Impressions of Personality from Intentional Voice Quality in Arabic-Speaking and Native Finnish-Speaking Listeners.

OBJECTIVES: The present study aimed to investigate whether there are differences between Arabic-speaking and Finnish-speaking listeners in the impressions of a speaker's personality as evoked by various intentional voice qualities. STUDY DESIGN: This is an experimental study. METHODS: Samples (N = 55) were gathered from native Finnish-speaking males (N = 4) and females (N = 5), who read a text passage of 43 words using eight different voice qualities: (1) habitual speaking voice, speaking with (2) a forward or (3) backward placement of the tongue, or a (4) breathy, (5) tense, (6) creaky, (7) nasalized, or (8) denasalized voice. Native Arabic-speaking participants (34 males, 12 females; N = 46) were asked to evaluate the speech samples on a seven-point polarized scale by choosing 1-5 from a total of 18 contrasting pairs of personality traits. The listening tests were presented via Windows Media Player and a Genelec Biamp loudspeaker. Traits that had evaluations of 30% or more were selected for the final analysis. The results were compared to the results of native Finnish-speaking listeners (12 males, 38 females; N = 50). Statistical analyses were carried out using IBM SPSS Statistics 25. RESULTS: On the whole, both listener groups perceived the speakers' voice qualities similarly, although the Finnish-speaking listeners linked many voice qualities, especially nasal and denasal voices, with unpleasant and other negative personality traits. Moreover, somewhat opposing evaluations were given by the two language groups for voices with forward and backward placements of the tongue, and breathy and tense voices. In many cases, the evaluations by the Arabic-speaking listeners were more scattered. The speakers' sex also seemed to affect perceptions of personality. CONCLUSIONS: There seem to be similar stereotypical tendencies to relate certain voice qualities with certain personality traits, which is explainable by how the voice types are produced and used to express emotions. Some opposing trends found between the two language groups may be related to language and cultural differences. A further study with larger listener groups and including also samples from Arabic language speakers is needed to confirm the results of the present study.

Influence of the intentional voice quality on the impression of female speaker.

This study examines the relationship of voice quality and speech-based personality assessment of Finnish-speaking female speakers. Five Finnish-speaking female subjects recorded a text passage with eight different vocal qualities. Samples that passed the preselection test for the voice qualities were played to 50 Finnish-speaking listeners, who reported speaker impressions on a scale of 18 opposite trait pairs. Voices produced with forward placement received assessments of femininity and friendliness. Readers speaking with backward placement were considered less feminine, while breathy voice evoked assessments of emotionality and implausibility. Tense phonation as well as creakiness, nasality, and denasality gave rise to numerous negative notions. The results suggest that voice stereotypes have both internationality and cultural dependency.