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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Even violins can cry: specifically vocal emotional behaviours also drive the perception of emotions in non-vocal music.

Laura RachmanPablo AriasPablo AriasD. BedoyaMarco LiuniJean-julien AucouturierLouise GoupilClément Canonne

subject

media_common.quotation_subjectEmotionsSingingMusical050105 experimental psychologyGeneral Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular BiologyLoudnessViolin03 medical and health sciences0302 clinical medicinePerceptionHumans0501 psychology and cognitive sciencesmusicHuman voiceResearch Articlesmedia_commonVocal music05 social sciencesVocal tremorArticlesAuditory PerceptionVoiceSingingGeneral Agricultural and Biological SciencesPsychology030217 neurology & neurosurgeryCognitive psychology

description

A wealth of theoretical and empirical arguments have suggested that music triggers emotional responses by resembling the inflections of expressive vocalizations, but have done so using low-level acoustic parameters (pitch, loudness, speed) that, in fact, may not be processed by the listener in reference to human voice. Here, we take the opportunity of the recent availability of computational models that allow the simulation of three specifically vocal emotional behaviours: smiling, vocal tremor and vocal roughness. When applied to musical material, we find that these three acoustic manipulations trigger emotional perceptions that are remarkably similar to those observed on speech and scream sounds, and identical across musician and non-musician listeners. Strikingly, this not only applied to singing voice with and without musical background, but also to purely instrumental material. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part I)’.

10.1098/rstb.2020.0396https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34719254