Sounds Like a Funny Joke: Effects of Vocal Pitch and Speech Rate on Satire Liking

• Published in: Canadian journal of experimental psychology 2021-06, Vol.75 (2), p.221-227
• Main Authors: Brugman, Britta C., Burgers, Christian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Audiences; Experiments; Female; Genre; Human; Humor; Irony; Male; Media Exposure; News Media; Perceptions; Pleasure; Prosody; Speaking; Speech Pitch; Speech Rate
• ISSN: 1196-1961; 1878-7290
• DOI: 10.1037/cep0000226

Katz (1996, 2005, 2009) has often emphasized the importance of testing effects of irony in its social context. One social context that has not yet received much attention in the literature is the inherently ironic genre of satirical news. To alert their audiences to irony, satirists can use markers, one of which being prosody. However, little is known about whether variations in prosodic features actually promote satire liking. This study focused on two prosodic features that previous research associated with irony marking: (a) low vocal pitch, and (b) slow speech rate. We conducted two experiments to determine whether a low (vs. high) vocal pitch (Experiment 1; N = 244) and a slow (vs. fast) speech rate (Experiment 2; N = 234) moderated potential effects of satirical (vs. regular) news exposure on perceived humor, enjoyment, and appreciation. Results showed that participants rated satirical news recordings as more humorous than regular news recordings. In both experiments, enjoyment and appreciation of satirical news were mediated by perceived humor, such that there was a suppression effect: while the indirect effect of satirical news exposure on enjoyment and appreciation was positive, the direct effect was negative. Vocal pitch and speech rate did not influence humor ratings. This finding suggests that contextual cues may already sufficiently be at play in signaling the irony in satirical news, therefore supporting Katz's claim (1996, 2005, 2009) that taking social context into account when conducting irony experiments is essential. Katz (1996, 2005, 2009) a souvent insisté sur l'importance d'évaluer les effets de l'ironie dans son contexte social. Le genre intrinsèquement ironique des actualités satiriques est un contexte social qui n'a guère reçu d'attention dans les travaux de recherche. Afin de prévenir l'audience du caractère ironique du contenu, les satiristes peuvent utiliser divers marqueurs, notamment la prosodie. Cependant, on ne sait pas vraiment si les variations des caractéristiques prosodiques favorisent réellement l'appréciation de la satire. Cette étude se penchait sur deux caractéristiques prosodiques associées aux balisage de l'ironie dans les recherches précédentes : (a) un ton de voix grave, et (b) un faible débit de parole. Nous avons mené deux expériences pour déterminer si un ton de voix grave (p. opp. à un ton aigu) (expérience 1; N = 244) et un débit de parole lent (p. opp. à rapide) (expérience 2; N = 234) modérait les effets p