We observe what happens in the brain when you say "I love you"

Gláucia Laís Salomão is a PhD in linguistics and a voice researcher with a background in phonetics and music. Using the advanced technology of the Stockholm University Brain Imaging Centre, SUBIC, a so-called magnetic resonance imaging scanner, she maps what happens in the brain when we humans express emotions with our voices and when we experience emotions that we perceive in the voices of others.

If we couldn't share emotions with each other, we wouldn't be able to co-operate in the way we do; we might not even survive as a species.

Gláucia Laís Salomão and her team in the MRI room at SUBIC. Photo: Björn Terring/Stockholm University

"Being able to communicate emotions has an important social function. If we couldn't share emotions with each other, we wouldn't be able to cooperate in the way we do; we might not even survive as a species. I am particularly passionate about the communicative power of sound. I wonder what happens when we transmit emotions through voice sounds and am curious about how we humans can share and also experience the emotions of others."

What do you want to explore?

"In the experiment itself, we investigate what happens in the brain when we experience emotions conveyed through familiar, spontaneous, non-verbal, short sounds, such as laughter, screams and sighs. You can think of it as the sound equivalent of facial expressions. They are short, maybe less than a second, but really effective in communicating emotions."

Why are you so interested in sound?

"I guess I've always had an interest in how emotions can be expressed through sound. I play both piano and guitar, I've done some conducting and I'm currently taking singing lessons. As a musician, it is clear that you can have the right technique to sound good, but technique alone is not enough to evoke emotions or to provoke the listener to feel what I feel."

Here, so many different areas of expertise come together, including physicists, engineers, linguists, and psychologists. Knowledge from both scientific and humanistic disciplines is intertwined.

What is it like to be a linguist at SUBIC in a transnational environment?

"SUBIC is an interdisciplinary environment that is absolutely crucial for conducting the kind of research I do. It brings together so many different areas of expertise, including physicists, engineers, linguists, and psychologists. Knowledge from both scientific and humanistic disciplines is intertwined. To process magnetic resonance imaging that reflects brain function, we need to use complex mathematical and statistical methods. Interpreting brain images requires knowledge of anatomy and physiology and also involves analysing complex so-called multivariate data. We use a range of machine learning techniques to understand and manage them."

Gláucia Laís Salomão. Photo: Sören Andersson

Do you want to know more about Gláucia and her research?

Read more about Gláucia

Read more about Gláucia's research project:

Listening to other's emotions. Neural representations of emphaty arising from emotional voices

A new study aims to understand the motor behavior underlying emotional voices

 

What does collaboration with other researchers mean to you?

"When it comes to brain research, it is almost impossible not to collaborate. In parallel with our development at SUBIC, the international collaboration where we share data between brain researchers all over the world is constantly evolving. We researchers must complement each other in terms of knowledge and be open to new perspectives if it is to lead anywhere. There are many inputs and everything has to be connected. Just like in the brain."

And how do we actually react to 'I love you'?

It depends. It's not just what you say but how you say it that's important. Because the entire voice production apparatus is embedded in the human body, the sound of the voice is influenced by how the nervous system reacts. In anger, the so-called vocal folds in the speech organ close quickly and forcefully. This creates a sound with strong acoustic energy at a high frequency. We perceive such a voice as more 'tense' and tend to associate it with an 'anger'.

"In happiness and love, the power level of the voice becomes lower. The voice is then perceived as "softer". So the answer to the question is: if the sound of the voice matches what is being said, in this case "I love you", the brain will perceive it as genuine and you are more likely to get other people to share the feeling.