Acoustic profiles in vocal emotion expression.

Professional actors' portrayals of 14 emotions varying in intensity and valence were presented to judges. The results on decoding replicated earlier findings on the ability of judges to infer vocally expressed emotions with much-better-than-chance accuracy, including consistently found differences in the recognizability of different emotions. A total of 224 portrayals were subjected to digital acoustical analysis to obtain profiles of vocal parameters for different emotions. The data suggest that vocal parameters not only index the degree of intensity typical for different emotions but also differentiate valence or quality aspects. The data are also used to test theoretical predictions on vocal patterning based on the component process of model of emotion (K. R. Scherer, see record 1986-16849-001). Although most hypotheses are supported, some need to be revised on the basis of the empirical evidence. Discriminant analysis and jackknifing show remarkably high hit rates and patterns of confusion that closely mirror those found for listener-judges. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)