Bilinguals’ inference of emotions in ambiguous speech

Aims and objectives: This study aimed to establish whether adults have a preference for semantics or emotional prosody (EP) when identifying the emotional valence of an utterance, and whether this is affected by bilingualism. Additionally, we wanted to determine whether the prosodic bias (PB) found in bilingual children in a previous study persisted through adulthood. Design: Sixty-three adults with varying levels of bilingualism identified the emotional valence of words with positive, negative or neutral semantics expressed with a positive, negative, or neutral EP. In Part 1, participants chose whichever cue felt most natural to them (out of semantics or prosody). In Part 2, participants were instructed to identify either the semantics or the prosody in different experimental blocks. Data and analysis: In Part 1, a one-sample t-test was used to determine whether one type of cue was preferred. Furthermore, a linear regression was used with the participants’ language profile score (measured with the Language and Social Background Questionnaire, LSBQ) as a predictor and how often prosody was chosen as the outcome variable. In Part 2, we ran a linear regression with the LSBQ score as the predictor and a PB score as the outcome. Findings: In Part 1, participants chose semantics and prosody equally often, and the LSBQ score did not predict a preference for prosody. In Part 2, higher LSBQ scores lead to a larger PB. Originality: This is the first study to show that bilingual adults, like children, have an increased bias towards EP the more bilingual they are, but only under constrained experimental conditions. Implications: This study was the first to empirically investigate the conscious choice of emotional cues in speech. Furthermore, we discuss theoretical implications of our results in relation to methodological limitations with experimental settings in bilingual research.