Those who shout the loudest - Do they sound more charismatic?

Abstract

Intensity, i.e. loudness or vocal effort, is known to contribute to the perception of speaker charisma, but, compared to the other domains of prosody, very few details are known about this contribution. We address this research gap based on 51 public speeches and associated investment-based charisma ratings of 50 listeners. The question was, if and to what degree various level, variation, and spectral-distribution measures related to vocal effort can connect the public-speaking performances with their charisma ratings – in the sense of significant correlations. Results show that variation and distribution measures yield more and stronger significant correlations than level measures, but with notable sex-specific differences. We discuss our results in terms of links between vocal effort and voice quality and with respect to the general status of loudness in charisma perception.