Perception and Acoustics of Emotions in Singing

In this experiment, the acoustic correlates of perceived emotions in singing were investigated. Singers were instructed to sing one phrase in a neutral way and in the emotions anger, joy, fear, and sadness. Listeners rated the strength of the perceived emotions for each fragment. Principal component analyses were performed on the listeners’ ratings. The derived factors were interpreted as listening strategies; and a listener’s factor loading as an indicator of the extent to which that listener used that strategy. Using the original ratings and the factor loadings, the phrases were assigned composite ratings for each emotion. Acoustic measures of spectral balance, vibrato, duration and intensity were related to the composite ratings using multiple regression analyses. It was found that anger was associated with the presence of vibrato; joyous phrases had vibrato, a short final duration, and a shallow spectral slope; sadness was associated with absence of vibrato, long duration, and a low intensity, whereas fear was related to a steep spectral slope.