TY - JOUR
T1 - Cultural differences in vocal emotion recognition
T2 - a behavioural and skin conductance study in Portugal and Guinea-Bissau
AU - Cosme, Gonçalo
AU - Tavares, Vânia
AU - Nobre, Guilherme
AU - Lima, César
AU - Sá, Rui
AU - Rosa, Pedro
AU - Prata, Diana
N1 - Funding Information:
DP was supported, during this work, by an European Commission Seventh Framework Programme Marie Curie Career Integration grant (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG-631952), a the Bial Foundation Psychophysiology Grant 2016 grant reference 292/16, and the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT; Portugal) grants: FCT IF/00787/2014, LISBOA-01–0145-FEDER-030907 and DSAIPA/DS/0065/2018 grants, and the iMM Lisboa Director’s Fund Breakthrough Idea Grant 2016; and is co-founder and shareholder of the neuroimaging research services company NeuroPsyAI, Ltd. GC was supported by an FCT PhD fellowship (SFRH/BD/148088/2019). VT was supported by an FCT PhD fellowship (PD/BD/114460/2016). During the preparation of this manuscript, CL was supported by an FCT Investigator Grant (IF/00172/2015).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/3/15
Y1 - 2021/3/15
N2 - Cross-cultural studies of emotion recognition in nonverbal vocalizations not only support the universality hypothesis for its innate features, but also an in-group advantage for culture-dependent features. Nevertheless, in such studies, differences in socio-economic-educational status have not always been accounted for, with idiomatic translation of emotional concepts being a limitation, and the underlying psychophysiological mechanisms still un-researched. We set out to investigate whether native residents from Guinea-Bissau (West African culture) and Portugal (Western European culture)—matched for socio-economic-educational status, sex and language—varied in behavioural and autonomic system response during emotion recognition of nonverbal vocalizations from Portuguese individuals. Overall, Guinea–Bissauans (as out-group) responded significantly less accurately (corrected p <.05), slower, and showed a trend for higher concomitant skin conductance, compared to Portuguese (as in-group)—findings which may indicate a higher cognitive effort stemming from higher difficulty in discerning emotions from another culture. Specifically, accuracy differences were particularly found for pleasure, amusement, and anger, rather than for sadness, relief or fear. Nevertheless, both cultures recognized all emotions above-chance level. The perceived authenticity, measured for the first time in nonverbal cross-cultural research, in the same vocalizations, retrieved no difference between cultures in accuracy, but still a slower response from the out-group. Lastly, we provide—to our knowledge—a first account of how skin conductance response varies between nonverbally vocalized emotions, with significant differences (p <.05). In sum, we provide behavioural and psychophysiological data, demographically and language-matched, that supports cultural and emotion effects on vocal emotion recognition and perceived authenticity, as well as the universality hypothesis.
AB - Cross-cultural studies of emotion recognition in nonverbal vocalizations not only support the universality hypothesis for its innate features, but also an in-group advantage for culture-dependent features. Nevertheless, in such studies, differences in socio-economic-educational status have not always been accounted for, with idiomatic translation of emotional concepts being a limitation, and the underlying psychophysiological mechanisms still un-researched. We set out to investigate whether native residents from Guinea-Bissau (West African culture) and Portugal (Western European culture)—matched for socio-economic-educational status, sex and language—varied in behavioural and autonomic system response during emotion recognition of nonverbal vocalizations from Portuguese individuals. Overall, Guinea–Bissauans (as out-group) responded significantly less accurately (corrected p <.05), slower, and showed a trend for higher concomitant skin conductance, compared to Portuguese (as in-group)—findings which may indicate a higher cognitive effort stemming from higher difficulty in discerning emotions from another culture. Specifically, accuracy differences were particularly found for pleasure, amusement, and anger, rather than for sadness, relief or fear. Nevertheless, both cultures recognized all emotions above-chance level. The perceived authenticity, measured for the first time in nonverbal cross-cultural research, in the same vocalizations, retrieved no difference between cultures in accuracy, but still a slower response from the out-group. Lastly, we provide—to our knowledge—a first account of how skin conductance response varies between nonverbally vocalized emotions, with significant differences (p <.05). In sum, we provide behavioural and psychophysiological data, demographically and language-matched, that supports cultural and emotion effects on vocal emotion recognition and perceived authenticity, as well as the universality hypothesis.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102568386&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00426-021-01498-2
DO - 10.1007/s00426-021-01498-2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85102568386
SN - 0340-0727
VL - 86
JO - Psychological Research
JF - Psychological Research
IS - 2
ER -