Analog acoustic expression in speech communication

We present the first experimental evidence of a phenomenon in speech communication we call “analog acoustic expression.” Speech is generally thought of as conveying information in two distinct ways: discrete linguistic-symbolic units such as words and sentences represent linguistic meaning, and continuous prosodic forms convey information about the speaker’s emotion and attitude, intended syntactic structure, or discourse structure. However, there is a third and different channel by which speakers can express meaning in speech: acoustic dimensions of speech can be continuously and analogically modified to convey information about events in the world that is meaningful to listeners even when it is different from the linguistic message. This analog acoustic expression provides an independent and direct means of communicating referential information. In three experiments, we show that speakers can use analog acoustic expression to convey information about observed events, and that listeners can understand the information conveyed exclusively through that signal.