Chapter 3: Voice Flashcards
What is the power of voice?
a. Speech conveys 3 types of emotion:
b. Verbal Subchannel- words spoken
c. Speech Style Subchannel- pausing patterns and irregularities
Speech Tone Subchannels
acoustic properties, loudness, and pitch
–> Subchannels can align or contradict in order to create meaning
Contradiction equals
sarcasm
Nonverbal elements of speech
a. Focuses in prosody (style and tone)
b. Prosody- subcategory of paralanguage (all of the various noises humans can make)
c. Blurry line between verbal and nonverbal
How does the medium of speech has an impact on the perception of tone and style?
a. Ex) written text- YELLING, !, ?, !!
b. Emojis- written nonverbal cues to clarify emotion, irony and sarcasm
Mechanics of Vocal Production
a. Loudness, timbre, resonance
b. Speech starts with thoughts in the brain, and then:
c. Signals from the outer or neo cortex activate the cortical motor strip
d. Cortical motor strip signals the jaw, tongue, lips, vocal cords, larynx, and diaphragm to initiate the movements producing the sounds
e. HOWEVER if an emotion is aroused, then the inner limbic system of the brain sends signals that engage the autonomic and somatic nervous systems, which engage physiological changes (alter blood flow, blood pressure, muscle tension, mucus secretion, respiration)
f. This changes the tone, energy, loudness, and other measurable elements of the voice by altering the length, shape, and smoothness of the movements of the body parts responsible for speech
Broca’s speech area
Speech production
Measurement of Nonverbal Voice Characteristics
a. Tonal qualities in speech:
b. Pitch/frequency
c. loudness/amplitude
d. Timbre
e. Resonance
f. NOTE: tonal qualities are harder to measure than stylistic qualities
Timbre
“quality” of the voice; the difference in 2 voices of the same pitch and loudness
Resonance
the unique/specific pronunciation of sounds
What are the stylistic qualities in speech?
a. Speech rate
b. Response length
c. Speech latency
d. Pauses
e. Filled
f. Unfilled
g. Speech errors
Speech rate
words per minute or second
Response length
how much a person talks
Speech latency
how long it takes someone to respond (also called “speech hesitation”)
Pauses
time between spoken words
Filled and unfilled
a. Filled = um, like, uh
b. Unfilled = silence (Obama)
Speech errors
disfluencies/disturbances like repeating words, stuttering, grammar errors, slips, false starts, etc. Any misspeaks, basically
Info Derived from the Nonverbal Subchannels of Voice
a. Enduring Traits
b. Transient States
Enduring traits
Characteristic that are easily recognizable through the voice
i. Identity
ii. Age
iii. Gender
iv. Ethnicity
v. Personality
Transient states
Characteristics that change within interpersonal communication
i. Emotion
ii. Mood
iii. Cognitive Effort
iv. Pitch
v. Loudness
vi. Speech Rate
- Methodological Cautions When Studying Transient States
- Categorical Vs. Dimensional
- Are emotions hard- wired or introduced by pleasure or arousal?
finish answers
Physiological Factors Affecting Vocal Tone During Emotion
- Blood flow and muscle tension alter vocal pitch and energy.
- Mucus secretion and respiration changes impact voice clarity
Motherese (Infant-Directed Speech)
Purpose: Engages and grabs attention of prelinguistic children.
Stress and Speech Patterns
Increased pauses, hesitations, and speech disturbances.
What is prosody and how can it be effective within communication
A subcategory of paralanguage which includes all the sounds that humans can make. This can assist with decoding emotions and behavioral traits
What is the most recognizable enduring trait in the voice?
Gender at 96%
Emotions are unable to be recognized just through voice. (True/false)
False
What are the 3 subchannels of vocal production
Verbal, Speech Style, Speech Tone
