A study of intonation patterns in speech expressing emotion or attitude: production and perception

Abstract

In a production and a perception study, the relation between the emotion or attitude expressed in an utterance, and the intonation pattern realized on that utterance was investigated. In the production study, the pitch contours of emotional utterances were labelled in terms of the IPO intonation grammar. One intonation pattern, the I&A, was produced in all emotions studied. Some other patterns were specifically used in expressing some emotions. In the perception study checking the perceptual relevance of these findings, the role of the patterns present in the database was tested. A listening test provided converging evidence on the contribution of specific intonation patterns in the perception of some of the emotions and attitudes studied. Some intonation patterns, such as final3C and 12, which were specifically produced in some emotion, e.g., indignation, also introduced a perceptual bias towards that emotion. In that sense, the results from the perception study supported the results from the production study.