Exploring the Contributions of Various Acoustic Features in Cantonese Vocal Emotions

Our findings highlight the unique characteristics of emotional expression in Cantonese, in which spectral parameters play a more significant role compared to the frequency-related parameters that are often emphasized in nontonal languages. Our results contribute significantly to understanding vocal emotion expression in tonal languages and are particularly useful for designing emotion-recognition systems and hearing aids that are tailored to tonal language environments. Furthermore, these insights have potential implications for enhancing emotional communication and cognitive training interventions for Cantonese-speaking individuals who use hearing aids or have cochlear implants, are on the autism spectrum, or have Alzheimer's disease.