Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizations
Which emotions are associated with universally recognized nonverbal signals? We address this issue by examining how reliably nonlinguistic vocalizations (affect bursts) can convey emotions across cultures. Actors from India, Kenya, Singapore and USA were instructed to produce vocalizations that woul...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2013-07-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00353/full |
| _version_ | 1818617176770215936 |
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| author | Petri eLaukka Hillary Anger eElfenbein Nela eSöder Henrik eNordström Jean eAlthoff Wanda eChui Frederick Kang'ethe eIraki Thomas eRockstuhl Nutankumar S. Thingujam |
| author_facet | Petri eLaukka Hillary Anger eElfenbein Nela eSöder Henrik eNordström Jean eAlthoff Wanda eChui Frederick Kang'ethe eIraki Thomas eRockstuhl Nutankumar S. Thingujam |
| author_sort | Petri eLaukka |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Which emotions are associated with universally recognized nonverbal signals? We address this issue by examining how reliably nonlinguistic vocalizations (affect bursts) can convey emotions across cultures. Actors from India, Kenya, Singapore and USA were instructed to produce vocalizations that would convey 9 positive and 9 negative emotions to listeners. The vocalizations were judged by Swedish listeners using a within-valence forced-choice procedure, where positive and negative emotions were judged in separate experiments. Results showed that listeners could recognize a wide range of positive and negative emotions with accuracy above chance. For positive emotions, we observed the highest recognition rates for relief, followed by lust, interest, serenity and positive surprise, with affection and pride receiving the lowest recognition rates. Anger, disgust, fear, sadness and negative surprise received the highest recognition rates for negative emotions, with the lowest rates observed for guilt and shame. By way of summary, results showed that the voice can reveal both basic emotions and several positive emotions other than happiness across cultures, but self-conscious emotions such as guilt, pride, and shame seem not to be well recognized from nonlinguistic vocalizations. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-16T17:01:32Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-cdfa11162dfc4c46a1da3789ad055c98 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-16T17:01:32Z |
| publishDate | 2013-07-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-cdfa11162dfc4c46a1da3789ad055c982022-12-21T22:23:43ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782013-07-01410.3389/fpsyg.2013.0035352015Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizationsPetri eLaukka0Hillary Anger eElfenbein1Nela eSöder2Henrik eNordström3Jean eAlthoff4Wanda eChui5Frederick Kang'ethe eIraki6Thomas eRockstuhl7Nutankumar S. Thingujam8Stockholm UniversityWashington University, St. LouisStockholm UniversityStockholm UniversityUniversity of QueenslandUniversity of California, BerkeleyUnited States International UniversityNanyang Technological UniversitySikkim UniversityWhich emotions are associated with universally recognized nonverbal signals? We address this issue by examining how reliably nonlinguistic vocalizations (affect bursts) can convey emotions across cultures. Actors from India, Kenya, Singapore and USA were instructed to produce vocalizations that would convey 9 positive and 9 negative emotions to listeners. The vocalizations were judged by Swedish listeners using a within-valence forced-choice procedure, where positive and negative emotions were judged in separate experiments. Results showed that listeners could recognize a wide range of positive and negative emotions with accuracy above chance. For positive emotions, we observed the highest recognition rates for relief, followed by lust, interest, serenity and positive surprise, with affection and pride receiving the lowest recognition rates. Anger, disgust, fear, sadness and negative surprise received the highest recognition rates for negative emotions, with the lowest rates observed for guilt and shame. By way of summary, results showed that the voice can reveal both basic emotions and several positive emotions other than happiness across cultures, but self-conscious emotions such as guilt, pride, and shame seem not to be well recognized from nonlinguistic vocalizations.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00353/fullPositive emotionsemotion recognitionNonverbal BehaviorVocalizationsCross-culturalaffect bursts |
| spellingShingle | Petri eLaukka Hillary Anger eElfenbein Nela eSöder Henrik eNordström Jean eAlthoff Wanda eChui Frederick Kang'ethe eIraki Thomas eRockstuhl Nutankumar S. Thingujam Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizations Frontiers in Psychology Positive emotions emotion recognition Nonverbal Behavior Vocalizations Cross-cultural affect bursts |
| title | Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizations |
| title_full | Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizations |
| title_fullStr | Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizations |
| title_short | Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizations |
| title_sort | cross cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizations |
| topic | Positive emotions emotion recognition Nonverbal Behavior Vocalizations Cross-cultural affect bursts |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00353/full |
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