Correlations of the Vowel Formants in Romanian and Emotional Effects on Formants

Abstract

We have investigated the influence of emotions on the level of correlation of the vowel formants in the Romanian language during dynamic pronunciation. We have used in the analysis the sentence /vine mama/ (mother is coming), which is a commonly used phrase in the daily speech, and we have followed the variations of the vowel correlation, depending on the expressed emotion (joy, sadness, anger and emotional neutrality). The main conclusion that we have drawn is that, regarding emotions with negative valence (sadness and anger), the higher order formants (F3 and F4) show a significantly higher correlation level compared to lower order formants (F1 and F2). Moreover, we have found that the variation of the correlation level of the pairs of formants is more homogeneous when emotional neutrality is expressed.