Are Vocal Pitch Changes in Response to Facial Expressions of Emotions Potential Cues of Empathy? A Preliminary Report

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that even brief exposures to facial expressions of emotions elicit facial mimicry in receivers in the form of corresponding facial muscle movements. As well, vocal and verbal patterns of speakers converge in conversations, a type of vocal mimicry. There is also evidence of cross-modal mimicry in which emotional vocalizations elicit corresponding facial muscle activity. Further, empathic capacity has been associated with enhanced tendency towards facial mimicry as well as verbal synchrony. We investigated a type of potential cross-modal mimicry in a simulated dyadic situation. Specifically, we examined the influence of facial expressions of happy, sad, and neutral emotions on the vocal pitch of receivers, and its potential association with empathy. Results indicated that whereas both mean pitch and variability of pitch varied somewhat in the predicted directions, empathy was correlated with the difference in the variability of pitch while speaking to the sad and neutral faces. Discussion of results considers the dimensional nature of emotional vocalizations and possible future directions.

The Role of Emotional Mimicry in Intergroup Relations

“…These behaviors can be facial expressions , bodily postures (Bavelas, Black, Lemery, & Mullett, 1986;Bernieri & Rosenthal, 1991), vocal expressions (Neumann & Strack, 2000) or pitch (Karthikeyan & Ramachandra, 2016), pupil dilations or constrictions (Kret, Fischer, & De Dreu, 2015), or gestures such as face touching (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).…”

Social Eavesdropping: Can You Hear the Emotionality in a “Hello” That Is Not Meant for You?

“…Whereas the sad Hellos and neutral Hellos differed from the happy Hellos in average pitch, the pitch of the sad and neutral Hellos were not significantly different from each other (Karthikeyan & Ramachandra, 2016). The detection accuracies, as expected, matched the average pitch differences: The happy Hellos could be detected at above-chance levels when these were presented along with sad and neutral Hellos in two separate forced choice listening tests (HS and HN tests, respectively).…”

“…We found evidence for potential vocal mimicry in women’s Hellos directed to the three different facial emotional expressions (faces from hereon) in that the Hellos followed predictable pitch patterns ( Karthikeyan & Ramachandra, 2016 ); those Hellos directed to the happy and sad faces and to the happy and neutral faces differed in average pitch—higher mean f 0 or fundamental frequency in response to the happy face than to the sad and neutral faces—suggesting that the changes in average pitch followed visual cues of physiological arousal. In other words, there was a significant difference in f 0 between Hellos directed to the happy and sad faces (happy and sad Hellos), and those spoken to the happy and neutral faces (happy and neutral Hellos), but there was no difference in f 0 between Hellos directed to the sad and neutral faces (sad and neutral Hellos).…”

“…In a recent study, we employed a simulated help-seeking situation in which we had female participants ask photographs of a woman displaying expressions of happy, sad, and neutral emotions, for help with directions ( Karthikeyan & Ramachandra, 2016 ). We expected that the emotional displays of the woman—the potential help-provider—would be mimicked vocally.…”

“…Similarly, when the happy and neutral Hellos are randomly presented to listeners (Happy–Neutral or HN listening test), one at a time, along with the prevalidated happy and neutral expressions, listeners will be able to detect these accurately at an above-chance level (HN detection accuracy). When sad and neutral Hellos are presented in the same format as above (Sad–Neutral or SN listening test), we expected only a chance or below-chance detection accuracy (SN detection accuracy), given that the average pitch of these Hellos did not differ ( Karthikeyan & Ramachandra, 2016 ).…”