Low Arousal Emotions Research Articles

The emotion regulatory function of online social networking: Preliminary experimental evidence

Correlational research suggests that emotion regulation deficits, which are known risk factors for substance addictions, may also play a role in the development of problem behaviors such as excessive or maladaptive use of social networking sites (SNS). This study sought to experimentally assess the hypothesized emotion regulatory function of SNS use. 139 undergraduates (53.2% female) were randomized to view brief movie clips known to reliably induce positive (37.4%), negative (29.5%), or neutral mood (33.1%) and then to browse a SNS (46.8%) or control website (53.2%). Mood and subjective urge to access SNS and the Internet were assessed before and after viewing the movie clips and browsing the websites. Participants meeting criteria for “moderate” levels of disordered SNS use self-reported significantly greater deficits in emotion regulation (p = .02, ηp2 = 0.14). Increases in positive and negative affect following the mood induction were associated with a decrease in subjective urge to access SNS (r = −0.22, p = .02, r = −0.28, p = .002, respectively). Time spent browsing SNS resulted in significantly greater increases in self-reported positive affect, compared to the control website (p = .001, ηp2 = 0.09). We replicate previous findings of greater emotion regulation deficits in individuals endorsing problematic SNS use. Increased positive and negative affect resulted in decreased urge to access SNS, suggesting that social networking may primarily serve to counter low-arousal emotions like boredom. Data provide initial experimental evidence to support the hypothesized emotion regulatory function of SNS, with SNS exposure resulting in increased positive affect. Findings suggest that interventions targeting problematic SNS use should incorporate strategies for improved emotion regulation.

Academic emotions of Chinese students during education reform: A cross-temporal meta-analysis

China’s education reforms might affect students’ academic emotions (and hence their motivation and learning outcomes). This study examines Chinese adolescents’ academic emotions across time via a cross-temporal meta-analysis of 96 studies published between 2004 and 2017. Our results indicate that in later years, adolescents’ positive high-arousal and positive low-arousal emotions were higher, while negative low-arousal emotions were lower. Compared to 2004, positive high-arousal and positive low-arousal emotions in 2017 were both over half a standard deviation higher, while negative low-arousal emotions were over half a standard deviation lower. Positive high-arousal and positive low-arousal emotions were higher in later years in Eastern China but not in Central China and Western China. In later years, negative low-arousal emotions were lower in Eastern and Western China than in Central China. Gender differences were not significant. These results are consistent with both control-value theory and the claim that curriculum and instruction reform helped improve students’ academic emotions in China.

Vocal tract shaping of emotional speech

Emotional speech production has been previously studied using fleshpoint tracking data in speaker-specific experiment setups. The present study introduces a real-time magnetic resonance imaging database of emotional speech production from 10 speakers and presents articulatory analysis results of speech emotional expression using the database. Midsagittal vocal tract parameters (midsagittal distances and the vocal tract length) were parameterized based on a two-dimensional grid-line system, using image segmentation software. The principal feature analysis technique was applied to the grid-line system in order to find the major movement locations. Results reveal both speaker-dependent and speaker-independent variation patterns. For example, sad speech, a low arousal emotion, tends to show smaller opening for low vowels in the front cavity than the high arousal emotions more consistently than the other regions of the vocal tract. Happiness shows significantly shorter vocal tract length than anger and sadness in most speakers. Further details of speaker-dependent and speaker-independent speech articulation variation in emotional expression and their implications are described.

The Influence of Smartphone Text Input Method, Posture, and Environment on User Experience

ABSTRACT Text input on smartphones plays an increasingly important role in people’s daily lives. This study aims to explore the impact of posture and environment on the user experience of smartphone input methods. A combination of performance, subjective, and physiological measures is used to assess the user experience of 32 subjects (12 male, 20 female; 18–26 years old) using QWERTY and T9 input methods in walking and sitting postures in indoor and outdoor environments. The results showed that T9 was more effective for indoors and when sitting than QWERTY, while QWERTY was more effective than T9 for outdoors and when walking. In our tests, using T9 indoors while sitting showed a significantly higher performance than QWERTY, while using QWERTY outdoors while walking elicited significantly lower emotional arousal than T9. The findings allow us to propose both the optimal contexts in which to use particular input methods, and to highlight new approaches for improving the user experience of these devices.

An analysis of emotion-exchange motifs in multiplex networks during emergency events

In this paper, we present an analysis of the emotion-exchange patterns that arise from Twitter messages sent during emergency events. To this end, we performed a systematic structural analysis of the multiplex communication network that we derived from a data-set including more than 1.9 million tweets that have been sent during five recent shootings and terror events. In order to study the local communication structures that emerge as Twitter users directly exchange emotional messages, we propose the concept of emotion-exchange motifs. Our findings suggest that emotion-exchange motifs which contain reciprocal edges (indicating online conversations) only emerge when users exchange messages that convey anger or fear, either in isolation or in any combination with another emotion. In contrast, the expression of sadness, disgust, surprise, as well as any positive emotion are rather characteristic for emotion-exchange motifs representing one-way communication patterns (instead of online conversations). Among other things, we also found that a higher structural similarity exists between pairs of network layers consisting of one high-arousal emotion and one low-arousal emotion, rather than pairs of network layers belonging to the same arousal dimension.

The acoustics of feeling: Emotional prosody in the StoryCorps corpus

Effective communication depends not only on lexical content but also on how language is produced and perceived. Prosodic elements such as intensity, pitch accent (i.e., the pattern of low and high tones used in a stressed word), and intonation, have been suggested to aid in conveying emotional affect (e.g., happiness) in acted speech. For example, the word “yes” produced with a falling tone, high intensity, and large pitch range may indicate a high-arousal emotion like anger, whereas the same word produced with a flatter intonation, and lower intensity may indicate a low-arousal emotion like gloominess. Understanding the emotion with which words are produced facilitates appropriate communication because it tells the interlocutor how to best respond. Although this is intuitively true, the role of prosody in conveying emotional meaning is understudied, particularly in natural speech. This project thus utilizes StoryCorps, an extensive corpus of naturalistic interviews (publicly available at www.storycorps.org), to acoustically analyze pitch-accent usage in speech conveying different emotional affects. Portions of the StoryCorps interviews that convey overt emotional effect are selected and transcribed, and f0 trajectory, pitch range, duration, and intensity are tracked across stressed vowels to explore whether there are distinctive pitch-accent patterns used to convey different emotions.

Detecting, Preventing, and Mitigating Online Firestorms in Brand Communities

Online firestorms pose severe threats to online brand communities. Any negative electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has the potential to become an online firestorm, yet not every post does, so finding ways to detect and respond to negative eWOM constitutes a critical managerial priority. The authors develop a comprehensive framework that integrates different drivers of negative eWOM and the response approaches that firms use to engage in and disengage from online conversations with complaining customers. A text-mining study of negative eWOM demonstrates distinct impacts of high- and low-arousal emotions, structural tie strength, and linguistic style match (between sender and brand community) on firestorm potential. The firm’s response must be tailored to the intensity of arousal in the negative eWOM to limit the virality of potential online firestorms. The impact of initiated firestorms can be mitigated by distinct firm responses over time, and the effectiveness of different disengagement approaches also varies with their timing. For managers, these insights provide guidance on how to detect and reduce the virality of online firestorms.

Anomalous Bodily Maps of Emotions in Schizophrenia.

Embodied emotions arise from interoceptive and somatosensory processes, and are essential to the development of a stable sense of self. Emotional embodiment is therefore inherently interwoven with our sense of bodily self-awareness, and allows us to navigate complex social situations. Given that the core feature of schizophrenia (SZ) is characterized by the presence of bodily self-disturbances and social-emotional deficits, we hypothesized that embodiment of emotion would be disrupted in SZ. Twenty-six medicated individuals with SZ and 26 demographically matched controls used a computerized topographical mapping tool ("EmBODY") to indicate on a body outline where they felt bodily sensations while experiencing an emotion. There were 13 different emotions plus a neutral state. The resulting bodily maps of emotions were quantitatively compared between groups using linear discriminant analysis and similarity scores. Bodily maps of emotions were anomalous in SZ as indicated by indistinguishable maps across different emotions. Relative to the control group, patients reported less discrete and less clear bodily sensations across emotions. In particular, bodily maps for low-arousal emotions were atypical in comparison with healthy controls. Anomalous and undifferentiated mapping of embodied emotions in SZ could lead to deficits in linking bodily sensations to conceptual categories of emotions. Disrupted emotional embodiment could also contribute to poor social functioning. Abnormal bodily sensations of emotions might therefore be a promising target for future psychosocial interventions.

When the "U" is not Inverted: Trajectories of Expressed Emotional Arousal Predict Relationship Satisfaction.

Maladaptive emotional reactivity and dysfunctional communication during couple conflict are both destructive to couple functioning, and observational research has elucidated how conflict escalates. However, much of the evidence is based on measures that combine content (i.e., what was said) and the emotion with which it was said, which are then examined using sequential analyses. Despite the general presumptions about underlying emotional reactivity and escalation in negative emotions as part of relationship distress and deterioration, little empirical data are available that directly examine these continuous shifts in emotions. The current study examined concurrent and longitudinal associations between relationship satisfaction and trajectories of change in vocally expressed emotional arousal during couple conflict in 62 couples who participated in a relationship education program. Contrary to expectations and patterns found in distressed couples, trajectories followed a U-shape rather than an inverted U-shape curve, with steeper and more persistent decreases in emotional arousal predicting more stable relationship satisfaction over time. In addition, there were within-couple effects. These results suggest that early signs for relationship deterioration may be less in the form of overt escalation as would be seen in distressed couples. Instead, couples who subsequently deteriorate more are less effective in calming emotional arousal. They also are less able to remain at lower emotional arousal. It is possible that the more pronounced escalation toward the end of the conversation in more at-risk couples is a precursor of the greater escalation patterns seen in distressed couples; this should be examined empirically. Limitations and implications are discussed.

Sickness behavior is not all about the immune response: Possible roles of expectations and prediction errors in the worry of being sick

BackgroundPeople react very differently when sick, and there are only poor correlations between the intensity of the immune response and sickness behavior. Yet, alternative predictors of the individual differences in sickness are under-investigated. Based on the predictive coding model of placebo responses, where health outcomes are function of bottom-up sensory information and top-down expectancies, we hypothesized that individual differences in behavioral changes during sickness could be explained by individual top-down expectancies and prediction errors. MethodsTwenty-two healthy participants were made sick by intravenously administering lipopolysaccharide (2 ng/kg body weight). Their expectations of becoming sick were assessed before the injection. ResultsParticipants having lower expectations of becoming sick before the injection reacted with more emotional distress (i.e., more negative affect and lower emotional arousal) than those with high expectations of becoming sick, despite having similar overall sickness behavior (i.e., a combined factor including fatigue, pain, nausea and social withdrawal). In keeping with a predictive coding model, the “prediction error signal”, i.e., the discrepancy between the immune signal and sickness expectancy, predicted emotional distress (reduction in emotional arousal in particular). ConclusionThe current findings suggest that the emotional component of sickness behavior is, at least partly, shaped by top-down expectations. Helping patients having a realistic expectation of symptoms during treatment of an illness may thus reduce aggravated emotional responses, and ultimately improve patients’ quality of life and treatment compliance. Registration“Endotoxin-induced Inflammatory and Behavioral Responses and Predictors of Individual Differences”, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02529592, registration number: NCT02529592.

Emotional responses to tourism advertisements: the application of FaceReader™

ABSTRACTTraditionally, tourists’ emotional responses to advertising and associated stimuli have been assessed using self-report questionnaires. Image recognition software, such as FaceReader™ provides a means to analyse emotional responses to stimuli, specifically the type of emotion, valence (positive/negative) and arousal (intensity) via facial expressions. This research note reports on the benefits and drawbacks of FaceReader™. Respondents from Iran (5) and Australia (5) were invited to a laboratory to watch a tourism advertisement (ski resort in Iran). A video camera was used to record the facial expressions of respondents while viewing the advertisement. Results provide an indication that participants had overall low arousal and positive emotions while watching the tourism video. FaceReader™ proved useful for collecting and analysing real time data concerning seven discrete emotions plus valence and arousal. Since FaceReader™ is sensitive to light and participants with thick frame glasses, it is recommended that future studies apply this software with additional physiological and self-report measures to advance understanding of the measurement of emotions in the tourism field.

Understanding publics’ post-crisis social media engagement behaviors: An examination of antecedents and mediators

This study examines the psychological mechanisms underlying the process that enables publics’ individual differences (e.g., the levels of uncertainty avoidance and social media usage) to give rise to varying post-crisis social media engagement intentions (e.g., information seeking, support seeking, and negative word-of-mouth). The study confirms that this process is serially mediated by perceived threat severity, perceived susceptibility, and negative emotions. These psychological mediators, however, function differently between uncertainty avoidance and social media usage. For uncertainty avoidance, a high arousal negative emotion (e.g., anger, fear) is a more essential step to influence engagement intentions than a low arousal emotion (e.g., shame, guilt). For social media usage, however, the type of aroused negative emotions does not matter. Rather, the relationship social media usage has with information seeking is different from that with support seeking and negative word-of-mouth intentions. Social media usage induces information seeking intentions only through publics’ cognitive appraisals of the situation without the activation of negative emotions, while it induces supporting seeking and negative word-of-mouth intentions through both cognitive appraisals and negative emotion arousals.

The dual essence of pleasure: Willing, imagining and planning the Saussurean sublime and beautiful in surviving daunting nature and culture

This study seeks to update and expand the models of mind and consciousness that Ferdinand de Saussure conceived for the appreciation of linguistic signs. As a response to his theorization of the dual essence of language (a mixture of sounds and concepts), this study proposes a theorization of pleasure and understanding (a blending of different perspectives) deriving from our engagement with daunting situations in nature and culture. To begin with, the author discusses current neuroimaging findings that reveal how we may gain from low-arousal emotions. Certain benefits have been recognized that increase the pleasure and delight we may obtain through conscientious mental work rather than via instincts and preferences. Thus, in this context, the Saussurean network of differences is seen to be capable of generating motivated neural links that function to adjust our viewpoints. Further, in light of Adolphe Pictet’s mingling of philosophical aesthetics and linguistics, this study corrects a misapplication of another Saussurean model (a conjunction of our perceptions of time and space, synchrony and diachrony) in appreciating the Kantian notions of imagination and the sublime. Instead of judging this model as a revelation of one single ideal viewpoint, Pictet’s approach invites us to appreciate it as the functioning of a rigorous yet practical mind that is capable of devising multiple and useful perspectives. Notions of the sublime, the ugly and the beautiful are therefore equated as legitimate viewpoints that we should draw on so as to survive dealing with daunting situations in nature and culture. Finally, this study unifies and fortifies the Saussurean models through aligning them with a phenomenological approach to our memories, sensations and perceptions. Such integration empowers our imagination and confidence while we are widening our horizons to invent larger contexts for our objects of inquiry. All in all, the author cherishes the Saussurean models as a combination of the linguistic, the aesthetic and the moral laws that altogether sharpen our way of devising rationales that may boost the wellbeing of the community.

O2.6. SOCIAL SIMULATION IN VIRTUAL REALITY IMPROVES EMBODIMENT OF EMOTIONS IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

BackgroundBodily-self disturbances and anomalous emotional functioning are core features of schizophrenia that play a major role in social and functional outcome. Much has been written about abnormal perception and expression of emotions in schizophrenia but less is known about the bodily experience of emotions in this population. The prevalence of anomalous bodily-self experiences (Parnas & Handset, 2003), impaired simulation (Park et al, 2008) and interoception deficits (Ardizzi et al., 2016) in schizophrenia suggests that embodiment of emotions might be altered in this population.MethodsWe investigated emotional embodiment in individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) and demographically-matched controls to determine whether SZ experience anomalous bodily sensations of emotions. We then implemented a novel Virtual Reality (VR) social skills intervention that required participants to simulate social interactions with avatars. The VR training was designed to target social attention and improve simulation of other people’s emotions, intentions, and actions in SZ, thereby improving embodiment of emotions.We recruited twenty-six individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) and 26 demographically matched controls (CO). At baseline, we assessed social functioning, cognitive functions, symptom and embodied emotions. An online body mapping task (Nummenmaa et al., 2014) was used to generate spatial maps of bodily sensations experienced during 14 emotions categories. Then, SZ participated in the 5-week, novel VR social skills intervention that targeted social attention and simulation. Naturalistic scenarios, in which subjects moved through variable sequences of steps to attain the goal of a “mission” (e.g. find out the birthday of the avatar etc.). Subject interacted with an avatar and practiced perspective-taking and pragmatics to advance to the next level of difficulty.ResultsAt baseline, bodily sensation maps show overall reduced embodiment of emotions in SZ as compared to CO. Statistical pattern recognition with Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) revealed less unique bodily sensations of emotions in SZ. Similarity scores between the maps of CO and SZ revealed a specific deficit in embodiment of low-arousal emotions (i.e. depression, sadness, shame) in SZ. After five weeks of VR training, negative symptoms and emotional embodiment improved in SZ. Specifically, embodiment of low-arousal emotions increased. Moreover, changes in the body maps of emotion indicated increased concordance among SZ.DiscussionAnomalous embodiment of emotions plays an important role in the poor social outcome of individuals with schizophrenia, but a 5-week VR training of social attention, simulation, perspective taking, and communication skills was effective in improving emotional embodiment. Further research is warranted to elucidate underlying social cognitive mechanisms that link self-disturbances and embodiment of emotions.

Emotional Arousal at Memory Encoding Enhanced P300 in the Concealed Information Test.

Previous studies have reported that the concealed information test (CIT) is a reliable and powerful method for detecting information. However, the external validity of the CIT studies has not been fully proven. In particular, few studies have examined the effects of emotional arousal at memory encoding on physiological responses in the CIT. The present study investigated the influence on the CIT of the magnitude of emotional arousal at memory encoding of a mock crime, using the P300 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP). In accord with the assumptions of excitation-transfer theory, we presented emotionally arousing pictures before a mock crime. Participants were randomly assigned to either a high emotional arousal group (n = 10) or a low emotional arousal group (n = 11), viewing pictures expected to arouse emotion at a high or low level, respectively. Subsequently, all participants enacted the same mock crime, in which they were instructed to stab a pillow with a sharp-edged tool (e.g., a kitchen knife or ice pick) as if harassing a mannequin lying on a bed. After the antecedent emotional experience, the P300-based CIT was conducted. Participants in the high arousal group showed significantly greater P300 amplitudes in response to a probe stimulus compared with the low arousal group. No differences were found between the groups in response to irrelevant stimuli. These results support the notion that emotional arousal influences the P300 in the CIT paradigm.

Role of Emotion and Cognition on Age Differences in the Framing Effect.

Framing effect studies indicate that individuals are risk averse for decisions framed as gains but risk-seeking for decisions framed as losses. Findings of age-related differences in susceptibility to framing are mixed. In the current study, we examined emotional arousal in two decision tasks (life saving vs. money gambling) to evaluate the effects of emotion on age differences in the framing effect. When cognitive abilities and styles were controlled, there was a framing effect in the younger group in the life-saving task, a high-emotional arousal task, while older adults did not display this classic framing effect pattern. They showed risk aversion in both positive and negative framing. Age differences existed in the framing effect. Conversely, younger and older adults in the money-gambling task both displayed the framing effect; there was no age difference. When the cognitive abilities were not controlled, the pattern of results in the high-emotional arousal task remained unchanged, while greater framing effects were found, from the perspective of effect size, for older than younger adults in the low-emotional arousal task. Limited cognitive resources would not hamper older adults' performances when their emotional arousal was high. However, older adults with low-level emotional arousal were more susceptible than younger adults to framing because of declining cognitive capacities. This implied the importance of emotion in older adults' decision making and supported the selective engagement hypothesis.

High Emotional Arousal Enables Subliminal Detection of Concealed Information

The Concealed Information Test (CIT) is an information-detecting technique for criminal investigations. Although it has been shown that emotional arousal plays a specific role in the CIT, the mechanisms by which emotional arousal affects the CIT are unclear. The main purpose of this study was to elucidate the processing pathway for stimuli encoded with emotional arousal in a mock crime before the CIT. In this study, participants viewed emotionally arousing pictures before the mock crime. Participants were assigned randomly to either a high or low emotional arousal group, viewing pictures expected to arouse emotion at a high or low level, respectively. Subsequently, all participants enacted the same mock crime, in which they were instructed to stab a pillow with a sharp-edged tool (e.g., kitchen knife or ice pick) as if to harass a woman lying on a bed. After the antecedent emotional experience, a P300-based CIT was conducted using subliminal and supraliminal presentation methods. The results revealed a significantly greater CIT effect on the P300 event-related potential (ERP) component in the High Arousal group compared with the Low Arousal group, under both subliminal and supraliminal conditions. The detection of concealed information was successful only in the High Arousal group under subliminal conditions, whereas detection was successful regardless of the emotional arousal group under supraliminal conditions. These results provide strong evidence that emotional arousal can increase P300 amplitude during responses to concealed information in the CIT. This suggests that concealed information may be automatically processed via the bottom-up route in the CIT, but only when it is encoded with high emotional arousal.

Associating emotions with Wagner’s music: A developmental perspective

Brazilian listeners ( N = 303) were asked to identify emotions conveyed in 1-min instrumental excerpts from Wagner’s operas. Participants included musically untrained 7- to 10-year-olds and university students in music (musicians) or science (nonmusicians). After hearing each of eight different excerpts, listeners made a forced-choice judgment about which of eight emotions best matched the excerpt. The excerpts and emotions were chosen so that two were in each of four quadrants in two-dimensional space as defined by arousal and valence. Listeners of all ages performed at above-chance levels, which means that complex, unfamiliar musical materials from a different century and culture are nevertheless meaningful for young children. In fact, children performed similarly to adult nonmusicians. There was age-related improvement among children, however, and adult musicians performed best of all. As in previous research that used simpler musical excerpts, effects due to age and music training were due primarily to improvements in selecting the appropriate valence. That is, even 10-year-olds with no music training were as likely as adult musicians to match a high- or low-arousal excerpt with a high- or low-arousal emotion, respectively. Performance was independent of general cognitive ability as measured by academic achievement but correlated positively with basic pitch-perception skills.

Emotional arousal state influences the ability of amygdalar endocannabinoid signaling to modulate anxiety

Systemic activation of cannabinoid receptors often induces biphasic effects on emotional memory and anxiety depending on the levels of emotional arousal associated to the experimental context. The basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) represents a crucial structure for the ability of endocannabinoid (eCB) signaling to modulate emotional behaviour, and receives dense projections from brainstem arousal system nuclei. We examined whether changes in emotional arousal state would influence the ability of acute eCB manipulations within the BLA to modulate anxiety. Rats were tested in an elevated plus maze (EPM) under low or high arousal conditions. The low emotional arousal group was extensively handled and habituated to the experimental room and tested under red light condition, the high emotional arousal group was not handled or habituated and tested under high light condition. We examined amygdalar eCB anandamide (AEA) and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) levels immediately after the EPM and the effects of intra-BLA administration of the AEA hydrolysis inhibitor URB597 or the 2-AG hydrolysis inhibitor KML29 on anxiety behaviour. The modulation of anxiety-like behaviour by eCBs in the BLA was strictly dependent on the environmental-associated emotional arousal. Pharmacologically-induced elevations of AEA or 2-AG in the BLA decreased anxiety under conditions of low emotional arousal. Conversely, when the level of emotional arousal increased, local eCB manipulation was ineffective in the modulation of the emotional arousal-induced anxiety response. These findings suggest that, depending on the emotional arousal state, eCB system is differentially activated to regulate the anxiety response in the amygdala and help to understand the state-dependency of many interventions on anxiety.

Normal-Hearing Listeners' and Cochlear Implant Users' Perception of Pitch Cues in Emotional Speech.

In cochlear implants (CIs), acoustic speech cues, especially for pitch, are delivered in a degraded form. This study’s aim is to assess whether due to degraded pitch cues, normal-hearing listeners and CI users employ different perceptual strategies to recognize vocal emotions, and, if so, how these differ. Voice actors were recorded pronouncing a nonce word in four different emotions: anger, sadness, joy, and relief. These recordings’ pitch cues were phonetically analyzed. The recordings were used to test 20 normal-hearing listeners’ and 20 CI users’ emotion recognition. In congruence with previous studies, high-arousal emotions had a higher mean pitch, wider pitch range, and more dominant pitches than low-arousal emotions. Regarding pitch, speakers did not differentiate emotions based on valence but on arousal. Normal-hearing listeners outperformed CI users in emotion recognition, even when presented with CI simulated stimuli. However, only normal-hearing listeners recognized one particular actor’s emotions worse than the other actors’. The groups behaved differently when presented with similar input, showing that they had to employ differing strategies. Considering the respective speaker’s deviating pronunciation, it appears that for normal-hearing listeners, mean pitch is a more salient cue than pitch range, whereas CI users are biased toward pitch range cues.