The role of intonation in emotional expressions

Abstract

The influence of emotions on intonation patterns (more specifically F0/pitch contours) is addressed in this article. A number of authors have claimed that specific intonation patterns reflect specific emotions, whereas others have found little evidence supporting this claim and argued that F0/pitch and other vocal aspects are continuously, rather than categorically, affected by emotions and/or emotional arousal. In this contribution, a new coding system for the assessment of F0 contours in emotion portrayals is presented. Results obtained for actor portrayed emotional expressions show that mean level and range of F0 in the contours vary strongly as a function of the degree of activation of the portrayed emotions. In contrast, there was comparatively little evidence for qualitatively different contour shapes for different emotions.