Two experiments examined the influence of affective vocal qualities on attitude change according to the degree of congruency between vocal qualities and the message content (i.e., the extent to which the vocal qualities matched the intent of the message content). In Experiment 1, the design was a 2 (attitude formation: affective base vs. cognitive base) x 4 (persuasive message: fully matched vs. partially matched vs. fully mismatched vs. written passage) between participants factorial. In the initial phase, an attitude was created towards a novel object. This goal was accomplished by directing each participant to read either an emotionally evocative passage or an informational passage designed to produce favorable attitudes towards a fictitious animal called a lemphur (Crites, Fabrigar, & Petty, 1994). In the persuasion phase of Experiment 1, participants were exposed to a negative affective message designed to elicit fear. The results indicated the degree of attitude change produced by the fully matched vocal quality (i.e., a fearful voice) was no different relative to the written passage. However, both the partially matched (i.e., a bored voice) and fully mismatched vocal qualities (i.e., a content voice) generated significantly more attitude change than both the written passage as well as fear. In Experiment 2, the attitude formation phase was similar to that of Experiment 1. However, in the persuasion phase of Experiment 2, the focus was on messages that were cognitive in their content. Specifically, participants were exposed to a negative cognitive message designed to convey negative characteristics of the target. The data revealed the degree of attitude change generated by the fully mismatched vocal quality (i.e., an excited voice) was significantly greater than the written passage as well as both the partially matched (i.e., a fearful voice), and fully matched (i.e., an emotionless voice) vocal qualities. No further differences between vocal qualities were found. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2012-08-14 11:05:05.886

no / The majority of studies have demonstrated a right hemisphere (RH) advantage for the perception of emotions. Other studies have found that the involvement of each hemisphere is valence specific, with the RH better at perceiving negative emotions and the LH better at perceiving positive emotions [Reuter-Lorenz, P., & Davidson, R.J. (1981) Differential contributions of the 2 cerebral hemispheres to the perception of happy and sad faces.Neuropsychologia, 19, 609¿613]. To account for valence laterality effects in emotion perception we propose an `expectancy¿ hypothesis which suggests that valence effects are obtained when the top-down expectancy to perceive an emotion outweighs the strength of bottom-up perceptual information enabling the discrimination of an emotion. A dichotic listening task was used to examine alternative explanations of valence effects in emotion perception. Emotional sentences (spoken in a happy or sad tone of voice), and morphed-happy and morphed-sad sentences (which blended a neutral version of the sentence with the pitch of the emotion sentence) were paired with neutral versions of each sentence and presented dichotically. A control condition was also used, consisting of two identical neutral sentences presented dichotically, with one channel arriving before the other by 7 ms. In support of the RH hypothesis there was a left ear advantage for the perception of sad and happy emotional sentences. However, morphed sentences showed no ear advantage, suggesting that the RH is specialised for the perception of genuine emotions and that a laterality effect may be a useful tool for the detection of fake emotion. Finally, for the control condition we obtained an interaction between the expected emotion and the effect of ear lead. Participants tended to select the ear that received the sentence first, when they expected a `sad¿ sentence, but not when they expected a `happy¿ sentence. The results are discussed in relation to the different theoretical explanations of valence laterality effects in emotion perception.

Vowel hyperarticulation and hyper affect are two characteristics of infant-directed speech (IDS), reported in several studies. Vowel hyperarticulation has been suggested to be a way in which adults subconsciously facilitate infants’ language acquisition, but it has also been argued to be the acoustic by-product of an affective speaking style. The present thesis describes the expression of vocal affect in Swedish IDS at 12 months and investigates the relationship between vocal affect and vowel hypo-/hyperarticulation (VHH) on a speaker level. Naïve listeners (n = 23) rated affect valence in filtered samples of parents’ IDS and adult-directed speech (ADS). VHH was quantified by vowelspace area (VSA) for the same parents. In line with previous studies, IDS contained significantly more positive affect than ADS, illustrating that heightened positive affect is a distinct feature of Swedish IDS. Furthermore, no relationship was found between vocal affect and degree of VHH. However, a significant negative relationship was found between parents’ difference in VSA for IDS and ADS, and the difference in vocal affect for IDS and ADS. The results show that hyper affect was not associated with hyperarticulation of vowels. In general, parents that made affective adjustments in their IDS made smaller adjustments regarding VHH. The results support previous research suggesting that vowel hyperarticulation in IDS is not simply the result of an affective speaking style. / Vokalhyperartikulation och förhöjd positiv röstkänsla är två kännetecken för barnriktat tal (BRT) som har rapporterats i flera studier. Vokalhyperartikulation har föreslagits vara ett sätt vuxna omedvetet underlättar barns språkinlärning. Andra menar att det är en akustisk sidoeffekt av den positiva röstkänslan som används i interaktion med små barn. Den aktuella uppsatsen beskriver uttrycket av röstkänsla i svenskt BRT vid 12 månader och undersöker sambandet mellan röstkänsla och vokalhypo-/hyperartikulation (VHH) på talarnivå. Röstkänslan i föräldrars BRT och vuxenriktade tal (VRT) skattades av vuxna lyssnare (n = 23) och samma föräldrars vokalarea användes som mått på VHH. I linje med tidigare studier innehöll BRT signifikant mer positiv röstkänsla än VRT, vilket illustrerar att förhöjd positiv röstkänsla är ett utmärkande drag för svenskt BRT. Vidare fanns inget samband mellan röstkänsla och grad av VHH. Däremot fanns ett signifikant negativt samband mellan föräldrarnas skillnad i vokalarea för BRT och VRT, och föräldrars skillnad i röstkänsla för BRT och VRT. Resultaten visar att förhöjd positiv röstkänsla inte var associerad med hyperartikulation av vokaler. Generellt gjorde föräldrar som anpassade röstkänsla i hög grad mindre anpassningar gällande VHH. Resultaten stödjer tidigare studier som har visat att vokalhyperartikulation i BRT inte enbart är en effekt av ett positivt uttryckssätt.