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Emotion Expression: The Evolutionary Heritage in the Human Voice

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Interdisciplinary Anthropology

Abstract

The human voice is not only the carrier of spoken language, but also an important medium to express the emotional state of the speaker. This chapter reviews the structure of vocal emotion expression in humans and other mammal species, the influence of experience on the expression of emotions in preverbal human children, and the effects of culture on the recognition of emotion expression in the voice by adult humans. In general, the emotion expression in humans and other mammals follows largely similar patterns, supporting the view that nonverbal vocal expression of emotions in humans is part of our species’ evolutionary heritage. Further evidence for this assumption comes from acoustic analyses of normally hearing compared to profoundly hearing impaired infants, which revealed similar patterns of emotion expression within specific utterances, suggesting that auditory experience is not a prerequisite to develop the typical expression patterns. The largest differences between hearing and hearing impaired infants concerned the sequential composition of calls and the onset of babbling. Despite these general principles, the cultural background possibly contributes to emotion expression and emotion perception in adult humans. Listeners from different cultural backgrounds revealed similar patterns of recognition and confusion of play-acted and authentic emotions. At the same time, however, cultural effects could be found in the differential biases regarding the misattribution of different emotions. In sum, the emotion expression in the human voice can best be conceived as a complex interaction between innate patterns and cultural conventions.

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  1. Cognitive Ethology Lab, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany

    Elisabeth Scheiner & Julia Fischer

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  1. Elisabeth Scheiner
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  2. Julia Fischer
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Correspondence to Julia Fischer .

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  1. Institut für Philosophie, Universität Jena, Zwaetzengasse 9, Jena, 07743, Germany

    Wolfgang Welsch

  2. Abt. Neurophysiologie, MPI für Hirnforschung, Deutschordenstr. 46, Frankfurt/Main, 60528, Germany

    Wolf J. Singer

  3. Institut für Philosophie, Universität Jena, Zwaetzengasse 9, Jena, 07743, Germany

    André Wunder

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Scheiner, E., Fischer, J. (2011). Emotion Expression: The Evolutionary Heritage in the Human Voice. In: Welsch, W., Singer, W., Wunder, A. (eds) Interdisciplinary Anthropology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11668-1_5

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