Perception of emotional nonsense sentences in China, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the USA

Abstract

The present study focused on the identification of emotions in cross-cultural conditions on different continents and among subjects with divergent language backgrounds. The aim was to investigate whether the perception of the basic emotions from nonsense vocal samples was universal, dependent on voice quality, musicality, and/or gender. Listening tests for 350 participants were conducted on location in a variety of cultures: China, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the USA. The results suggested that the voice quality parameters played a role in the identification of emotions without the linguistic content. Cultural background may affect the interpretation of the emotions more than the presumed universality. Musical interest tended to facilitate emotion identification. No gender differences were found.

Key words::

• Cross-cultural
• emotion identification
• gender
• musical interests
• nonsense text
• voice quality

Acknowledgemets

Special thanks to the participants in the listening tests in China, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the USA, and the contact persons who made the listening tests possible:

China: Director Yang Xinyi, MA, and Pirkko Luoma, MA, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China.

Egypt: Dr. Ahmed Geneid, ENT and Phoniatrics department of Helsinki University Hospitals, Helsinki, Finland, Professor Mahmoud Youssef, the Head of the Phoniatrics Unit, and Dr. Ahmed Abul Kassem and Dr. Ahmed Mohamed Refaat, El-Demerdash and El Sahel Educational Hospitals, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

Estonia: Director, Dr. Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt and the staff, Institute of Journalism and Communication, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.

Russia: Director, Dr. Pavel Skrelin and Tatiana Chukaeva, Department of Phonetics, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Sweden: Professor Sten Ternstr m, the Head of the Music Acoustics group, and his students Ragnar Sch n and Evert Lagerberg, KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

USA: Associate Professor Graham D. Bodie and Dr. Christopher C. Gearhart, Department of Communication Studies, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.

The author would also like to thank Hanna-Mari Puuska M.Sc. and Liudmila Lipi inen M.Sc. for statistical analyses, Virginia Mattila M.A. for language correction of the manuscript, and the translators for translating the questionnaire.

Declaration of interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest. Funding was been received from the Academy of Finland [grant no 139321].