Voices Within Voices: Developing a New Analytical Approach to Vocal Timbre by Examining the Interplay of Emotionally Valenced Vocal Timbres and Emotionally Valenced Lyrics

Aims/Goals This thesis presents a new analytical technique for vocal timbre based on the hypothesis that emotion expressed in vocal timbre impacts emotional perception of lyrics. Background information Vocal timbre is a highly salient musical feature that, arguably, contributes significantly to our emotional experience of a song. Despite this, analytical techniques for vocal timbre remain in their infancy. Today, this is changing as technological developments increasingly allow for vocal timbre to be preserved and studied in a systematic way. The present research capitalises on these developments, using them to facilitate the examination of how emotional vocal timbres impact emotional perception of lyrics. Methodology Since there exists little empirical research on the hypothesis which underlies this analytical technique, and since the experience of vocal timbre could be considered highly subjective, it was necessary to first experimentally test if/how vocal timbre impacts lyric perception. To this end, a reception test was conducted to examine whether vocal timbre on its own has emotional valence, and whether this emotional valence is salient enough to impact emotional perception of words. Results from this test supported the hypothesis, showing that participants were significantly less accurate at identifying the emotional valence of words when these words were sung with a mismatched emotional vocal timbre. The analytical technique itself is multilayered. First, the recording is taken as the basis of analysis. Then, the vocal timbre is described, and its emotional valence is assessed, through Vocal Timbre Features (a system, inspired by the work of van Leeuwen (1999) defined and developed to aid in describing vocal timbre and, potentially, categorising its emotional valence). Observations made by aurally detecting and annotating the Vocal Timbre Features can be confirmed visually through spectrographs. The synergies between emotions identified in the vocal timbre and that conveyed through lyrics can then be assessed using adapted diagrammatic vocabulary sets (inspired by the work of Dennis Smalley (1986, 1997)). Conclusions In summary, this thesis presents a new analytical technique that allows one to analyse vocal timbre in terms of its emotional meaning, and in terms of how this emotional meaning impacts emotional perception of lyrics. It also offers a framework through which one may conduct efficient, aurally based, analyses of vocal timbre more generally. This thesis has also shown that the experience of emotion in vocal timbre, and its impact on lyric perception, may be similar across listeners (i.e., intersubjective)

Markers of success: A study of twins' instructed second language acquisition

We examined the association between proficiency in instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) and previous bilingualism, starting age of ISLA, language anxiety and attitude. The analyses were conducted on 564 adolescent Australian twins. Additionally, by examining discrepancies within approximately 100 pairs of monozygotic twins, we sought to specifically identify the environmental effects related to attitude and anxiety on achievement (i.e. with genetic effects removed). We found a clear relationship between attitude towards language learning and proficiency in the second language. Furthermore, the analyses on the monozygotic twins point to the possibility that higher language anxiety is associated with higher proficiency. On the other hand, bilingualism and starting age of ISLA appear to be unrelated to proficiency in the language being learned.</p

The Etiology of Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition in Australian School Students: A Behavior‐Genetic Study

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93553/1/j.1467-9922.2012.00718.x.pd

The Etiology of Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition in Australian School Students: A Behavior-Genetic Study

Abstract We present one of the first behavior-genetic studies of individual differences in school students&apos; levels of achievement in instructed second language learning (ISLA). We assessed these language abilities in Australian twin pairs (maximum N pairs = 251) by means of teacher ratings, class rankings, and self-ratings of proficiency, and used the classic twin design to estimate the relative influences of genes, shared (family/school) environment, and unique environment. Achievement in ISLA was more influenced by additive genetic effects (72, 68, 38% for teacher ratings, class rankings, twin self-ratings respectively) than by shared environment effects, which were generally not substantial (20, 07 and 13%). Genetic effects distinct to speaking and listening, on the one hand, and reading and writing, on the other, were evident for the twin selfratings. We discuss the limitations and implications of these findings, and point to research questions that could profitably be addressed in future studies

Eye movements and implicit source memory

During source memory studies, knowledge of some detail about the context of a previously experienced item or event is tested. Here, participants attended to different objects presented at different quadrants on a screen. In a later test phase, a single object was presented in all four quadrants, and participants verbally reported whether the object was new or previously seen (item recognition), and if it was previously seen, they indicated the original screen location (source memory recollection). We combined this test with eye-tracking to determine whether attention to an object during encoding would correlate with later recognition of the object and recall of its source location, and whether eye movements at test can reveal attention to the correct source location in the absence of correct explicit verbal responses. Number of fixations on an object during encoding was not related to later object recognition or source recollection. However, when participants correctly recognised an object but incorrectly indicated the source information, there were significantly more fixations on the correct source location than on incorrect, non-selected locations. Also, when participants correctly recognized an object but said they could not recall the source information, there were significantly more fixations on the correct source location. These findings provide evidence that accurate source information can be expressed through gaze direction even when explicit recollection or verbal expression of that information is incorrect or has failed

Gaze direction reveals implicit item and source memory in older adults.

This study looked at eye movements in relation to source memory in older adults. Participants first studied images of common objects appearing in different quadrants of a screen. After a delay, they were shown cues one at a time presented in all four quadrants. Participants stated whether or not the cue had been seen before and in which location. Participants also rated level of confidence in their responses. In trials where participants either claimed they have not seen a previously presented cue or placed it in an incorrect location, they looked significantly more at the correct quadrant. The proportion of time looking at the correct quadrants during incorrect responses was not related to confidence ratings. These results suggest that eye gaze during the memory task does not reflect memory retrieval below the threshold of verbal report. They instead point to an implicit form of source memory in humans that is accessible to eye movements but not to verbal responses

Graded expression of source memory revealed by analysis of gaze direction.

During source memory studies, knowledge of some detail about the context of a previously experienced item or event is tested. Here, participants attended to different objects presented at different quadrants on a screen. In a later test phase, a single object was presented in all four quadrants, and participants verbally reported whether the object was new or previously seen (item recognition), and if it was previously seen, they indicated the original screen location (source memory). We combined this test with eye-tracking to determine whether attention to an object during encoding would correlate with later recognition of the object and memory of its source location, and whether eye movements at test can reveal attention to the correct source location in the absence of correct explicit verbal responses. The amount of time spent looking at an object during encoding was not related to later object recognition or source recollection. However, we found that eye movements at test reveal retention of source information about an object in the absence of accurate retrieval of source information as assessed by verbal response. When participants correctly recognized an object but incorrectly indicated the source information, significantly more time was spent looking at the correct source location than to incorrect, non-selected locations. Moreover, when participants correctly recognized an object but said they could not remember the source information, significantly more time was spent looking at the correct source location. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that eye movements are sensitive to attention or other graded mental processes which can underlie the retrieval of source memories that can then be expressed verbally in a thresholded manner

L'Auto-vélo : automobilisme, cyclisme, athlétisme, yachting, aérostation, escrime, hippisme / dir. Henri Desgranges

27 septembre 19201920/09/27 (A21,N7226)