Audible smiles and frowns affect speech comprehension

Motor resonance processes are involved both in language comprehension and in affect perception. Therefore we predict that listeners understand spoken affective words slower, if the phonetic form of a word is incongruent with its affective meaning. A language comprehension study involving an interference paradigm confirmed this prediction. This interference suggests that affective phonetic cues contribute to language comprehension. A perceived smile or frown affects the listener, and hearing an incongruent smile or frown impedes our comprehension of spoken words