Real-time affect decoding in the amygdalo-hippocampal circuit from dynamic auditory signals

Abstract

Affect decoding from auditory signals requires the temporal tracking and neural processing of dynamic sound patterns, such as in affective speech. Affective speech is commonly expressed to maximize its emotional impact and its neural decoding in integrated medial limbic circuits of recipients. Here we examined how affective speech, which was live produced by speakers to maximize amygdala-hippocampal connectivity in listeners, can evoke significant intralimbic and cortico-limbic affect decoding mechanisms. Aggressive and joyful affective speech that was produced based on real-time feedback of amygdala-hippocampal couplings in listeners increased intralimbic connectivity as well as activity in auditory cortical nodes as parts of a broader affective sound processing network. Neural time courses in the auditory cortex also correlated with acoustic patterns of adaptive speech indicative of a communicative speaker-listener coupling. Affective speech can thus meaningfully influence limbic circuit synchronizations with a specific significance of the amygdala-hippocampal circuit for affect decoding from auditory signals.