Acoustical analysis of posed prosodic expressions: Effects of emotion and sex

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.