People Unconsciously Use 'verbal Gestures' When They Speak
Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry News
<http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/sections/psychology-psychiatry/>
Article Date: 25 Jul 2006 - 3:00am (PDT)
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University of Chicago scientists have determined that people
spontaneously use a system of communicating when they speak that either
reinforces their message or provides additional information that is not
conveyed by words alone. Dubbed "analog acoustic expression," this
previously uninvestigated form of communication is described as a sort
of verbal gesturing.
Like gestures, analog acoustic expression expands people's capacity to
communicate and typically happens with little intention on the part of
the speaker, although it is possible to use this expression explicitly
to dramatize an utterance.
Although researchers have been aware that people modulate their speech,
they assumed that some of this modulation was intentional and was merely
meant to emphasize points or communicate emotion. The new discovery is
the first experimental evidence showing that people unconsciously
modulate their voices in ways that provide an additional channel of
expression understood by listeners, the researchers said.
"I think we've all noticed this form of communication, but have not paid
too much attention to it," said co-author Howard Nusbaum, Chairman of
the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago "Someone will
raise his voice slightly at the end of the sentence when saying, 'the
stock market is going up' or lower it when saying 'the stock market is
going down'." The modulations also make telephone conversations and
words spoken on the radio more comprehensible, he added.
The study on this verbal gesturing was reported in the paper "Analog
Acoustic Expression Speech Communication" and published in the current
issue of the Journal of Memory and Language. Its authors are Nusbaum,
Hadas Shintel, a research associate in the Center for Cognitive and
Social Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at the University
and Arika Okrent, a 2002 Ph.D. graduate in Psychology at the University.
People also use analog acoustic expression when they unconsciously
compress words to indicate meaning, Shintel said. "For example, in
describing the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert McNamara said it brought the
superpowers "thisclose" to a nuclear war." By running together "this
close" in speaking, McNamara conveyed the proximity to war. This message
depends on continuous variation of acoustic properties of speech that go
beyond specific choice of words and linguistic structure."
To determine if these vocal modulations were produced even when not
explicitly needed, the research team conducted experiments in which they
had subjects describe action they saw on a screen and also read sentences.
In the first experiment, research subjects looked at video screens with
animated dots and described whether they saw them going up or going
down. They also read the sentences, "It is going up" or "It is going
down" without seeing any action.
When they watched the dots go up on the screen, their pitch rose as they
followed the action. When they watched the dots go down, their pitch
lowered.
"Interestingly, speakers analogically varied fundamental frequency both
when they described actual visual motion as well as when they read a
sentence describing motion," the scholars wrote.
"The results demonstrate that speakers naturally use analog acoustic
expression when talking, even when there is no intent to dramatize a
description."
To determine if people use analog acoustic expression to communicate
information not communicated in their words, the researchers constructed
a pair of experiments in which the subjects described the movement of a
dot from left to right. The researchers speeded the motion of the dot
and discovered that people spoke faster when they saw the dot moving
faster.
When the scholars played recordings of the speech, listeners were able
to determine which speaker was describing a fast-moving dot and which
was describing a slow- moving dot.
The new work suggests that the field of analog acoustic expression could
be an emerging horizon for the study of speech, Nusbaum said. Research
on gesture has shown how people use their hands to help manage the
burden of thinking and communicating. Likewise, studying analog acoustic
expression could open new pathways in understanding how the mind works,
Nusbaum said.
"We have only looked so far at the simplest, most obvious forms of this
communication. We will doubtless find more when we look at more
complicated, less obvious forms of analog acoustic expression," he said.
Contact: William Harms
University of Chicago <http://www-news.uchicago.edu/>
People Unconsciously Use 'verbal Gestures' When They Speak
University of Chicago scientists have determined that people spontaneously use a system of communicating when they speak that either reinforces their message or provides additional information that is not conveyed by words alone...
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