Human emotions track changes in the acoustic environment

Ma, Weiyi; Thompson, William Forde

doi:10.1073/pnas.1515087112

Cited by 75 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 48 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Moreover, the expression and perception of affective states are fundamental aspects of human communication [32,33] that have been proposed as the original impetus for language evolution; with mimetic vocalization of emotional sounds supposedly allowing early hominids to efficiently share biologically significant information [32,34,35]. Therefore, we would expect the effect of iconicity to be most evident in the communication of affect and in the relationship between words' affective sound (i.e.…”

Section: Motivation For the Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Why ‘piss’ is ruder than ‘pee’? The role of sound in affective meaning making

Aryani¹,

Conrad²,

Schmidtke³

et al. 2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Most language users agree that some words sound harsh (e.g. grotesque) whereas others sound soft and pleasing (e.g. lagoon). While this prominent feature of human language has always been creatively deployed in art and poetry, it is still largely unknown whether the sound of a word in itself makes any contribution to the word’s meaning as perceived and interpreted by the listener. In a large-scale lexicon analysis, we focused on the affective substrates of words’ meaning (i.e. affective meaning) and words’ sound (i.e. affective sound); both being measured on a two-dimensional space of valence (ranging from pleasant to unpleasant) and arousal (ranging from calm to excited). We tested the hypothesis that the sound of a word possesses affective iconic characteristics that can implicitly influence listeners when evaluating the affective meaning of that word. The results show that a significant portion of the variance in affective meaning ratings of printed words depends on a number of spectral and temporal acoustic features extracted from these words after converting them to their spoken form (study1). In order to test the affective nature of this effect, we independently assessed the affective sound of these words using two different methods: through direct rating (study2a), and through acoustic models that we implemented based on pseudoword materials (study2b). In line with our hypothesis, the estimated contribution of words’ sound to ratings of words’ affective meaning was indeed associated with the affective sound of these words; with a stronger effect for arousal than for valence. Further analyses revealed crucial phonetic features potentially causing the effect of sound on meaning: e.g. words with short vowels, voiceless consonants, and hissing sibilants (as in ‘piss’) feel more arousing and negative. Our findings suggest that the process of meaning making is not solely determined by arbitrary mappings between formal aspects of words and concepts they refer to. Rather, even in silent reading, words’ acoustic profiles provide affective perceptual cues that language users may implicitly use to construct words’ overall meaning.

show abstract

Section: Motivation For the Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Why ‘piss’ is ruder than ‘pee’? The role of sound in affective meaning making

Aryani¹,

Conrad²,

Schmidtke³

et al. 2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In addition, a recent study by Ma and Thompson ( 2015 ) showed that manipulations of the frequency spectrum of environmental sounds (human actions, animal sounds, machine noise and sounds in nature) changed their valence and arousal ratings; sounds with increased high-frequency content were perceived as more positive and more arousing than control both sounds and sounds with increased low-frequency content. Please note that the spectral modulations used by Ma and Thompson ( 2015 ) are not the same as the filters used in DAVID and that their stimuli did not comprise human speech per se. However, this study does illustrate how spectral characteristics of sounds can affect their emotional perception.…”

Section: Emotional Transformationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

DAVID: An open-source platform for real-time transformation of infra-segmental emotional cues in running speech

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present an open-source software platform that transforms emotional cues expressed by speech signals using audio effects like pitch shifting, inflection, vibrato, and filtering. The emotional transformations can be applied to any audio file, but can also run in real time, using live input from a microphone, with less than 20-ms latency. We anticipate that this tool will be useful for the study of emotions in psychology and neuroscience, because it enables a high level of control over the acoustical and emotional content of experimental stimuli in a variety of laboratory situations, including real-time social situations. We present here results of a series of validation experiments aiming to position the tool against several methodological requirements: that transformed emotions be recognized at above-chance levels, valid in several languages (French, English, Swedish, and Japanese) and with a naturalness comparable to natural speech.

show abstract

“…Arousal ratings generally have a clearer relationship with acoustic cues than valence ratings ( Schmidt, Janse, & Scharenborg, 2016b ). High-pitched, high-amplitude speech and music both carry higher levels of arousal ( Goudbeek & Scherer, 2010 ; Ilie & Thompson, 2006 ; Laukka, Juslin, & Bresin, 2005 ; Ma & Thompson, 2015 ; Weninger, Eyben, Schuller, Mortillaro, & Scherer, 2013 ). However, there is relatively weak and mixed evidence for the acoustic encoding of valence ( Banse & Scherer, 1996 ; Goudbeek & Scherer, 2010 ; Juslin & Laukka, 2001 ; Laukka et al., 2005 ; Picou, 2016b ).…”

Section: Defining Emotion Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hearing, Emotion, Amplification, Research, and Training Workshop: Current Understanding of Hearing Loss and Emotion Perception and Priorities for Future Research

Picou

Singh²,

Goy

et al. 2018

Trends in Hearing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The question of how hearing loss and hearing rehabilitation affect patients’ momentary emotional experiences is one that has received little attention but has considerable potential to affect patients’ psychosocial function. This article is a product from the Hearing, Emotion, Amplification, Research, and Training workshop, which was convened to develop a consensus document describing research on emotion perception relevant for hearing research. This article outlines conceptual frameworks for the investigation of emotion in hearing research; available subjective, objective, neurophysiologic, and peripheral physiologic data acquisition research methods; the effects of age and hearing loss on emotion perception; potential rehabilitation strategies; priorities for future research; and implications for clinical audiologic rehabilitation. More broadly, this article aims to increase awareness about emotion perception research in audiology and to stimulate additional research on the topic.

show abstract

Human emotions track changes in the acoustic environment

Cited by 75 publications

References 48 publications

Why ‘piss’ is ruder than ‘pee’? The role of sound in affective meaning making

Why ‘piss’ is ruder than ‘pee’? The role of sound in affective meaning making

DAVID: An open-source platform for real-time transformation of infra-segmental emotional cues in running speech

Hearing, Emotion, Amplification, Research, and Training Workshop: Current Understanding of Hearing Loss and Emotion Perception and Priorities for Future Research

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About