Effects of lexical contents on expression of emotional speech

Abstract

We evaluated the influence of emotion included in the meaning of speech on vocal expression of emotion. A recognition test was conducted using foreign languages unknown to participants. The participants were 18 Japanese undergraduate and graduate students. The emotional voices were spoken by professional foreign actors whose native languages were Swedish, Russian, Ukrainian and Portuguese. The degree of elaborate expression of vocal emotion was measured by identification performance of emotion and level of confidence. Two conditions were prepared. One condition was the "congruent condition," where the emotion expressed by speakers and the emotion included in the meaning of their speech were the same. The other was the "incongruent condition," where the two emotions were different. Comparison of the results from both conditions revealed that identification of emotion worsened in the incongruent condition. These results suggest that the speakers were unable to perform expression of emotion sufficiently under the influence of the emotion included in the meaning of words.