Extending the in-group advantage: Vocal emotion recognition in first and second languages by Dutch-English bilinguals

Abstract Previous research finds that vocal emotions are recognized above chance, with higher accuracy typically observed for one’s own cultural group – an “in-group” advantage. However, this may not apply uniformly, especially for bilinguals who are highly proficient in a second language (L2) but not members of the L2 cultural in-group. This study investigates Dutch-English bilinguals’ recognition of anger, fear, happiness, sadness and neutral emotion in Dutch (first language; L1), English (second language; L2) and two unfamiliar languages, Arabic and Hindi, using pseudo-utterances. Listeners were highly accurate in recognizing emotions in both Dutch and English. Recognition in Arabic matched their known languages, while Hindi was lower. Additionally, accuracy in English emotion recognition was positively correlated with English proficiency. These results suggest that the in-group advantage can extend to a highly proficient L2, indicating that cultural membership is not strictly necessary for highly accurate vocal emotion recognition.