唤醒程度更高。此外，任务1显示，男性对成人哭声（AC）的低频/高频指数（Low Frequency/High Frequency, LFHF）高于婴儿笑声（IL）。任务2则在女性中观察到这两种声音之间存在相同的关联模式。仅在女性群体中，内隐任务还引发了针对婴儿笑声（IL）和婴儿哭声（IC）的低频/高频指数（LFHF）低于对照声音（control sound, CS）的现象。研究结果凸显了情境信息和认知需求在调节对显著情绪性发声的生理反应中所扮演的重要角色。若能整合考虑内部（成人心理状态）和外部（环境）情境信息对情绪性发声生理反应的影响，将有助于更好地理解显著社交线索情绪加工背后的机制。