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Aspects of adults' ability to identify emotion in speech
Abstract
The present studies explored adult listeners' accuracy in judging the emotional state of speakers and the perceptual structures derived from those judgments. Stimuli were created by actors who recorded standard-content vocalizations representing four emotions and neutral. Study 1 subjects identified emotion in paragraphs by choosing from among the five emotion labels. Angry vocalizations were correctly identified most often, followed by neutral, happiness, sadness and fear. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis revealed a two-dimensional perceptual structure involving evaluation and activation components. To confirm this structure, MDS was used in Study 2 to analyze similarity ratings of pairs of sentences drawn from paragraph stimuli. Ratings of the sentences on eight attributes provided additional information, and two dimensions, activation and evaluation, were interpreted. Study 3 explored experience as a factor in accuracy of vocal emotion identifications by having subjects listen to sets of sentences varying in the range of emotions portrayed and complete a forced-choice identification task. There were no accuracy differences among subjects hearing four emotions portrayed, subjects hearing only angry and happy utterances, those hearing only sad and fearful utterances, and those hearing only neutral vocalizations. Study 4 explored the role of experience by providing training feedback ("correct" emotion) on identifications, either immediately after each stimulus, after every four vocalizations, or after all utterances had been presented. Utterance size was also varied during training to assess identification accuracy with single words, phrases, and sentences. A second identification test involving sentences was administered immediately after training; accuracy improved from training to testing, but with no differences in improvement due to placement of feedback. Because subjects receiving no feedback also improved, task practice was deemed responsible for accuracy improvement. In addition, subjects identified emotion more accurately from sentences than from phrases and single words. In Studies 3 and 4, MDS analyses revealed two-dimensional perceptual structures similar to those obtained in Studies 1 and 2. The overall identification and scaling results are discussed in terms of vocal perception and learning issues.
Subject Area
Psychology|Experiments|Communication
Recommended Citation
Thompson, Jeri L, "Aspects of adults' ability to identify emotion in speech" (1994). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9510984.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9510984