How Emotions Affect The Human Voice - Research Paper Example

The level of ambiguity in determining emotions through vocal expressions is quite high and is as high as the ambiguity in facial expressions; still the psychologists and researchers have given more importance to the research of facial expressions. Due to this less is known of how expressions and emotions are exhibited through vocal power. According to the observations of Hughlings-Jackson, a patient who is physically ill and can not use hands and other ways of expression due to disability caused in the left hemisphere of the brain, uses vocal language to transfer their ideas and obtain information because the right hemisphere of the brain is still operational (Trimble, 2007, p.66). Bowers stated that individuals whose right hemisphere is damaged fail their capability of listening and perceiving accurately as compared to those whose right hemisphere of the brain is damaged (Kreiman, 2011, p.309). During 1996, George reported that the right hemisphere of the brain of an individual gets activated while emotional linguistics takes place (Russell, 1882, p.74). Imaizumi stated trough his research that during emotional changes and expression, the right hemisphere plays a much higher role than the left hemisphere of the brain but the left hemisphere do play certain amount of role in expressions (Sackellares, 1996, p.52). The emotions that an individual is going through at any point in time is likely to effect how he talks, speaks and reads.

Individuals use emotional attitudes to represent what they are thinking and what they want; these attitudes are exhibited through the vocal power of an individual. The vocals that are used to express emotions are partly determined by the culture of an individual and vary from one culture to another. In certain scenarios individuals even try to hide or alter their vocal expressions to avoid representation of their emotional state. For example: An individual might be very loud when he finds something funny while he is around friends, but individuals of other ages might not be quite loud and may act subtle while they are having fun amongst friends.

Individuals even alter their manner of speaking in order to define their distance of communication with another individual. Giles states that the way another individual speaks or interacts vocally with another person depends on his/her relationship with the other individual (Giles, 1980, p.319). The way an individual speaks or starts speaking with another individual is governed by his/her cognitive responses, there are certain drivers within the cognition system that alter the way an individual speaks in accordance to the emotions he/she is experiencing.

Situations even impact the way an individuals vocal response change due to changes in emotions. When an individual is presented with novel stimuli, the individual tends to wait for a certain amount of time before responding vocally to those particular stimuli. In situations when an individual is experiencing stress, anxiety and anger, the individual is expected not to wait before speaking and respond as soon as the stimuli is presented. This can be seen when individuals use strong language when they are angry, this happens because at that time they do not take part in proper decision making and do what ever they feel is right at the very moment.

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