Fear and Anger in the Way We Speak

A spoken sentence means more than the sum of its words’ meanings. A speaker’s voice, more specifically, the way a speaker shapes speech melody, also conveys emotional information. Healthy brains easily distinguish fear and anger even in short utterances without any meaning. Yet, when we interact with people face-to-face, our brains seemingly ignore this auditory information in favor of the available visual information, i.e., body language, and in this process, our auditory system then fails to differentiate between fear and anger. In this research project, I want to explore the behavioral relevance of this neural pattern. Using a task in which I pit speech melody against body language I want to examine a) how visual and auditory information interact, b) why fear and anger are perceived differently, and c) what consequences this difference has on the way we process visual and auditory information. Understanding how we perceive emotional information is an important step in finding solutions for people whose ability to do so is impaired and improving human-computer interfaces.

Faculty Supervisor:

Lola Cuddy

Student:

Partner:

Maastricht University

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

Queen's University

Program: