Judgments of Emotion in Clear and Conversational Speech by Young Adults With Normal Hearing and Older Adults With Hearing Impairment

Purpose: In this study, we investigated the emotion
perceived by young listeners with normal hearing
(YNH listeners) and older adults with hearing impairment
(OHI listeners) when listening to speech produced
conversationally or in a clear speaking style.
Method: The first experiment included 18 YNH listeners,
and the second included 10 additional YNH listeners
along with 20 OHI listeners. Participants heard sentences
spoken conversationally and clearly. Participants selected
the emotion they heard in the talker’s voice using a
6-alternative, forced-choice paradigm.
Results: Clear speech was judged as sounding angry and
disgusted more often and happy, fearful, sad, and neutral
less often than conversational speech. Talkers whose
clear speech was judged to be particularly clear were
also judged as sounding angry more often and fearful
less often than other talkers. OHI listeners reported
hearing anger less often than YNH listeners; however,
they still judged clear speech as angry more often than
conversational speech.
Conclusions: Speech spoken clearly may sound angry
more often than speech spoken conversationally.
Although perceived emotion varied between YNH and
OHI listeners, judgments of anger were higher for clear
speech than conversational speech for both listener
groups.