Emotion dimensions and formant position

Abstract

The influence of emotion on articulatory precision was investigated in a newly established corpus of acted emotional speech. The frequencies of the first and second formant of the vowels /i/, /u/, and /a/ was measured and shown to be significantly affected by emotion dimension. High arousal resulted in a higher mean F1 in all vowels, whereas positive valence resulted in higher mean values for F2. The dimension potency/control showed a pattern of effects that was consistent with a larger vocalic triangle for emotions high in potency/control. The results are interpreted in the context of Scherer's component process model.