Articulatory characteristics of emotional utterances in spoken English

Acoustic and articulatory properties of emotional utterances in English were examined using articulatory (EMA) recordings of speech elicited from two speakers of American English. The speakers produced 10 to 12 repetitions of the sentence “That’s wonderful,” using several different intonational patterns and types of paralinguistic information. Perception tests showed that listeners could perceive the emotions intended by the speakers. Furthermore, F0, formant frequencies, jaw and tongue dorsum position changed as a function of the particular emotion. Initial analysis suggests that the emotion “anger” may involve more jaw lowering, “suspicion,” a raising of the tongue, and “admiration,” a lowering of the tongue.