Vocal and musical emotion recognition: development, individual differences, and links to broader socio- emotional dimensions

Scott, Matthew 2025. Vocal and musical emotion recognition: development, individual differences, and links to broader socio- emotional dimensions. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Vocal emotion recognition and a range of abilities relating to music are positively related to positive developmental outcomes. These two forms of audio are also similar in their capacity to elicit and express emotions. However, little is known regarding similarities and differences in the recognition of emotions in these forms of audio stimuli and how these abilities develop, while possible explanations for diverging and converging emotion recognition patterns are underexplored. Further, it is currently unclear whether emotion recognition for musical and vocal stimuli relate in a similar fashion to broader socioemotional difficulties in children. Greater understanding of these factors could contribute to a cross-condition model of audio emotion recognition development – informing future musicbased interventions for children. Chapters 2 and 3 of the present thesis examined emotion recognition for vocal prosody, instrumental and singing stimuli in adults and typically developing (TD) children, while exploring possible stimulus-level factors that may partially explain patterns of perception. Specifically, Chapter 2 explored adults’ emotion recognition patterns for these audio stimulus-types, as well as their perceptions of fundamental affective dimensions arousal and valence. Stimulus acoustic features were analysed in relation to these perceptual measures. Chapter 3 focused on audio emotion recognition in TD children, assessing the possible role of children’s understanding of arousal and valence dimensions during emotion recognition development. Chapter 4 shifted focus to individual differences in children’s audio emotion recognition accuracy, considering emotion language comprehension as a possible condition-general mechanism of emotion recognition development. Finally, Chapter 5 examined similarities and differences between audio conditions in the relationships between emotion recognition and socio-emotional dimensions of internalising and externalising difficulties. Findings from all chapters indicated associations between musical vocal stimuli in relation to overall emotion recognition accuracy for adults and children. Findings in Chapter 4 suggested that these associations may be partially underpinned by a condition-general mechanism in emotion language comprehension. However, chapters 2 and 3 highlighted some condition-specific patterns of emotion recognition accuracy for certain emotions, while acoustic features did not consistently relate to specific emotions between conditions. While adults’ perceptions of arousal and valence generally aligned between conditions in Chapter 2, the roles of these fundamental dimensions in children’s emotion recognition appeared to vary with age and between conditions. Importantly, differences between conditions also translated to condition-specific associations with broader socio-emotional difficulties, with instrumental emotion recognition the only dimension associated with externalising difficulties in children. Findings from this thesis were integrated to inform a cross-condition model of audio emotion recognition. This model could provide a strong basis for future research on cross-condition audio emotion recognition development and inform music-based interventions.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > Psychology
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	29 July 2025
Last Modified:	30 Jul 2025 18:19
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/180091

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