Modulation of Relative Fundamental Frequency During Transient Emotional States

Relative fundamental frequency, a measure of the muscular and aerodynamic influences of voicing offset and onset of vowel-voiceless consonant-vowel production, has been known to reflect conditions of vocal hyperfunction and serves as a measure that might be influenced by transient emotional states. Twenty-six vocally healthy females underwent aversive, neutral, and positive emotional induction while saying /afa/. Results show that individuals had a steeper fundamental frequency decline on the 10 cycles of offset of vocalization during positive and neutral conditions than aversive conditions. Individuals had an overall elevated fundamental frequency curve during the 10 cycles of vocalization onset in positive conditions. Findings suggest that the vocal offset reflected reduced muscular engagement in positive and neutral conditions compared with aversive conditions, suggesting that aversive emotional influence on voicing has a muscular component.