The Role of Different Intonation Contours in Social Perception - Acta Universitatis Sapientiae

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 16, 2 (2024) 144–160

DOI: 10.47745/ausp-2024-0021

Abstract. An extensive body of research has shown that speech plays an important role in social perception.Based on the acoustic quality and prosodic features of speech, listeners make inferences of the speaker’s emotional states, attitudes, personality traits, and other characteristics. Fundamental frequency (f0) and intonation seem to be crucial parameters in forming an impression about the speaker. In the present study, a female speaker, an amateur actress, read 10 Hungarian sentences. We implemented a small change to the sentences, i.e.a 2-semitone decrease of the peak frequency in the intonation contour, technically, on the stressed syllable. Thus, we had the original and a manipulated version of each sentence. Two listener groups were asked to rate the imaginary speaker using a 7-point semantic differential scale with 6 pairs of bipolar adjectives (not natural–natural, uncertain–self-confident, sad–happy, nervous–calm, unpleasant–pleasant, pessimistic– optimistic).Ratings of the original and the manipulated versions of the same sentence did not differ significantly in general. However, there were several cases where differences were significant (p < .05) or approached the conventional level of significance (p < .01), especially in the dimension of “optimism”, suggesting a less favourable state of the speaker when sentences with lowered intonation peak were heard.

Keywords.intonation, fundamental frequency, Praat, social perception