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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 30, 2025

Author Spotlight: Investigating the Impact of Emotional Prosodies on Voice Recognition and Perception

Author Spotlight: Investigating the Impact of Emotional Prosodies on Voice Recognition and Perception

Published on: August 9, 2024

Inhibiting orofacial mimicry affects authenticity perception in vocal emotions.

Ricardo F Vilaverde¹, Oleksandr V Horchak¹, Ana P Pinheiro²

¹Departamento de Psicologia, Instituto Universitario de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL).

Emotion (Washington, D.C.)

|March 21, 2024

Summary

Inhibiting facial mimicry impaired judging the authenticity of vocal emotions like laughter and crying. This suggests mimicry is crucial for understanding auditory emotional cues.

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Area of Science:

Psychology
Social Neuroscience

Background:

Emotional mimicry, or imitating others' expressions, is common in social interactions.
Its role in emotional understanding is debated, with mixed evidence primarily from facial emotions.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if inhibiting orofacial mimicry impacts the perception of authenticity in vocal emotions.
To determine if mimicry is essential for understanding auditory emotional cues.

Main Methods:

A preregistered study involved participants listening to authentic and posed vocalizations (laughter, crying).
One group inhibited orofacial mimicry using a pen between their teeth; a control group responded freely.
Participants judged vocal authenticity and rated emotional contagion.

Main Results:

Inhibiting orofacial mimicry significantly reduced the accuracy of authenticity perception for both laughter and crying.
This effect occurred for both authentic and posed vocalizations.
Emotional contagion ratings and performance on a cognitive control task were unaffected by mimicry inhibition.

Conclusions:

Mimicry plays a critical role in understanding the authenticity of vocal emotions, extending beyond facial expressions.
Emotional contagion can occur independently of mimicry.
The findings support the link between mimicry and emotional understanding in auditory contexts.