At a perceptual level, faces and voices consist of very different sensory inputs and therefore, information processing from one modality can be independent of information processing from another modality (Adolphs & Tranel, 1999). However, there may also be a shared neural emotion network that processes stimuli independent of modality (Peelen, Atkinson, & Vuilleumier, 2010) or emotions may be processed on a more abstract cognitive level, based on meaning rather than on perceptual signals. This thesis therefore aimed to examine emotion recognition across two separate modalities in a within-subject design, including a cognitive Chapter 1 with 45 British adults, a developmental Chapter 2 with 54 British children as well as a cross-cultural Chapter 3 with 98 German and British children, and 78 German and British adults. Intensity ratings as well as choice reaction times and correlations of confusion analyses of emotions across modalities were analysed throughout. Further, an ERP Chapter investigated the time-course of emotion recognition across two modalities. Highly correlated rating profiles of emotions in faces and voices were found which suggests a similarity in emotion recognition across modalities. Emotion recognition in primary-school children improved with age for both modalities although young children relied mainly on faces. British as well as German participants showed comparable patterns for rating basic emotions, but subtle differences were also noted and Germans perceived emotions as less intense than British. Overall, behavioural results reported in the present thesis are consistent with the idea of a general, more abstract level of emotion processing which may act independently of modality. This could be based, for example, on a shared emotion brain network or some more general, higher-level cognitive processes which are activated across a range of modalities. Although emotion recognition abilities are already evident during childhood, this thesis argued for a contribution of ‘nurture’ to emotion mechanisms as recognition was influenced by external factors such as development and culture.

This PhD thesis investigated the role of the basal ganglia in memory and motor inhibition. Recent neuroimaging evidence suggests a supramodal network of inhibition involving the lateral prefrontal cortex. Here we examined whether this supramodal network also includes subcortical structures, such as the basal ganglia. Despite their well-established role in motor control, the basal ganglia are repeatedly activated but never interpreted during memory inhibition. We first used a series of meta-analyses to confirm the consistent involvement of the basal ganglia across studies using memory and motor inhibition tasks (including the Go/No-Go, Think/No-Think, and Stop-signal tasks), and discovered that there may be different subprocesses of inhibition. For instance, while the Go/No-Go task may require preventing a response from taking place, the Think/No-Think and Stop-signal tasks may require cancelling an emerging or ongoing response. We then conducted an fMRI study to examine how the basal ganglia interact with other putative supramodal regions (e.g., DLPFC) to achieve memory and motor inhibition during prevention and cancellation. Through dynamic causal modelling (DCM), we found that both DLPFC and basal ganglia play effective roles to achieve inhibition in the task-specific regions (hippocampus for memory inhibition; primary motor cortex (M1) for motor inhibition). Specifically, memory inhibition requires a DLPFC-basal ganglia-hippocampus pathway, whereas motor inhibition requires a basal ganglia-DLPFC-M1 pathway. We correlated DCM coupling parameters with behavioural indices to examine the relationship between network dynamics during prevention and cancellation and the successfulness of inhibition. However, due to constraints with DCM parameter estimates, caution is necessary when interpreting these results. Finally, we used diffusion weighted imaging to explore the anatomical connections supporting functions and behaviour. Unfortunately, we were unable to detect any white matter variability in relation to effective connectivity or behaviour during the prevention or cancellation processes of memory and motor inhibition at this stage. This PhD thesis provides essential INITIAL evidence that not only are the basal ganglia consistently involved in memory and motor inhibition, but these structures are effectively engaged in these tasks, achieving inhibition through task-specific pathways. We will discuss our findings, interpretations, and future directions in the relevant chapters.