Judgments of Emotion in Clear and Conversational Speech by Young Adults With Normal Hearing and Older Adults With Hearing Impairment

Purpose

In this study, we investigated the emotion perceived by young listeners with normal hearing (YNH listeners) and older adults with hearing impairment (OHI listeners) when listening to speech produced conversationally or in a clear speaking style.

Method

The first experiment included 18 YNH listeners, and the second included 10 additional YNH listeners along with 20 OHI listeners. Participants heard sentences spoken conversationally and clearly. Participants selected the emotion they heard in the talker's voice using a 6-alternative, forced-choice paradigm.

Results

Clear speech was judged as sounding angry and disgusted more often and happy, fearful, sad, and neutral less often than conversational speech. Talkers whose clear speech was judged to be particularly clear were also judged as sounding angry more often and fearful less often than other talkers. OHI listeners reported hearing anger less often than YNH listeners; however, they still judged clear speech as angry more often than conversational speech.

Conclusions

Speech spoken clearly may sound angry more often than speech spoken conversationally. Although perceived emotion varied between YNH and OHI listeners, judgments of anger were higher for clear speech than conversational speech for both listener groups.

Supplemental Materials

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from #ORL-AlexandrosSfakianakis via ola Kala on Inoreader http://article/60/8/2271/2643501/Judgments-of-Emotion-in-Clear-and-Conversational