Early and late brain signatures of emotional prosody among individuals with high versus low power

Using ERPs, we explored the relationship between social power and emotional prosody processing. In particular, we investigated differences at early and late processing stages between individuals primed with high or low power. Comparable to previously published findings from nonprimed participants, individuals primed with low power displayed differentially modulated P2 amplitudes in response to different emotional prosodies, whereas participants primed with high power failed to do so. Similarly, participants primed with low power showed differentially modulated amplitudes in response to different emotional prosodies at a later processing stage (late ERP component), whereas participants primed with high power did not. These ERP results suggest that high versus low power leads to emotional prosody processing differences at the early stage associated with emotional salience detection and at a later stage associated with more in-depth processing of emotional stimuli.