Perception of emotionally loaded vocal expressions and its connection to responses to music. A cross-cultural investigation: Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Russia, and the USA.

Teija Waaramaa,Timo Leisiö

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00344

Abstract

The present study focused on voice quality and the perception of the basic emotions from speech samples in cross-cultural conditions. It was examined whether voice quality, cultural, or language background, age, or gender were related to the identification of the emotions. Professional actors (n2) and actresses (n2) produced non-sense sentences (n32) and protracted vowels (n8) expressing the six basic emotions, interest, and a neutral emotional state. The impact of musical interests on the ability to distinguish between emotions or valence (on an axis positivity – neutrality – negativity) from voice samples was studied. Listening tests were conducted on location in five countries: Estonia, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the USA with 50 randomly chosen participants (25 males and 25 females) in each country. The participants (total N = 250) completed a questionnaire eliciting their background information and musical interests. The responses in the listening test and the questionnaires were statistically analyzed. Voice quality parameters and the share of the emotions and valence identified correlated significantly with each other for both genders. The percentage of emotions and valence identified was clearly above the chance level in each of the five countries studied, however, the countries differed significantly from each other for the identified emotions and the gender of the speaker. The samples produced by females were identified significantly better than those produced by males. Listener's age was a significant variable. Only minor gender differences were found for the identification. Perceptual confusion in the listening test between emotions seemed to be dependent on their similar voice production types. Musical interests tended to have a positive effect on the identification of the emotions. The results also suggest that identifying emotions from speech samples may be easier for those listeners who share a similar language or cultural background with the speaker.

Highlights

Basic emotions are thought to be universal in their manifestation since they are considered to be phylogenetic, evolutionarysurvival related affects (Izard, 2007)
Significant correlations with share of valence and voice parameters identified were found in both genders for number of pulses and number of voice breaks, and in males for duration (Table 1)
The results suggest that valence is more important in the perception process of the vocal expressions and is of greater communicative importance than the actual emotions

Summary

Introduction

Basic emotions are thought to be universal in their manifestation since they are considered to be phylogenetic, evolutionarysurvival related affects (Izard, 2007). The vocal expression and perception of these emotions tend to be based firstly on genetically inherited, and secondly on culturally learnt elements (Matsumoto et al, 2002). The expression and perception of emotions expressed by music tends to be affected by both inherited characteristics and by cultural learning (Morrison and Demorest, 2009), and even by individual preferences, e.g., a piece of music may emotionally move one person but not another (Cross, 2001). In this paper it is hypothesized that the origin of speech and temporal experiences such as emotional and musical expressions are linked together in the evolution (Juslin and Laukka, 2003a). Thompson et al (2004) have suggested that “it seems unlikely that human evolution led to duplicate mechanisms for associating pitch and temporal cues with emotions.” According to Richman (2001) “in the beginning speech and music making were one and the same: they were collective, realtime repetitions of formulaic sequences.” Thompson et al (2004) have suggested that “it seems unlikely that human evolution led to duplicate mechanisms for associating pitch and temporal cues with emotions.”

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion