Fig. 2.

Task design (see Materials and methods), mean perceived distance and reaction times across all participants (N = 14). (a) For each trial, the vowel /a/ spoken in an aggressive or neutral tone had to be evaluated as very close (1 m), close (5 m), far (10 m) or very far (20 m). Vocalizations were spatialized at these distances in the left or right space (right space shown only). (b) Interaction between emotion (aggressive, neutral) and perceived distance (proximal, distal) (F(1,13) = 13.09, P = 0.003), with more accurate evaluation for aggressive vs neutral voices both in the proximal (t(13) = −1.98, P = 0.048) and distal space (t(13)=3.80, P=0.002). (c) Reaction times for the voice distance evaluation, showing an interaction between emotion and perceived distance (F(1,13)=9.58, P=0.008), with slower reaction times for aggressive compared with neutral proximal voices (t(13)=2.80, P=0.015). No interaction with auditory space laterality was observed (all Ps > 0.05, Supplementary Table S1). Error bars ± 1 SEM. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01. Post hoc correction for multiple comparisons was applied to t-statistics by using a Bonferroni correction.