Detailed study of articulatory kinematics of critical articulators and dependent articulators of emotional speech

Abstract

This study investigates the articulatory kinematics of critical articulators and dependent articulators as a function of emotion. Our hypothesis is that critical articulators and dependent articulators are utilized differently for achieving distinctive emotion goals that overlay linguistic goals. For example, speakers may use variability of dependent articulators distinctively to that of critical articulators in achieving emotion goals. Distinctive articulatory movements for different emotions have been observed (Lee etal. 2005). This study uses a database of three speakers (2 female and 1 male) collected with electromagnetic articulography to collect kinematic information. Articulatory trajectories are aligned by dynamic time warping. Linguistically identical syllable-level segments are analyzed based on detailed aspects of articulatory movements (e.g., position, velocity and phase), after sampling with a 20-ms window and 10-ms shifting. The emotion-specific patterns that emerge for critical (i.e., goal-directed) articulators are compared to those for articulators that are not under overt control for a particular phone. [Work supported by NIH and NSF Grants.]