Similarity of effects of emotions on the speech organ configuration with and without speaking

In this work we propose and verify a hypothesis on emotional speech production: emotions induce physical and physiological changes in the whole body including changes in the configuration and physical/mechanical properties of the speech organs, regardless of whether or not the person is speaking, and as a side effect, this changes the voice quality. To verify this hypothesis, we measured the configuration of the speech organs of professional actors simulating four emotions (neutral, hot anger, joy, and sadness) with and without speaking by magnetic resonance imaging. The results clearly showed that emotions affect the speech organ configuration, and the same tendency of changes in the speech organ configuration was found regardless of whether or not the person was speaking. We also measured electromagnetic articulography data while a participant watched a relaxation or horror movie, and the result implies that emotional changes can deform the speech organ configuration even if the participant does not speak. These results support our hypothesis.