Friendly Speech and Happy Speech - Are They the Same?

In this study we explore the acoustic cues of friendly and happy speech by modifying naturally produced neutral-emotion utterances along a set of hypothetical Bio-informational Dimensions (BIDs), and using them as stimuli in a perception test. Subjects listened to these stimuli and judged their degree of friendliness and happiness. Results show that both expressions involve cues along the BID dimensions of size projection and dynamicity, but happiness is far more extreme along both dimensions. The significance of these results in relation to recent findings about the role of smile in social interactions is discussed.

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