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The Perceptual and Cognitive Role of Visual and Auditory Channels in Conveying Emotional Information

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Abstract

In expressing emotional states, we generate a synaesthesic experience in our interlocutor when we transmit information about our feelings by the simultaneous use of several sensorial channels. These are referred to as verbal (the semantic content of the message) and non-verbal (gesture, gaze, tonal expression) modalities. From an engineering point of view the transmission of the same information by more than one sensorial channel should be considered as redundant. Is this true or does each channel transmit a specific piece of information? How much emotional information is transmitted by each channel and which plays a major role? As an attempt to address these questions, here we present a comparative analysis of the subjective perception of emotional states by the visual and auditory channels considered either singularly or in combination, always in the non-verbal modality. The results reveal that the audio and visual components of emotional messages convey much the same amount of information either separately or in combination, hence suggesting that each channel performs a robust encoding of the emotional features. Redundancy probably facilitates the recovery of emotional information in case one of the channels is impaired. This conclusion is challenged by language cultural specificity, since when tested on a foreign language the addressers rely more on visual information.

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Notes

  1. In the following it is assumed that “A gesture is a movement of the body, or any part of it, that is considered as expressive of thought or feeling” (Oxford English Dictionary).

  2. The results discussed do not consider all the range of emotional labels. Sarcasm/Irony is discarded because small children were involved in the experiments. Children were less skilled in the use of language lexicon and in perceiving subtle changes of prosodic features that characterize this emotion and therefore they may not have been able to identify it.

    Because of the difficulty to retrieve video-clips where the semantic meaning of the sentences expressed by the protagonists was not clearly expressing “disgust” at a moderate intensity level, also this emotion was discarded. The video clips retrieved were expressing too obvious expressions of disgust and therefore did not allow to verify the perceptual ability of the subjects to catch this emotional feeling.

  3. Considered reactions to goal-relevant changes in the environment and therefore associated to basic survival problems.

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Acknowledgments

The paper has been partially supported by COST Action 2102: “Cross Modal Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication” (www.cost.esf.org/domains_actions/ict/Actions/Verbal_and_Non-verbal_Communication) and by Regione Campania, L.R. N.5 del 28.03.2002, Project ID N. BRC1293, Feb. 2006. Deep gratitude goes to Professor Roberto Ligrone for his useful comments and suggestions. Tina Marcella Nappi is also acknowledged for her editorial help.

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  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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Esposito, A. The Perceptual and Cognitive Role of Visual and Auditory Channels in Conveying Emotional Information. Cogn Comput 1, 268–278 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-009-9017-8

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