Perception of affective states in speech in variable musical context

This thesis deals with perception of affective states in speech in variable musical context. We assembled a perception test from 15 - 20s excerpts from Czech films, which contained anger or joy in speech. Then we added different types of music to the excerpts according to Russell's model of affect. Respondents were asked to assess the way the items affected them on the scales of arousal and pleasantness. The test consisted of a total of 74 items in four blocks: 24 test items (4 items with joy and 4 with anger in speech in variants without music, with music supporting and with music not supporting the affect in speech) and 50 distractors in pseudo- random order. The test was performed by 56 respondents. We have found that joy is not as dominant as anger in speech, which is very unpleasant and arousing. However, any music has increased the arousal and pleasantness of joy. Despite Russell's model, sadness also caused more arousal in relation both to joyful and angry items. In accordance with the model, relaxed music increased the pleasantness of joy while angry and sad music decreased it. Supportive music emphasized even more pleasantness and arousal in the angry affect in speech. Contrary to expectations, only relaxed music (not joyful) increased the pleasantness. However, arousal was also increased..