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Vocal Communication of Emotion

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

Synonyms

Affective prosody; Emotional speech; Tone of voice; Vocal expression

Definition

Vocal communication of emotion refers to the process wherein speakers express emotions by modulating nonverbal aspects of their speech, and listeners utilize the nonverbal aspects of speech in order to make inferences about the emotional experience of the speaker.

Introduction

The human voice is a prominent channel for nonverbal communication of emotion, both alone and in combination with facial and bodily expressions. Whenever we speak, we do not only convey the linguistic meaning that is contained in the words we use, but also convey emotional information through nonverbal vocal expressions. Vocal emotion expressions can be embedded in the prosodic features of speech (e.g., intonation and rhythm of speech), but can also consist of vocalizations with no linguistic content, often called affect bursts (e.g., cries, sobs, and laughter). Vocal expressions thus reflect the joint effect of...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Petri Laukka

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  1. Petri Laukka
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Correspondence to Petri Laukka .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Institute of Psychology, University of Lodz, Smugowa 10/12, 91-433, Lodz, Poland

    Monika Wróbel

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Laukka, P. (2017). Vocal Communication of Emotion. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_562-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_562-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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