Listener's perception of emotion prosody in Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria

Li Ying Lorinda KWAN-CHEN, Manwa Lawrence NG, H. Hannah TANG

Research output: Contribution to conferencePapers

Abstract

This present study aimed at investigating the deficits in emotive prosodies in Cantonese-speaking population with Parkinson’s disease. –Methods: Twenty healthy listeners were presented two sets of speech samples produced with five different emotions (happy, sad, angry, disgust and surprised), one by twenty PD individuals and another by seven healthy controls. All speakers were matched in age, education, and gender. The listeners had no prior experience with PD speech and the PD speakers were diagnosed with mild-to-moderate degree of hypokinetic dysarthria. Upon listening to each speech sample, the listeners determined the type of emotions they perceived, and provided rating to an array of speech parameters including loudness, pitch height, pitch variation and speech rate. -Outcome and Results: Results showed that the overall vocal emotions produced by participants with Parkinson’s disease were less correctly identified by naïve listeners when compared to those conveyed by healthy controls. In the present study, “anger” was found to be significantly difficult for listeners to recognize from the speech of speakers with PD. T PD speech was mostly misinterpreted by listeners as “neutral” and “sad” among all emotions. –Conclusions: The present perceptual results confirmed that individuals with PD were less effective in conveying vocal emotions than healthy participants. Anger was the verbal emotion which was largely compromised in Cantonese PD speakers. PD speakers in our study were perceived by healthy listeners as ‘neutral’ or ‘sad’ based on their verbal prosodies irrespective to the intended emotions. Considering the presence of mild-moderate hypokinetic dysarthria among our PD participants, there appears to be a link between hypokinetic dysarthria and impairment in comprehension of emotive prosody in individuals with PD.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2016
EventThe Motor Speech Conference 2016 - Hyatt Regency, United States
Duration: 02 Mar 201606 Mar 2016

Conference

ConferenceThe Motor Speech Conference 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
Period02/03/1606/03/16

Citation

Kwan, L., Ng, H., & Tang, H. (2016, March). Listener's perception of emotion prosody in Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria. Paper presented at The Motor Speech Conference 2016, Hyatt Regency, California, USA.

Keywords

  • Listener's perception of emotion prosody in Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria associated with Parkinson's disease
  • Perception of vocal emotions associated with Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria

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