Analysis of Acoustic-Prosodic Features Related to Paralinguistic Information Carried by Interjections in Dialogue Speech

Interjections are often used in dialogue communication for expressing a reaction (such as agreement, surprise and disgust) to the interlocutor. Thus, a correct interpretation of the paralinguistic information (intention, attitude or emotion) carried by interjections is important for achieving a smooth dialogue interaction between humans and robots. In the present work, analyses are conducted on several interjections appearing in spontaneous conversational speech databases to investigate the relationship between acoustic-prosodic features (related to intonation and voice quality) and their paralinguistic functions in dialogue speech. It is found that there are common and interjection-dependent relationships between acoustic features and paralinguistic information. Regardless of the interjection type, non-modal voice qualities, such as whispery, harsh and pressed voices, are shown to be important cues for the expression of emotions and attitudes.