The effect of timing on the singer’s tone of voice.

Abstract

Several studies have shown that music can be used to express and induce specific emotions. Only a few, however, investigate interactive expressions such as dominance, submissiveness, and sincerity. In the current study, it is hypothesized that aligning phrase onsets with strong beats supports perceived sincerity. In 2 online listening experiments, 52 (M = 26.35; SD = 7.25) and 89 (M = 28.39; SD = 11.37) participants, respectively, listened to 27 sung sentences and rated 15 Likert scale items for each stimulus. In Experiment 1, the whole sentence was timed either early, on beat, or late, and in Experiment 2 only the timing of the last stressed syllable was varied. Both experiments show that on-beat phrases are perceived as relatively "right" (a combination of sincerity, naturalness, and convincingness, among other things). Experiment 2 also shows that early phrases support perceived urgency, whereas late phrases support perceived upsetness. These results suggest that a syncopated note can be related to a rest on a strong beat either following or preceding it. In addition, several aspects of melody turned out to affect these factors as well. The results can be related to various theories and indicate that perceived "authenticity" can be modified by using specific musical features.