Does the emotion in our voice have a lasting effect?
Emotion in Voices Helps Capture Listener's Attention, but
in the Long Run the Words Are Not Remembered as Accurately,
According to Annett Schirmer and colleagues from the
National University of Singapore, emotion helps us recognize words quicker and
more accurately straight away. In the longer term however, we do not remember
emotionally intoned speech as accurately as neutral speech. When we do remember
the words, they have acquired an emotional value; for example words spoken in a
sad voice are remembered as more negative than words spoken in a neutral voice.
The study, looking at the role of emotion in word
recognition memory, is published online in Springer's journal, Cognitive,
Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience.
In anger, sadness, exhilaration or fear, speech takes on
an urgency that is lacking from its normal even-tempered form. It becomes
louder or softer, more hurried or delayed, more melodic, erratic or monotonous.
And this emotional speech immediately captures a listener's attention. Schirmer
and colleagues' work looks at whether emotion has a lasting effect on word
memory.
A total of 48 men and 48 women listened to sadly and
neutrally spoken words and were later shown these words in a visual test,
examining word recognition and attitudes to these words. The authors also
measured brain activity to look for evidence of vocal emotional coding.
Their analyses showed that participants recognized words
better when they had previously heard them in the neutral tone compared with
the sad tone. In addition, words were remembered more negatively if they had
previously been heard in a sad voice.
The researchers also looked at gender differences in word
processing. They found that women were more sensitive to the emotional elements
than men, and were more likely than men to recall the emotion of the speaker's
voice. Current levels of the female sex hormone estrogen predicted these
differences.
Schirmer and team conclude: "Emotional voices
produce changes in long-term memory, as well as capturing the listener's
attention. They influence how easily spoken words are later recognized and what
emotions are assigned to them. Thus voices, like other emotional signals,
affect listeners beyond the immediate present."
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