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The Amount of Information on Emotional States Conveyed by the Verbal and Nonverbal Channels: Some Perceptual Data

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Progress in Nonlinear Speech Processing

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNIP,volume 4391))

Abstract

In a face-to-face interaction, the addressee exploits both the verbal and nonverbal communication modes to infer the speaker’s emotional state. Is such an informational content redundant? Is the amount of information conveyed by each communication mode the same or is it different? How much information about the speaker’s emotional state is conveyed by each mode and is there a preferential red communication mode for a given emotional state? This work attempts to give an answer to the above questions evaluating the subjective perception of emotional states in the single (either visual or auditory channel) and the combined channels (visual and auditory). Results show that vocal expressions convey the same amount of information as the combined channels and that the video alone conveys poorer emotional information than the audio and the audio and video together. Interpretations of these results (that seem to not support the data reported in literature proving the dominance of the visual channel in the emotion’s perception) are given in terms of cognitive load, language expertise and dynamicity. Also, a mathematical model inspired to the information processing theory is hypothesized to support the suggested interpretations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Psicologia, Seconda Università di Napoli, Via Vivaldi 43, 81100 Caserta, Italy

    Anna Esposito

  2. IIASS, Via Pellegrino 19, 84019, Vietri sul Mare, SA, Italy

    Anna Esposito

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  1. Anna Esposito
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Yannis Stylianou Marcos Faundez-Zanuy Anna Esposito

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Esposito, A. (2007). The Amount of Information on Emotional States Conveyed by the Verbal and Nonverbal Channels: Some Perceptual Data. In: Stylianou, Y., Faundez-Zanuy, M., Esposito, A. (eds) Progress in Nonlinear Speech Processing. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4391. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71505-4_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71505-4_13

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