Cues and channels in emotion recognition.

Abstract

This article addresses methodological issues pertinent to judgment studies in nonverbal communication research, in general, and to the perception and attribution of emotions, in particular. We investigated which behavioral cues are used in portraying various emotions and to what extent the channel of presentation and encoding differences between actors affect judgment accuracy. In an encoding study the nonverbal behaviors of 6 different actors (3 male, 3 female) portraying four emotions (joy, sadness, anger, surprise) were analyzed from a videotape. In a decoding study these portrayals were shown using 4 channels of presentation (audio-video, video only, audio only, filtered audio), to groups of naive judges. The results indicate that different nonverbal cues are used to portray the various emotions and that differences between channels and between actors strongly affect decoding accuracy. Specifically, overemphasis of behavioral cues characteristic for certain emotions results in reduced decoding accuracy. Given the widespread assumption that nonverbal signal systems are particularly suitable for communicating affective information, it is not surprising that many researchers have attempted to study how well individuals can recognize different emotions from various nonverbal cues (for an overview of such studies, see Ekman, 1982; Scherer, 1981). One of the major obstades researchers have encountered in this area has been the problem of obtaining realistic stimulus material to present to judges; that is, obtaining nonverbal expressions that represent valid indicators of various emotional states. The ethical and practical difficulties in experimentally inducing strong emotional states, or even recording naturally occurring emotional experiences, has been one of the perennial problems in the scientific study of emotion. In studying the role of vocal cues in the communication of emotional meaning, this difficulty is aggravated because the researcher, in order to avoid interference from verbal content, usually wants to use standard verbal utterances with the same content for different emotions so as to focus on the different paralinguistic cues that carry the emotional meaning. Given these constraints, most researchers have taken recourse to emotional expression simulated or portrayed by actors using standard verbal material such as standard sentences, nonsense syllables, letters of the alphabet, and the like (see summary in