Conducing feelings and emotions with vowels!

How's this for an opening line of a new Science Daily summary of 2014 research by Rummer and Grice entitled, Mood is linked to vowel type: The role of articulatory movements: "Ground-breaking experiments have been conduced (sic) to uncover the links between language and emotions." (Love that possible typo, "conduced," by the way--maybe something of a portmanteau between conduct and conduce perhaps? That actually unpacks the study quite well! To "conduce" means to "lead to a particular result." Science can be like that, eh!

Basically what they discovered was that if you have subjects do something like bite on a pencil (so that they come up with a smile, of sorts) or just keep repeating the high front vowel /i/ that has that

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Clker

articulatory setting while they watch a cartoon, they tend to see things as more amusing. If, on the other hand,  you have them stick the end of that pencil in their mouth so that they develop an extreme pucker, or keep repeating the vowel /o/, they tend to see things as less amusing. 

So? It has been known for decades that vowels do have phonaesthetic qualities. (See several previous blog posts.) The question has always been . . . but why? The conclusion: Because of what the facial muscles are doing while the vowel is articulated, especially as it relates to non-lexical (non word) emotional utterances. Could be, but they should have also tossed in some controls, some other vowels, too, such as having subjects use a mid, front unrounded vowel such as /ae/, as in "Bad!"-- or a high front rounded vowel, such as /ü/, as "Uber," the web-based taxi service, or a high back unrounded vowel. 

As much as I like the haptic pencil technique, which I use myself occasionally (using coffee stirs, however) for anchoring lip position with those vowels and others, there is obviously more going on here, such as the phonaesthetic qualities of the visual field. Also consider the fact that the researchers appear to be ethnically German, perhaps seriously compromising their ability to even perceive "amusing" in the first place, conducing them into that interpretation of the results. 

 

Nonetheless, an interesting and possibly useful study for us, more than mere "lip" service, to be sure. 

Finding your "inner Spock" in pronunciation modeling

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

Let's take a little poll: When you face your class, apparently it makes a difference whether you give them your left profile or your right, whether you stand to the left side (stage right) or the right side (stage left.) If not in the center of the front of the class, which side do you prefer? Right or left? According to Owen Churches and colleagues at the University of South Australia, Magill, "Scientists, engineers, and mathematicians are each significantly more likely to show their right cheek than their left, while their colleagues in the arts and humanities are each more likely to show their left . . . " The author of the summary in Science Magazine comments further, "The study could indicate a desire on the scientists’ part to project cool-headed rationality." (There was no speculation as to what those in the Humanities, who tend to "face more to the left," might be subconsciously trying to communicate!) So, depending on what you are trying to project, whether "scientific," analytic focus-on-form noticing or holistic, whole-body integrated emotion-packed, expressiveness, you may be able to better project your "inner Spock" or "outer limits" more effectively. But seriously, where we position ourselves in haptic anchoring, relative to the location of the students does seem to matter. For example, we have discovered that you have to be within about 30 feet and probably in the student's right visual field to the extent possilbe, typically with more of your left profile visible. Why that should be the case is not clear but the fact that the left side of the face has been shown in numerous studies to carry more of the emotional content of the message certainly is relevant, as is the fact that the right visual field tends to be the "hotter" in perceiving emotion. If your students are not getting it lately,  it may be just a matter of turning the other cheek . . .

Getting to "Ah . . . " Pronunciation warm up--Olympic style!

Credit: Marco Paköeningrat/Creative Commons

Most vocal warm ups at some point include a maximal stretching and opening of the mouth into something like a wide-open "Ah . . . ," generally accompanied by an expansive gesture such as thrusting out the chest and throwing back the head a bit. As long as you work your way up to it gradually, most learners will come along with you and at least give it a try. In warming up the class for pronunciation or general spontaneous speaking work, getting to "Ah . . . " is a not a bad benchmark. I was delighted, thanks to the media coverage of the Olympics,  to see that it is now universally interpreted as signifying 'victory!' I am proud to say that of the several warm ups I use, all generally conclude with a "Michael Phelps-like" low or back central  vowel and pedagogical movement pattern not all that different from that pictured to the left. (If you haven't seen the 2009 ETS video I did, it is here. Caveat emptor, of course!) Yes!!!

Smile your pronunciation frustrations (and anchor) away!

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

In a couple of 2009 studies by Foroni and Semin of Utrecht University, summarized by Science Daily,  it was demonstrated that " . . . merely seeing a smile (or a frown, for that matter) will activate the muscles in our face that make that expression, even if we are unaware of it." In addition, seeing or reading a word such as 'smile' or 'frown' influenced the subjects' rating of images that followed, e.g., a "smile" would result in a more positive rating; a frown, a more negative rating. Although details of the experiments are sketchy in the summary, they obviously controlled carefully the subjects' attention, eliminating visual and auditory distractions as much as possible. In that setting, the intensity of the somatic response in the muscles of the face was optimized, engendering something of the corresponding emotion. The parallel to haptic anchoring or anchoring of any relationship between the felt sense of the pronunciation of a word and its meaning and orthographic representation is striking, on a couple of levels. Just the set of words used in setting up change and practice lists of sound complexes impacts both the effectiveness of specific anchoring and the overall anchoring "environment" as it happens. No wonder learners so enjoy practicing voiceless grooved sibilants ('s'), once told to just "Smile when you say that!" We knew that. The researchers conclude that " . . . language is not merely symbolic, but also somatic . . ." and " . . . these experiments provide an important bridge between research on the neurobiological basis of language and related behavioral research." Really, ya think? If that isn't enough to make you smile--that there is finally empirical evidence of that "bridge," I don't know what is . . . 

Pedagogical movement patterns and emotional avatars

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Imagine having Neytiri from the movie Avatar show up to sub for you in your HICP class on the day that the lesson plan calls for intonation and discourse markers of emotion work. Sound pretty far out? Maybe not. In the 2002 University of Berkeley dissertation by Barrientos, a model is developed for providing avatars with a relatively simple but adequate (for avatars) gesture + emotion repertoire. In fact, I am beginning to think that avatars could probably do a better job of teaching some pedagogical movement patterns than could a live instructor at the head of the class, for several reasons.

First: consistent, precision of movement pattern, both in terms of size, position in the visual field and speed. Second: With slight facial adjustment and vocal expression, the avatar can present most basic emotions with the pattern with words--free of personal agenda, high-fashion outfit of the day or other distraction, allowing learner to focus on and either repeat or mirror the PMP and the emotion conveyed--not the gesticulating bozo up front. (There is a great deal of research in the psychotherapeutic literature on the interaction between therapist and client in face-to-face "instruction.")

Even when doing EHIEP work "live," ourselves, we have learned through review of haptic and psychotherapeutic research and classroom experience that the key to efficient HICP instruction is to assume a slightly robotic "persona" at times. (Note the EHIEP-bot logo in the upper right hand corner of the blog.) Any extraneous visual distraction can (literally) kill haptic anchoring. So watch yourself! (Preferably on video many times.) Your students are . . .