Manipulations of F0 contours in affective speech analysis

Authors: Magdalena Oleskowicz-Popiel, Jolanta Bachan

Abstract:

The study attempts to investigate the role of intonation contour in vocal expressions of emotions. For the needs of the study a dataset of utterances with manipulated intonation contour was created (F0 contour replacement). Manipulations were carried out using annotated and segmented speech recordings, including emotion portrayals, by professional actors. Segmentation of the recordings to syllables and phonemes was performed first automatically using a plugin of Annotation Pro software and then corrected manually. Original utterances for the manipulations were selected from a database of preannotated spontaneous dialogs between Police officers and citizens of Poznań (and surroundings) reporting an incident via 997 emergency call center. 3 utterances from each of 24 speakers, 12 males and 12 females, represented 6 emotional states (anger, irritation, fear, anxiety, sadness, shame). Next, 8 actors, 4 males and 4 females, were asked to produce the sentences in three ways: 1) neutral voice, 2) smiling voice, 3) exact imitation of the original sentence, supported by description of the situation and emotional profile of the speaker. A perception test carried out on a sample of actors’ recordings and their F0 contour manipulations showed significant change in perception of emotions as a consequence of changes in intonation contour.