Role of intonation patterns in conveying emotion in speech

In a production and perception study the relation was studied between the emotion or attitude expressed in an utterance, and the intonation pattern realized on that utterance. In the production study, the pitch curves of emotional utterances were labelled in terms of the IPO intonation grammar. One intonation pattern, the ‘1&A’, was produced in all emotions studied. Some other patterns were specifically used in expressing some of these emotions. In the perception study, in which the perceptual relevance of these findings was checked, the communicative role of the intonation patterns found in the database was tested. This listening test provided converging evidence on the contribution of specific intonation patterns to the perception of some of the emotions and attitudes studied. Some intonation patterns, such as final ‘3C’ and ‘12’, which were specifically produced in some emotion, also introduced a perceptual bias towards that emotion. In that sense, the results from the perception study supported those from the production study.