Comment: Advances in Studying the Vocal Expression of Emotion: Current Contributions and Further Options

I consider the five contributions in this special section as evidence that the research area dealing with the vocal expression of emotion is advancing rapidly, both in terms of the number of pertinent empirical studies and with respect to an ever increasing sophistication of methodology. I provide some suggestions on promising areas for future interdisciplinary research, including work on emotion expression in singing and the potential of vocal symptoms of emotional disorder. As to the popular discussion of the respective role of universality versus language/culture differences, I suggest to move on from exclusively studying the accuracy of recognition in judgment studies to a more differentiated approach adding production aspects, taking into account the multiple vocal and acoustic features that interact to communicate emotion.

Low frequencies in the display vocalization of the Western Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus)

Only a few bird species are known to produce low-frequency vocalizations. We analyzed the display vocalizations of Western Capercaillie males kept in breeding centers and identified harmonically structured signals with a fundamental frequency of 28.7 ± 1.2 Hz (25.6–31.6 Hz). These low-frequency components temporally overlap with the Whetting phase (96% of its duration) and they significantly contribute to the distinct vocal expression between individuals. The resulting model of discrimination analysis classified 67.6% vocalizations (63%, cross-validated result) correctly to the specific individual in comparison to the probability by chance of 12.5%. We discuss a possible function of low-frequency components that remains unclear. The occurrence of such low frequencies is surprising as this grouse is substantially smaller than cassowaries (Southern cassowary Casuarius casuarius and Dwarf cassowary Casuarius bennetti) , the species that produces similarly low frequencies. Because these low frequency components temporarily overlap with the Whetting phase, they are hardly audible from a distance larger than several meters.

Evaluation of Vocal Expression in Music: A New Assessment for Untrained Listeners of Vocal Features in Popular Music

Different disciplines have shown interest in the auditory evaluation of song and speech production. Existing voice assessments have specific purposes and are used mainly by voice professionals to evaluate voices in clinical, linguistic, and pedagogical contexts. However, the voice in the context of art has been increasingly of interest to researchers in disciplines such as psychology or musicology, particularly those who focus on reactions and sensations that reflect the impact singing voices have on our everyday lives. To facilitate such research with participants from a larger population, a tool is needed that untrained listeners can use to generate comprehensive vocal profiles representing the particularities of different voices. To achieve this goal, in an interview (N = 20) and a group study (N = 48), free voice descriptions by untrained listeners of 23 primarily popular music singing voices were compared with terms used by voice professionals, revealing a set of nine bipolar items indicating sound quality, pitch changes, mode of phonation (song or speech), articulation, and overall expression. For validation, these items were used for the evaluation of six popular song voices by trained and untrained listeners in a German (N = 216) and an English (N = 50) sample. Providing proof of concept, a discriminant analysis revealed that the tool could be used to satisfactorily distinguish between these voices. As neither expertise nor language had an effect on the evaluation, this short tool can be used in future research whenever evaluations of singing voices in English or German are needed.

Piglets vocally express the anticipation of (pseudo)-social contexts in their grunts

Emotions not only arise in reaction to an eliciting event but also while anticipating it, making this context a way to assess the emotional value of events. Anticipatory studies have poorly considered vocalisations whereas they carry information about the emotional state. We studied the grunts of piglets that anticipated two (pseudo)social events known to elicit positive emotions more or less intense: arrival of a familiar conspecifics and arrival of a familiar human. Both time and spectral features of the vocal expression of piglets differed according to the emotional context. Piglets produced low-frequency grunts at a higher rate when anticipating conspecifics compared to human. Spectral noise increased when piglets expected conspecifics, whereas the duration and frequency range increased when expecting a human. When the arrival of conspecifics was delayed grunts duration increased, while when the arrival of the human was delayed spectral parameters were comparable to those during isolation. This shows that vocal expressions in piglets during anticipation are specific to the expected reward and to the time duration between signal and the delivery of the reward. Vocal expression (time and spectral features) is thus a good way to explore emotional state of piglets during anticipation of challenging events.

Encountering the Shadow

The interacting unconscious in the contact between therapist and client, the (self) sabotage and destructiveness observed as resistance in the contact to oneself and to others, is explained conceptually and illustrated with case studies. Therapeutic techniques will be presented which allow a creative and energizing, vocally expressive handling of the hostility bound up in the introject, in which the patient «embraces” their own shadow. The bases for the practical work are the well-known concepts and interventions of Bioenergetic Analysis, and this perspective is extended by reference to the anatomical-functional and the neurovegetative contexts of vocal expression. The tongue is of particular importance as it is a universal organ of expression for rejection, contempt, aversion as well as for desire. The familiar and the new are placed within a specific therapeutic framework.

Cross-Cultural Emotion Recognition and In-Group Advantage in Vocal Expression: A Meta-Analysis

Most research on cross-cultural emotion recognition has focused on facial expressions. To integrate the body of evidence on vocal expression, we present a meta-analysis of 37 cross-cultural studies of emotion recognition from speech prosody and nonlinguistic vocalizations, including expressers from 26 cultural groups and perceivers from 44 different cultures. Results showed that a wide variety of positive and negative emotions could be recognized with above-chance accuracy in cross-cultural conditions. However, there was also evidence for in-group advantage with higher accuracy in within- versus cross-cultural conditions. The distance between expresser and perceiver culture, measured via Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, was negatively correlated with recognition accuracy and positively correlated with in-group advantage. Results are discussed in relation to the dialect theory of emotion.