title: Acoustical analysis of posed prosodic expressions: effects of emotion and sex.
abstract: Prosodic expression is an important channel of emotional communication and can be assessed through computerized acoustical analysis. Fundamental frequency (F0) is the most commonly studied acoustic measure and considered the best index of perceived pitch. In this study, we examined two factors that can influence prosodic expression, sex and emotion type. A special feature is the use of a neutral expression as a control measure. We also described procedures for eliciting posed prosodic expression via an experimental task from the New York Emotion Battery. Subjects were healthy men (n=10) and women (n=9), matched for age (M=29.2 yr.) and education (M=15.6 yr.). Subjects were asked to intone neutral-content sentences with happy, sad, and neutral prosody. F0 mean and standard deviation were measured using the Computerized Speech Lab program. Initial findings indicated that women produced significantly higher F0 values than did men and that happy sentences were produced with significantly higher F0 values than were sad sentences. When semitone conversions were applied and neutral prosody was subtracted out, differences remained for emotion type but not for sex. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for the assessment and treatment of prosody in clinical populations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Queens College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Flushing 11367, USA. neuronancy@juno.com
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Viscovich
authors.forename: Joan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Borod
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pihan
authors.forename: Shelley
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Peery
authors.forename: Adam M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Brickman
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tabert
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Spielman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D013060:Speech; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement