One can say that emotion affects speech behavior on the basic level of communication. However, after some research it seems that it not only can affect how a person communicates with someone, but emotions seem to have physiological effects on a person and how they acoustically say things when in a specific emotional state. Emotions play an important role on how we are breathing, the pitch of our voice, the pace at which we say things and many more physiological effects depending on your emotional state. In this essay, we cover a wide range of ways that emotions can affect our speech behavior and how these physiological effects can affect our everyday communication. Emotions can be analyzed on three different levels the first being the physiological level which is when we look at the nerve impulses that are involved with voice production. Secondly, we analyze emotions on a phonatory-articulatory level and this is where we look at the position or movement of the vocal folds. Finally, emotions can be analyzed on the acoustic level where we look at the actual characteristics of speech. These characteristics include, but are not limited to frequency of speech, or the pitch of the voice. Variability in sound production, voice quality, the intensity or loudness of the speech and the temporal aspects of speech, which is when we look at the speech rate, are also characteristics. Each of these is crucial in understanding how emotions can affect our speech behavior. In the study, “Emotion, Breathing and Speech”, psychologists study a person’s respiration during speech. For example, they look at how a person when reminded of emotional memories, displays different breathing patterns as a result of the arousal of the specific emotion. Basically, scientists want to observe how various emotional states in subjects will relate to their breathing. This study was done by Dudley who found that in states of action oriented scenarios, people who are feeling angry or anxious will display an increase in the frequency of their speech, consume more oxygen and require more ventilation. He also found that in states of non-action, such as depression or deep relaxation, a person will display the exact opposite of those in a state of arousal. Dudley used a different method than what we are used to like using random subjects and instead he used 4 asthmatic patients who were in long term psychotherapy. The subjects were observed in a total of 39 interviews and their breaths were measured by a strain-gauge anemograph. This would measure the patient’s amplitude, rate, minute volume, sighs and breathe holdings they would take when presented with past arousals. What this study found was that in states of distress (anxiety, guilt, and shame), the patients breathing rate would decrease and the amount of sighs and breaths would increase. Finally, in states of arousal such as anger or sexual excitement, the patient’s amplitude, rate and volume also increased. What the previous study displays is that in high arousal emotional states, a person’s speech in pace, volume, pitch and amplitude can increase as a result. This could most likely be due to the physiological effects the emotions are having on a person’s body. For example, when a person feels angry, their heart will begin to beat faster, their brain thinks faster and in general, every process is faster. Thus, making the highly aroused person’s speech faster and more annunciated. While as, in a low arousal state, a person’s body is not moving as fast because they are not in the “fight or flight” response mode since there is no fear, anger or anxiety. The next study explained supports this evidence. The study of “Expression of Emotion in Voice and Music” focuses on the emotional expression and how it serves as a vital function of externalizing an individual’s reaction and then communicating this to their environment. The reason this study was conducted was because there has always been this idea that the human voice allows the listener to recognize the specific emotional state of the speaker through vocal cues, thus leading the listener to a judgment of how that person is feeling. The way they would ask the subjects to judge emotional states from a person’s voice was done using actors. Actors were asked to display certain emotions through their voice and they would also be recorded. Then, they would play back these recordings to the subjects or ‘judges’. According to Scherer, there was a reported 60% accuracy of the subjects understanding the actors displayed emotions. These emotions included disgust, surprise, shame, interest, joy, fear, sadness and anger. Sadness and anger were the best recognized by the subjects while as, fear and joy were the hardest to be recognized. To take the study to the next level, scientists took the recordings from the actors and actually changed the sound of the recordings in order to see if people would still be able to recognize what emotion the speaker was conveying. In order to do this, they used an electro acoustic/digital voice changer. What this would do would change the frequency, tone, and amplitude of the recording, in other words this would mostly downplay the voice. The results found that range had a powerful effect on the judges. For example, narrow range of the recording was a sign of sadness or absence and on the other hand, a wide range would display high arousal. Leading to the conclusion that the higher the range, the more likely the judges would interpret the terms as aggressive or negative. Going more in depth, they also found that the tone effects of a person’s voice in an emotional state are mostly controlled by the limbic system. What’s fascinating about this is that the voice can automatically mirror a person’s specific emotion. So, even if you’re trying to hide your anger, the recipient is still able to decipher your happy smile from your actual anger. However, the issue they found with this study was that people who were singers or actors may be able to incorrectly display their emotions since they are masters of disguise in some senses, even vocally. The amazing thing about the human body is that the main reason the pitch of a person’s voice or range or amplitude increase in states of high arousal is that the body’s nerves will send the impulses to the brain to cause these changes, proving that emotion has a physiological affect on a person’s speech behavior. In conclusion, they were able to link certain emotions to specific changes in speech behavior such as: * Anger * Displayed by the intensity of voice by the speaker. * The rate of articulation will increase when someone is angry. * Fear * Increase in intensity of voice. * Increase in frequency of voice. * Rate of articulation increases. * Sadness * Range and intensity of voice decreases. * Energy and rate of articulation decreases. * Joy * Increase in range and intensity of voice. * Increase in rate of articulation.
The only issue they found with this was this idea of hot and cold anger. Cold anger is a subdued form of anger where the person might be angry, but they will still be smiling at the enemy. Then, hot anger is when a person actually displays high intensity and will physically as well as verbally show their disgust for something. Concluding, that voice is found to be a primary instrument for emotional expression between two people.
So far we have discovered that emotions can affect speech behavior beyond just what we say in the context of a heated conversation, but emotions can actually physically change our body and the pitch of how we say things without us even noticing a single thing. Another study that was conducted in order to see how emotions affect speech behavior is, “The Role of Emotions in Risk Communication.” Basically, it’s how our emotions will react in terms of the things going on around us such as natural and technical disasters. The reason this study was done was because our emotional reactions and action tendencies may be different when manmade hazards are involved. For example, when you hear about a gas explosion, it may cause you to get angry emotions which can have an overall effect on the rest of your day.
To begin, let’s differentiate natural and technological disasters. Natural disasters are classified as environmental risks such as tornados, earthquakes, etc. People will tend to view natural disasters as an act of God or as inevitable. This causes a person to elicit more sympathy towards the situation since there is really no one you can blame, thus feeling bad for the loss of lives or any other loss related to that disaster. Technological disasters are ones that are caused by the misuse of human-made technologies or other accidents that may occur. This can be things such as air pollution or a gas explosion and can elicit more angry emotions since there is someone to blame and point the finger at for the disaster occurring.
What was found that people use emotions in speech communication in order to grow and develop because without emotional experience, we can’t form decisions. Such as, when someone is fearful, it helps to protect us because we are now aware and begin to withdraw physically and verbally. According to the psychologist, Lazarus, specific emotions can lead us to specific actions just like how an angry person will attack in order to defend themselves. Or a fearful person will retreat and a sad person will retreat into self-focus thus learning things about themselves they might not have been aware of. All these emotions that lead us to certain actions are extremely important in how we communicate because over time it has allowed us to create ways to cope with everyday life. For example, without these coping mechanisms, we might not be able to run away from something that scares us, or stand up for ourselves when we are being bullied, etc. Emotions are a key part in how we develop as humans and how we also communicate. This study used 300 students from Beijing which had them look at picture of disasters and rate them on a Likert scaled of 1 -10 with one being not angry/offended and ten of course being highly angry/offended. Concluding this study, again, emotions are a key part in how we communicate with the world, even if it’s not on a person-to-person level because however we interpret something elicits an emotion and that emotion then leads us to a specific action.
Another way that speech behavior is affected by emotions and physiological effects is shown in the study called, “The Effects of Emotions on Voice Quality.” In this study, people are recorded displaying vocal interpretations of emotional states and subjects were to decipher which emotion was being conveyed in each recording. What the study found supports this idea that emotions have a physiological affect on a person’s speech behavior by providing data of the physical effects of emotions.
In states of high arousal such as being happy, anxious or angry, there was more muscle tension displayed in the subjects. The opposite occurs for depressed and bored speech where depressed speech seems to have a limited pitch range while the opposite occurs for happy speech which displays a large range in the voice. The reason that there is a limited pitch range for tense, irritated and anxious speech is because of the general tenseness in the laryngeal musculature which limits the adjustment of vocal cord tension. Therefore, when a person is in a high arousal state it will have a tendency to make the person tense up, thus making components of the vocal cords tense up as well.
Another supporting study that was done was by Gene Ball and Jack Breese called, “Emotion and Personality in a Conversational Character.” This study was about describing the architecture for constructing a character based off a class of interactions such as word choice, speech pace, rhythm and pitch contour. This study was able to successfully conclude that humans communicate their emotional state through a variety of non-verbal behaviors. These behaviors can include signals like smiles and frowns as well as variation in speech rhythm or body posture. It was also able to conclude that propel are sensitive to the signals that are produced by others making them frequently assess emotional states of one another. So, when it comes to communicating with someone when you’re in an emotional state, such as being angry, not only is the pitch , range and amplitude of your voice going to change, but your body gestures will subconsciously change as well giving hints as to what emotional state you are in.
Ball and Breese were also able to find out that one of the key methods of communicating in an emotional state is how we choose our paraphrases. For example, when someone is responding to a request they might say, “sure thing”, “yes”, or “if you insist.” Then, depending on the person’s personality type, it can have an influence on a person’s paraphrasing like saying, “you should definitely” rather than saying, “perhaps you might like to.” What this means is that not only are our voices changes in emotional states, but also how we phrase things will change. For example, if you’re not angry, in a normal voice you might ask your spouse, “Will you please pick me up from work today?” However, in an upset state, your voice might change and you will find yourself saying this instead, “I need you to pick me up from work today.” Not as polite and put very short that you have already made the decision in your own head, they do not have a say your request. All of these things are fascinating contributors to the way that emotions affect speech behavior.
When it comes down to it, not matter who you’re speaking with, communication is driven by how we think and what we are feeling within that very moment. However we interpret other people’s non verbal communications and react to them in turn, causes us to understand their message and the same happens in reverse. It has been found by Sonja Stetzler in her article, “Maintaining Emotional Awareness When Communicating,” that by actually enhancing your emotional awareness, it puts you in a better position to understanding the people who are around you. Emotional awareness is when you have a deep connection with your emotions at all times; in other words, you can understand your emotions. Being emotionally aware can help you in many ways because it allows you to deliver a negative message in a clear, precise manner, allow you to understand your own feelings and get to the root of what’s bothering you and it helps you to understand them. Bottom line, emotional awareness is cruel when it comes to communication because it opens your eyes and by knowing your own emotions, you can catch on to what emotion the speaker might be trying to convey.
Any way we look at it, emotions seems to play a crucial role in how we are conveying what we mean. Although we might think we are covering up our sadness, anger, anxiety, etc., without even knowing it, our own vocal cords will tighten up on us, triggering other physiological effects. Then, the range of our voice, or the amplitude or how fast we are speaking will naturally happen in emotional states, letting someone know we are upset. Also, how you phrase things together can give clues to what emotions your feeling as well as the way we ask things of people or say certain things. But, the nice thing is that if we learn to be aware of our emotions and how we are feeling when we are in an emotional state, this can give us the upper hand in communicating. For example, if you’re mad at someone and you’re aware that you’re mad, you can better phrase how you’re going to say things and how your body is going to move because if you come straightforward and attack that person, they are most likely going to resist. That person might just laugh in your face and shut off communication, thus not solving the issue as to why they made you angry. But, on the other hand, if you’re able to know that you’re angry with this person, and you carry yourself better in the conversation, communication won’t be as likely to shut down because the person isn’t feeling attacked and they can understand your feelings as well. By being open in communication about your emotions, it not only helps relationships but it can also help you because one way we are able to change the current mood we are in is by simply just talking to someone else. This helps us to put things into perspective by giving us a sense that our emotions are manageable.
The key to good communication is simply just doing it. Some people might believe that practicing good communication isn’t going to change how you have been communicating for the past 10, 20, 50 years! But the truth of the matter is that anyone is capable of change, as long as you are self aware of what you’re trying to change. When you’re mad at your spouse, next time watch how the loudness of your voice changes. Watch how the rate of your speech increases and how the tone of your voice changes. Although these may be physiological effects and one might say that we can’t control that, believe me, the brain is a powerful thing and as long as you consciously are aware of the physiological changes that occur when you’re in an emotional state, it will hit parts of your subconscious causing you to change that. That’s the hard part, controlling the physiological effects of emotions in our speech behavior, but the easy part is simply by watching how you phrase things when in an emotional state as well as what your body is doing as well. By being able to control how our emotions can affect speech behavior, we are more likely to succeed in the world because the key to managing ANY relationship in reality is communication.