Vocal emotion recognition in noise: The role of intonation perception

Previous research has established a relationship between intonation perception (involving relatively simple changes in fundamental frequency) and vocal emotion recognition (involving complex changes in fundamental frequency) in older listeners. However, typical communication environments for older listeners are often acoustically challenging, raising questions about how this relationship holds under noisy conditions and whether objective performance on vocal emotion aligns with self-reported experiences in real-world settings. We hypothesize that strong intonation perception supports accurate vocal emotion recognition, even in the presence of background noise. In two experiments, older listeners completed intonation perception (in quiet) and vocal emotion recognition tasks at +10 and +3 dB SNRs, with six-talker babble maskers spatially separated (90°, 180°, and 270°) from the target. Listeners also completed an emotion questionnaire (EMO-CHeQ) to examine the relationship between self-reported and objective vocal emotion recognition. Findings suggest that listeners with better intonation perception demonstrated better vocal emotion recognition, regardless of SNR levels. Furthermore, listeners reporting greater difficulty on the EMO-CHeQ had lower accuracy in objective vocal emotion recognition, indicating a relationship between self-reported challenges and measured emotional recognition. These findings suggest that individuals with strong intonation tracking will be better at recognizing vocal emotion, even in background noise.