Cognitive interactions between facial expression and vocal intonation in emotional judgment

Toshiko Mochizuki
Poster
Last modified: 2008-05-13

Abstract


Purpose: We investigated how people integrate emotions of the face and vocal intonation, which are congruent or incongruent in emotional contents. Method: Sixteen elderly people (age: 65–80) and fifteen youth (age: 21–22) participated in the experiment. Moving images of faces and voices expressing a neutral message by a few words (I get home, for example) were presented simultaneously with certain emotional face and vocal intonation.Observers judged the real significance of emotion exhibited. Results: When facial and vocal emotions were incongruent, (1) face was a more dominant cue than voice for elderly people, but the youth appropriately used both, depending on the emotion, and (2) incongruent expressions were judged more frequently by elderly people as a new emotion of neither the face nor voice. For instance, in the cases that facial expression was anger, and vocal intonation was in happy or sad or surprising tone, participants judged the real emotion as a new emotion of disgust.

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