Intonation as a cue to emotional speech perception: An experiment with normal and delexicalised speech

This study aims to investigate the role of intonation in the perception of emotion in spoken Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Recordings of 32 BP speakers were downloaded from the internet and presented to 36 listeners divided equally into two nationality groups (Brazilian vs. English). The participants performed two perception experiments, one based on normal speech and the other on delexicalised (lowpass-filtered) speech. Aspects of the speakers’ productions were subjected to automatic analysis and compared to the listeners’ judgments. The results show that: (i) Brazilians perform well in the normal speech condition, while the English participants’ performance is moderately accurate; (ii) for both groups, performance was lower in the delexicalised speech condition; (iii) simple and multiple linear regressions show that median F0, F0 dispersion, the duration of intonation units, and related parameters can predict the perception of emotional speech by native and non-native speakers of BP.