Journal
FRONTIERS IN BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 17, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1240043
Keywords
acoustic emotion; anxiety; disgust; fear; signal detection theory
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study investigated the influence of environmental noise and internal states (such as emotional arousal and anxiety) on the ability to perceive emotions in speech. The results showed that individuals with higher trait-anxiety levels had lower sensitivity in detecting acoustic signals of negative emotions, as well as lower sensitivity to acoustic signals across all emotions. These findings are important for understanding perception anomalies related to affective traits and disorders.
Acoustic perception of emotions in speech is relevant for humans to navigate the social environment optimally. While sensory perception is known to be influenced by ambient noise, and bodily internal states (e.g., emotional arousal and anxiety), their relationship to human auditory perception is relatively less understood. In a supervised, online pilot experiment sans the artificially controlled laboratory environment, we asked if the detection sensitivity of emotions conveyed by human speech-in-noise (acoustic signals) varies between individuals with relatively lower and higher levels of subclinical trait-anxiety, respectively. In a task, participants (n = 28) accurately discriminated the target emotion conveyed by the temporally unpredictable acoustic signals (signal to noise ratio = 10 dB), which were manipulated at four levels (Happy, Neutral, Fear, and Disgust). We calculated the empirical area under the curve (a measure of acoustic signal detection sensitivity) based on signal detection theory to answer our questions. A subset of individuals with High trait-anxiety relative to Low in the above sample showed significantly lower detection sensitivities to acoustic signals of negative emotions - Disgust and Fear and significantly lower detection sensitivities to acoustic signals when averaged across all emotions. The results from this pilot study with a small but statistically relevant sample size suggest that trait-anxiety levels influence the overall acoustic detection of speech-in-noise, especially those conveying threatening/negative affect. The findings are relevant for future research on acoustic perception anomalies underlying affective traits and disorders.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available