On the development of the child's ability to identify affective state from the prosodic features of adult speech

• The ability to judge emotional states (anger, surprise, sadness and happiness) from the non- verbal components of speech was studied in 169 children aged from 4 to 10 years (20- 43 children per group, one group for each year of age except 9) in Uppsala, Sweden . 19 adults were used as a control group. The stimulus material consisted of speech samples, in which a male and a female actor had been instructed to portray the indicated emotional states.In general, the ability to make correct judgements increased with increased age. This was especially the case with the recognition of "surprise", "sadness" and "happiness", for which emotions increasing improvements were seen up to t he age of 8, where the ability was close to that of the adult controls. The ability to recognise an angry voice appeared to be well developed already at the age of 4.The most difficult item was the male voice portraying "happiness", where the children did not show and increase in their scores until the age of 8. Girls were found to have a more developed ability to identify the expressed emotions in all age groups.In most cases where erroneous judgements were made, the male voice was judged to be angry and the female to be sad, irrespective of intended emotion and of the sex of the child.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Språkvetenskap Barnspråk

Psykologi Barn Ungdom

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

rap (subject category)