Acoustic-prosodic measures discriminate the emotions of Brazilian portuguese speakers.
Alexandra Christine de Aguiar, Ana Carolina Constantini, Ronei Marcos de Moraes and 1 others
PMID 40767672WHAT IT FOUND
Acoustic measures of duration, pitch, and intensity reliably distinguish six basic emotions in Brazilian Portuguese.
Disgust showed the longest duration and slowest speech rate, while joy had the shortest duration and highest intensity. Fear had the greatest pitch variability, and sadness had the lowest pitch and intensity.
Key findings
01Disgust was associated with the longest total duration (340.63 ms) and the highest rate of elocution, while joy had the shortest total duration (264.73 ms).
02Surprise emotion had the highest average fundamental frequency (284.43 Hz), whereas sadness had the lowest (160.91 Hz).
03Anger presented the highest maximum intensity (82.35 dB), while fear and sadness had the lowest minimum intensities (35.5 dB and 36.78 dB respectively).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used professional actors and students, which may not reflect how emotions are vocally expressed by clinical populations with speech or cognitive disorders. The analysis was limited to a single phrase ('Look at the blue plane'), so findings may not generalize to spontaneous or longer speech samples. The study did not assess how these acoustic differences are perceived by listeners, only how they are produced.
Declared interests
Financial support was provided by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume these acoustic patterns apply directly to patients with voice disorders or neurological conditions. The study used healthy actors and students producing a single scripted phrase, so deviations from these norms in clinical populations may reflect pathology rather than emotion.