Recognizing the authenticity of emotional expressions: F0 contour matters when you need to know

Authenticity of vocal emotion expression affects emotion recognition and brain activity in the so-called Theory of Mind (ToM) network, which is implied in the ability to explain and predict behavior by attributing mental states to other individuals. Exploiting the variability of the fundamental frequency (F0 contour), which varies more (higher contour) in play-acted expressions than authentic ones, we examined whether contour biases explicit categorization toward a particular authenticity or emotion category. Moreover, we tested whether contour modulates blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) response in the ToM network and explored the role of task as a top-down modulator. The effects of contour on BOLD signal were analyzed by contrasting high and low contour stimuli within two previous fMRI studies that implemented emotion and authenticity rating tasks. Participants preferentially categorized higher contour stimuli as play-acted and lower contour stimuli as sad. Higher contour was found to up-regulate activation task-independently in the primary auditory cortex. Stimulus contour and task were found to interact in a network including medial prefrontal cortex, with an increase in BOLD signal for low-contour stimuli during explicit perception of authenticity and an increase for high-contour stimuli during explicit perception of emotion. Contour-induced BOLD effects appear to be purely stimulus-driven in early auditory and intonation perception, while being strongly task-dependent in regions involved in higher cognition.