A number of psychologists have conceptualized the communication of affect as three-dimensional(e.g. Davitz, 1964). The three dimensions proposed are arousal, pleasure and power. This paper reports the findings of a perception study where 31 normally-hearing subjects rated utterances said in the emotion of happiness, sadness, two forms of anger (hot and cold) and a neutral state on the dimensional
... [Show full abstract] scales of arousal, pleasure and power. Findings show that the concept of the dimensions of emotion is useful to describe and distinguish emotions; and that emotions with a similar level of arousal, and sometimes a similar level of power, share acoustic characteristics in terms of F0 range and mean, and particula rly intensity mean. It is suggested that this contributes to perceived similarity between emotions, and consequently confusions, especially in the hearing-impaired. 1. INTRODUCTION According to Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum's theory (1957) [1] and subsequent research (e.g., Davitz, 1...