Acoustic and articulatory analysis on Japanese vowels in emotional speech

Acoustic and Articulatory features of Japanese vowels were examined in “Neutral”, “Angry”, and “Sad” speech, using NDI Wave System. The results suggest that (1) Significant differences of the acoustic space, measured by F1 and F2, exist among different emotions. “Angry” is characterized by a horizontally compressed acoustic space, while “Sad” is characterized by a vertically compressed acoustic space. (2) The “front raising” and “retraction and back raising” patterns of the tongue movement mechanism can be enhanced by “Angry” and “Sad” emotion. (3) The lips´ dynamically protruding feature is shared by both “Angry” and “Sad”, apart from the exception [A]. We suggested that the exception is caused by the increase of the mouth opening. The mouth opening and the degree of lip protrusion are a pair of complementary features. (4) In articulatory domain, “Angry” is characterized by an increase of mouth opening and a reducing of tongue horizontal movement range.