Abstract
Understanding voice usage is vital to our understanding of human interaction. What is known about the auditory perceptual evaluation of voices comes mainly from studies of voice professionals, who evaluate operatic/lyrical singing in specific contexts. This is surprising as recordings of singing voices from different musical styles are an omnipresent phenomenon, evoking reactions in listeners with various levels of expertise. Understanding how untrained listeners perceive and describe voices will open up new research possibilities and enhance vocal communication between listeners. Here three studies with a mixed-methods approach aimed at: (1) evaluating the ability of untrained listeners to describe voices, and (2) determining what auditory features were most salient in participants’ discrimination of voices. In an interview (N = 20) and a questionnaire study (N = 48), free voice descriptions by untrained listeners of 23 singing voices primarily from popular music were compared with terms used by voice professionals, revealing that participants were able to describe voices using vocal characteristics from essential categories indicating sound quality, pitch changes, articulation, and variability in expression. Nine items were derived and used in an online survey for the evaluation of six voices by trained and untrained listeners in a German (N = 216) and an English (N = 50) sample, revealing that neither language nor expertise affected the assessment of the singers. A discriminant analysis showed that roughness and tension were important features for voice discrimination. The measurement of vocal expression created in the current study will be informative for studying voice perception and evaluation more generally.
Highlights
Recordings of singing voices are an everyday, omnipresent phenomenon accessible via portable devices and transmitted in many everyday situations, whether one is driving a car and listening to the radio, going to the store, or watching television or YouTube
What we know about vocal expression from auditory descriptions comes almost solely from studies with trained listeners; and for future research, only those terms and descriptions used in a professional context are available to evaluate judgements and impressions of voices
The present series of studies revealed that people having different voice experience are able to describe voices on fundamental categories of vocal expression when presented with a suitable set of vocal features
Summary
Recordings of singing voices are an everyday, omnipresent phenomenon accessible via portable devices and transmitted in many everyday situations, whether one is driving a car and listening to the radio, going to the store, or watching television or YouTube. What we know about vocal expression from auditory descriptions comes almost solely from studies with trained listeners; and for future research, only those terms and descriptions used in a professional context are available to evaluate judgements and impressions of voices. This is surprising, as little is known about how typical listeners (who outnumber the professionals but who are the targeted listeners/consumers) perceive voices, i.e., how they describe them and what is conspicuous to them. This will be necessary in order to generalize the findings and pursue research with untrained listeners in various
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