Developmental Changes in Vocal Expression of Emotions

Abstract

This study examined developmental changes in the acoustic characteristics of utterances of /pikachu/, the animated cartoon character, generated by 46 normal preschool and school-age children to intentionally express basic emotions. The results showed that syllable length, vowel-devoicing rate, dynamic range of fundamental frequency (F0), and peak timing significantly changed depending on the intended emotions. F0 was low with a narrow range for “anger” and “neutral,” while it was high with a wide range for “surprise” and “happiness.” For “sadness,” F0 was low in elder children and high in younger children. The vowel-devoicing rate was high for “neutral” but decreased during emotional expressions. It increased with age while adapting to the phonetic requirements of the Tokyo dialect. No significant difference was found in syllable length due to age. The developmental changes in acoustic properties revealed here can serve as a standard to evaluate disorders in vocal expression of emotions in children. © 2002, The Japan Society of Logopedics and Phoniatrics. All rights reserved.