The role of voice quality in communicating emotion, mood and attitude

Abstract

This paper explores the role of voice quality in the communication of emotions, moods and attitudes. Listeners’ reactions to an utterance synthesised with seven different voice qualities were elicited in terms of pairs of opposing affective attributes. The voice qualities included harsh voice, tense voice, modal voice, breathy voice, whispery voice, creaky voice and lax–creaky voice. These were synthesised using a formant synthesiser, and the voice source parameter settings were guided by prior analytic studies as well as auditory judgements. Results offer support for some past observations on the association of voice quality and affect, and suggest a number of refinements in some cases. Listeners’ ratings further suggest that these qualities are considerably more effective in signalling milder affective states than the strong emotions. It is clear that there is no one-to-one mapping between voice quality and affect: rather a given quality tends to be associated with a cluster of affective attributes.