Emotional authenticity modulates affective and social trait inferences from voices
Pinheiro, Ana ; Anikin, Andrey LU
; Conde, Tatiana
; Sarzedas, João
; Chen, Sinead
; Scott, Sophie
and Lima, Cesar
(2021)
In Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
376(1840).
- Abstract
- The human voice is a primary tool for verbal and nonverbal communication. Studies on laughter emphasize a distinction between spontaneous laughter, which reflects a genuinely felt emotion, and volitional laughter, associated with more intentional communicative acts. Listeners can reliably differentiate the two. It remains unclear, however, if they can detect authenticity in other vocalizations, and whether authenticity determines the affective and social impressions that we form about others. Here, 137 participants listened to laughs and cries that could be spontaneous or volitional and rated them on authenticity, valence, arousal, trustworthiness and dominance. Bayesian mixed models indicated that listeners detect authenticity similarly... (More)
- The human voice is a primary tool for verbal and nonverbal communication. Studies on laughter emphasize a distinction between spontaneous laughter, which reflects a genuinely felt emotion, and volitional laughter, associated with more intentional communicative acts. Listeners can reliably differentiate the two. It remains unclear, however, if they can detect authenticity in other vocalizations, and whether authenticity determines the affective and social impressions that we form about others. Here, 137 participants listened to laughs and cries that could be spontaneous or volitional and rated them on authenticity, valence, arousal, trustworthiness and dominance. Bayesian mixed models indicated that listeners detect authenticity similarly well in laughter and crying. Speakers were also perceived to be more trustworthy, and in a higher arousal state, when their laughs and cries were spontaneous. Moreover, spontaneous laughs were evaluated as more positive than volitional ones, and we found that the same acoustic features predicted perceived authenticity and trustworthiness in laughter: high pitch, spectral variability and less voicing. For crying, associations between acoustic features and ratings were less reliable. These findings indicate that emotional authenticity shapes affective and social trait inferences from voices, and that the ability to detect authenticity in vocalizations is not limited to laughter.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part I)’. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/2b65b67c-4c0a-4850-b166-ad9f46c71d2e
- author
- Pinheiro, Ana
; Anikin, Andrey
LU
; Conde, Tatiana
; Sarzedas, João
; Chen, Sinead
; Scott, Sophie
and Lima, Cesar
- organization
- publishing date
- 2021
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- volume
- 376
- issue
- 1840
- article number
- 20200402
- pages
- 9 pages
- publisher
- Royal Society Publishing
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:34719249
- scopus:85119999574
- ISSN
- 1471-2970
- DOI
- 10.1098/rstb.2020.0402
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 2b65b67c-4c0a-4850-b166-ad9f46c71d2e
- date added to LUP
- 2021-11-15 18:59:24
- date last changed
- 2022-04-27 05:38:16
@article{2b65b67c-4c0a-4850-b166-ad9f46c71d2e,
abstract = {{The human voice is a primary tool for verbal and nonverbal communication. Studies on laughter emphasize a distinction between spontaneous laughter, which reflects a genuinely felt emotion, and volitional laughter, associated with more intentional communicative acts. Listeners can reliably differentiate the two. It remains unclear, however, if they can detect authenticity in other vocalizations, and whether authenticity determines the affective and social impressions that we form about others. Here, 137 participants listened to laughs and cries that could be spontaneous or volitional and rated them on authenticity, valence, arousal, trustworthiness and dominance. Bayesian mixed models indicated that listeners detect authenticity similarly well in laughter and crying. Speakers were also perceived to be more trustworthy, and in a higher arousal state, when their laughs and cries were spontaneous. Moreover, spontaneous laughs were evaluated as more positive than volitional ones, and we found that the same acoustic features predicted perceived authenticity and trustworthiness in laughter: high pitch, spectral variability and less voicing. For crying, associations between acoustic features and ratings were less reliable. These findings indicate that emotional authenticity shapes affective and social trait inferences from voices, and that the ability to detect authenticity in vocalizations is not limited to laughter.<br/><br/>This article is part of the theme issue ‘Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part I)’.}},
author = {{Pinheiro, Ana and Anikin, Andrey and Conde, Tatiana and Sarzedas, João and Chen, Sinead and Scott, Sophie and Lima, Cesar}},
issn = {{1471-2970}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1840}},
publisher = {{Royal Society Publishing}},
series = {{Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences}},
title = {{Emotional authenticity modulates affective and social trait inferences from voices}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0402}},
doi = {{10.1098/rstb.2020.0402}},
volume = {{376}},
year = {{2021}},
}