By Prof. José Manuel Petisco Rodríguez
We all know
the importance of the voice in any communicative act. Verbal and non verbal information is
transmitted through the voice, but during the message decipher process, the
nonverbal paralinguistic component is unnoticed in most cases, because the
attention goes to other aspects such as words, facial expressions or gestures.
The influence of personal emotions
in the voice, and its possible applications, has been studied for a long time.
Darwing himself (1872) in his book “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals” described how emotions affect animal behavior and language.
In nowadays we all know that the
persons’ tone of voice can give us information about the mood, psychological
state and even their mental health.
But, what parts of speech are
critical for identifying emotions? According to various researchers, speech
components such as, fundamental frequency (f0), duration, and voice quality are
important to identify the emotions that any person is feeling . We will not
focus just on components but will discuss some aspects related to the voice.
We all are constantly hearing radio
and TV news about deaths caused by natural disasters, terrorist attacks and
wars. Do we ever have realized how the voice of the news reader becomes more
severe at the time of reading that news? Let us think about shocking and
impressive news, such as a plane crash or a terrorist attack with many victims.
News readers are not oblivious to the emotions transmitted by images and
statements of the witnesses who have carried out these misfortunes or
tragedies. Unwittingly, through the voice tone, lower at that moment, they
convey us that are affected by the event. So we can say that a person´s voice,
whether male or female, becomes more serious when talking about a topic that
make to be sad or depressed.
On the other hand, the deep voice is
associated with a more manly voice, and turns out to read radio news, for
instance, is not allowed under any circumstances to be narrated by a high voice
man. At least that’s one of the
conclusions that have been reached in some comparative studies on preferences
for a male or female voice in radio news (Rodero, 2001). According to the
author, a serious voice tone is the decisive quality of a male voice that
gratify us, but is not the decisive quality of a female voice in the media,
where the experimental subjects didn´t show so radical about these voices (were
not reported to be unpleasant, but inconvenient for radio information). It also
happens that the deep male voice was always associated with positives physical
and psychological male profiles: beauty, heroism, gallantry, security, etc.
However, the sharpest male voices were not tolerated in the study, in the same
way that didn´t represent a favorable social image neither. A man high voice,
being more typical of female and children, tends to be judge as an effeminate
or childish voice, associating such voices to unfavorable male profiles.
It also happens that a deep voice
transmits more security than a higher voice, perhaps due to this aspect
Margaret Thatcher, in her first stint as The First Lady, educated her voice to
avoid very high tones and thus convey greater sense of security. “Mrs. Thatcher’s voice, as is known, was very
acute, and she was convinced to lower the voice stridency, supported by a
speech therapist”, recalls one of the Iron Lady political advisors.
Other
authors argue that the deep voice is used in seduction to simulate and
stimulate desire. Cyr (2005) states that the voice of a sexually aroused person
becomes more serious, and also affirms that seducers deliberately use a more
serious voice tone to simulate and arouse desire.
Other studies suggest that some
vocal traits associated with testosterone have influence in the chances
improvement of finding a couple for men. A healthy and cared voice would
improve or relationships and would help us to strengthen our professional
performance (Puts, Jones, and DeBruine, 2010).
Having regard to the possible
advantages of a deep voice, how should we interpret that at some point the
voice tone of a person becomes more acute? In this regard we know that when
someone is experiencing a stressful situation, his body and face are likely to
show signs of stress or nervousness and even his voice sounds also tense. We
all know that in situations of intense emotions, a person’s voice tone becomes
more acute, since this tension also causes the fundamental frequency (f0) to be
raised. This is because the greater emotional intensity causes an increase in
the vocal cords tension (laryngeal muscles are connected), so the sounds
emitted will be acuter.
As a conclusion, it can be assumed
that voice nuances can convey a lot of information related to the emotional
state of a person.
DATING
Cyr, M.-F.
(2005). ¿Verdad o mentira?: los cuatro códigos para detectar el engaño. Barcelona:
Ediciones Paidós Ibérica.
Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man
and animals. New York: Appleton and Company.
Petisco, J. M. (2 de Noviembre de 2013). La comunicación
en el aula. Obtenido de http://aulacomunicacionnoverbal.blogspot.com.es
Petisco, J., & Rafael, L. (2014). Sometimes voice
tells more than words. In press.
Puts, D., Jones, B., & Lisa, D. (2012). Sexual selection
on human faces and voices. J. Sex Res, 49(2-3), 227-243.
Rodero, E. (noviembre de 2001). El tono de la voz masculina y
femenina en los informativos radiofónicos: un análisis comparativo. Comunicación
presentada en el Congreso Internacional Mujeres, Hombres y Medios de
Comunicación. Valladolid.
Rodero, E. (2001). Los principales errores que debe evitar
todo locutor de informativos radiofónicos: Un estudio práctico. En P. Martínez
Costa, Reinventar la radio (págs. 307-315). Pamplona: Ediciones Eunate.