The acoustic correlates of valence depend on emotion family.
The voice expresses a wide range of emotions through modulations of acoustic parameters such as frequency and amplitude. Although the acoustics of individual emotions are well understood, attempts to describe the acoustic correlates of broad emotional categories such as valence have yielded mixed results. In the present study, we analyzed the acoustics of emotional valence for different families of emotion. We divided emotional vocalizations into "motivational," "moral," and "aesthetic" families as defined by the OCC (Ortony, Clore, and Collins) model of emotion. Subjects viewed emotional scenarios and were cued to vocalize congruent exclamations in response to them, for example, "Yay!" and "Damn!". Positive valence was weakly associated with high-pitched and loud vocalizations. However, valence interacted with emotion family for both pitch and amplitude. A general acoustic code for valence does not hold across families of emotion, whereas family-specific codes provide a more accurate description of vocal emotions. These findings are consolidated into a set of "rules of expression" relating vocal dimensions to emotion dimensions.
['Belyk|Michel|M|', 'Brown|Steven|S|']
D003463:Cues D004644:Emotions D004954:Esthetics D005260:Female D006801:Humans D009014:Morals D009042:Motivation D010898:Pitch Perception D013060:Speech D013061:Speech Acoustics D013067:Speech Perception D014831:Voice D055815:Young Adult
Acoustics Valence Emotion Vocalization Pitch Cognitive appraisal Prosody Speech