The spontaneous sounds that we make like 'oohs' and 'aahs' convey 24 types of emotion, claims study

The spontaneous sounds that we make to express everything from elation to embarrassment, such as ‘woohoo’ and ‘oops’, convey at least 24 kinds of emotion, according to a study on people from four countries, including India.

Scientists at the University of California (UC), Berkeley in the US conducted a statistical analysis of listener responses to more than 2,000 nonverbal exclamations known as ‘vocal bursts’ and found they convey a lot more about what we are feeling than previously thought.

The results are demonstrated in vivid sound and colour on the first-ever interactive audio map of nonverbal vocal communication developed by researchers.

“This study is the most extensive demonstration of our rich emotional vocal repertoire, involving brief signals of upwards of two dozen emotions as intriguing as awe, adoration, interest, sympathy and embarrassment,” said Dacher Keltner, a professor at UC Berkeley.

“In the audio map, a user can slide one’s cursor across the emotional topography and hover over fear (scream), then surprise (gasp), then awe (woah), realisation (ohhh), interest (ah?) and finally confusion (huh?). Among other applications, the map can be used to help teach voice-controlled digital assistants and other robotic devices to better recognise human emotions based on the sounds we make, said Alan Cowen, a PhD student at UC Berkeley.

Though limited to US responses, the study suggests humans are so keenly attuned to nonverbal signals — such as the bonding ‘coos’ between parents and infants — that we can pick up on the subtle differences between surprise and alarm, or an amused laugh versus an embarrassed laugh.

A statistical analysis of the responses found that the vocal bursts fit into at least two dozen distinct categories including amusement, anger, awe, confusion, contempt, contentment, desire, disappointment and disgust.

For the second part of the study, researchers sampled YouTube video clips that would evoke the 24 emotions established in the first part of the study, such as babies falling, puppies being hugged and spellbinding magic tricks.