Resolution of lexical ambiguity by emotional tone of voice.

In the present study, the effects of emotional tone of voice on the perception of word meaning were investigated. In two experiments, listeners were presented with emotional homophones that had one affective meaning (happy or sad) and one neutral meaning. In both experiments, the listeners were asked to transcribe the emotional homophones presented in three different affective tones--happy, neutral, and sad. In the first experiment, trials were blocked by tone of voice, and in the second experiment, tone of voice varied from trial to trial. The results showed that the listeners provided more affective than neutral transcriptions when the tone of voice was congruent with the emotional meaning of the homophone. These findings suggest that emotional tone of voice affects the processing of lexically ambiguous words by biasing the selection of word meaning.