The Online Audio Map for the Study
Listening to Your Sighs
non-verbal dimensions of empathic connection
A recent study in psychology, profiled by the Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley,
shows that knowing other people, and empathizing with them, can include listening
to their non-linguistic forms of vocalization, by which they express 24 emotions.
Hear the emotions on the online audio map
The Study: Cowen, Alan & Elfenbein, Hillary & Laukka, Petri & Keltner, Dacher. (2018). Mapping 24 Emotions Conveyed by Brief Human Vocalization. American Psychologist. 10.1037/amp0000399.
Five take-home points from the Study
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Process philosophers and theologians believe that we live in an inter-subjective universe. The world around us is not a mere collection of objects but rather (in the words of Thomas Berry) a communion of subjects. Human beings have subjectivity, but plants and animals, hills and rivers, trees and stars, also have something like subjectivity within them. Their inner aliveness consists of energy, which itself is a form of emotion. Thus we live in an inter-emotional universe.
One key to a promising future is that we humans recognize and care for the subjectivity of others, knowing that they have an emotional side deserving respect and care. This requires a certain degree of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, along with embodied wisdom, is what process philosophers and theologians mean by 'spirituality.' See Process Spirituality: A Very Short Introduction. One spiritual practice, and an important one, is what we might call Listening to Your Sighs. Here "sighs" is a metaphor for the many emotions that we humans express to one another in non-verbal ways.
A recent study at the University of California, Berkeley, helps us understand how much we communicate with one another through non-linguistic or non-verbal utterances such as woohoo, ahh, and oops, along with sighs gasps, screams, and moans. [1] They are called vocal bursts. According to the study, we communicate 24 emotions through these bursts. You can read an article on the study published by the Berkeley Center for the Common Good by clicking here. and you can read the study itself, published in the American psychologist, by clicking here. Most interesting, click on the online audio map and hear the sounds yourself:
One key to a promising future is that we humans recognize and care for the subjectivity of others, knowing that they have an emotional side deserving respect and care. This requires a certain degree of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, along with embodied wisdom, is what process philosophers and theologians mean by 'spirituality.' See Process Spirituality: A Very Short Introduction. One spiritual practice, and an important one, is what we might call Listening to Your Sighs. Here "sighs" is a metaphor for the many emotions that we humans express to one another in non-verbal ways.
A recent study at the University of California, Berkeley, helps us understand how much we communicate with one another through non-linguistic or non-verbal utterances such as woohoo, ahh, and oops, along with sighs gasps, screams, and moans. [1] They are called vocal bursts. According to the study, we communicate 24 emotions through these bursts. You can read an article on the study published by the Berkeley Center for the Common Good by clicking here. and you can read the study itself, published in the American psychologist, by clicking here. Most interesting, click on the online audio map and hear the sounds yourself:
Laughter and the Many Forms of Sighs
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Excerpts from the article in Berkeley's Greater Good Magazine
by Yasmin Aswar (Media Relations Representative at UC Berkeley)
"Ooh, surprise! Those spontaneous sounds we make to express everything from elation (woohoo) to embarrassment (oops) say a lot more about what we’re feeling than previously understood, according to new UC Berkeley research. |
amusement, anger, awe, confusion, contempt, contentment, desire, disappointment, disgust, distress, ecstasy, elation, embarrassment, fear, interest, pain, realization, relief, sadness, surprise (positive), surprise (negative), sympathy, and triumph. “Our findings show that the voice is a much more powerful tool for expressing emotion than previously assumed,” said study lead author Alan Cowen, a Ph.D. student in psychology at UC Berkeley. ...“These results show that emotional expressions color our social interactions with spirited declarations of our inner feelings that are difficult to fake, and that our friends, coworkers, and loved ones rely on to decipher our true commitments,” Cowen said. Wheel of Spirituality: spirituality and practice.com
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