Some acoustic characteristics of emotion

This study presents an acoustic analysis of emotion. The material consisted of two semantically neutral utterances spoken by two actors, one male, one female, portraying three moods: anger, happiness and sadness; and a neutral tone. The duration, fundamental frequency (F0) and an estimate of the sound intensity (RMS) were analysed. The fundamental frequency parameter was the most revealing, showing differences between anger and happiness according to the shape of the contour, and between $cold# anger and $hot# anger on F0 mean. In addition, the study replicates previous findings showing hot anger and happiness having an F0 large range and high mean in contrast to the more subdued emotion of sadness, and the neutral voice.