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ISTINCTION often made with regard to speech behavior is that between the verbal and the vocal aspects of speech. The verbal component is the pattern of sound which results in words, phrases, and other linguistic units making up the content of speech. The vocal components are all the remaining characteristics of sound which may be called tonal variation or voice quality. Soskin (12) has presented these two aspects in communication terms as the simultaneous operation of two communication channels, the verbal channel carrying potential semantic information and the vocal channel carrying potential affective information. He has also spoken of the vocal channel as the carrier upon which the content is superimposed.When interest is primarily in the personality of the speaker, some consider the vocal component of speech more important than the verbal component. Both are, of course, present in normal undifferentiated speech, and one might expect a loss of some pertinent information with the removal of either component. A summary of studies since 1931 which have dealt with the reliability of judgments of 1 This article is based on a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree, Doctor of Philosophy, in the Department of Psychology, Northwestern University. The writer is indebted to Dr. C. P. Duncan, thesis advisor, for his advice and criticism during the course of the study, and to Dr. R. E. Harris, under whose direction the voice samples were collected, for his many thoughtful suggestions in the initial stages of the problem.

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Voice spectra are utilised to track daily shifts in mood in eight acutely disturbed psychiatric patients. Two mood criteria, a self-description and an interviewer rating, were obtained. Multiple regression of voice spectra on to these two criterion measures, using a cross validation design, yielded moderately good prediction for some patients.