"Oh Simba, you're in trouble again. But this time Daddy isn't here to save you. And now everyone knows why." The moment Scar, Simba's vicious uncle in The Lion King, utters those words, you feel ripples of cold sweat run down your spine. The cold, calculating, spellbinding voice is unforgettable.
Though it's been a long time since the film was released, Jeremy Irons' voice still remains etched in many viewers' minds. So powerful and convincing was the voice that it is little wonder Irons became so much in demand not just for his acting prowess but also for his vocal abilities. (He has lent his voice to several characters in animated films and has quite a few audiobook projects.)
What makes the human voice so powerful?
Dr Branka Zei Pollermann, a voice expert, believes the human voice is a powerful tool in leadership and persuasion. The role of voice in speech communication is a question, which is as obvious as it is obscured by our writing-oriented society, she stresses.
Analysing voice
While we base our surmise (of a person) on personal constructs and perceptions, Dr Pollermann, psychologist, voice analyst and coach who analysed the voices of
US president Barack Obama and presidential hopeful John McCain, uses precise vocal parameters to do the same.
Think of great orators from Cicero to Socrates, Martin Luther King Jr. to Obama and many will agree that their inspiring and stirring speeches were more than words. Even a rehearsed speech written by someone else reflects the speaker's voice and opinion, and encodes his personality, attitude, style and emotion.
"The spoken word is informative of the speaker's psychological and physical state. It is so because the sounds that carry the meaning [words] are produced by the speaker, not a machine," says Pollermann, founder and director of the
Vox Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, a training and research institute that specialises in acoustic and non-verbal aspects of speech communication.
When we detect a particular emotion and perceive acoustical changes in a person's voice, our conclusion is often subjective. But voice analysts like Pollermann have turned this process into a scientific, objective endeavour that analyses the way an individual uses his voice.
Consider the difference between a type- and hand-written message. The latter infers, as a graphologist would attest, more than the content of the written message.
Her work, which spans three decades, is grounded in social psychology and speech communication. She has published several papers and taught at the Global Leadership Academic Programme of the World Economic Forum in Geneva and worked in multinational organisations including the United Nations.
Pollermann, who measures people's vocal and facial behaviour with an emphasis on leadership development, laments that we are a race that considers the voice too subjective, too ephemeral.
She says, "The power of the spoken word is immediate and infinitely richer than the written word. The spoken word isn't just a linguistic code; it carries information about the speaker's attitude, emotions and physical state. The art of argument is taught in writing, but the vocal aspects of putting an oral argument isn't. On leaving school, a student knows all there is to know about written styles and nothing about vocal."
The power of the spoken word
The voice has always been of paramount importance in human relations whether as part of negotiations during war or in a verdict of a court case. Pollermann says, "Aristotle
pointed out the importance of verbal expression and delivery as a powerful means of persuasion.
Cicero believed that the best orator is the one who instructs, pleases and rouses emotions of his audience. Even in modern rhetoric, the emotional impact of speech on the hearer is considered essential to make it [the speech] hortatory."
Pollermann quotes Winston Churchill: The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.
She says a leader must be convincing to affect the hearer's behaviour. To be convincing – apart from offering valid arguments – he should be perceived as sincere. "He can do this only if he encodes emotions in his speech patterns."
At the Vox Institute, Pollermann analysed the voices of Obama, McCain, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and parts of their non-verbal behaviour in the delivery of statements and speeches. (The institute assesses and coaches communication skills.)
Her conclusion: Obama speaks with greater pitch modulation and his facial expressions reflect very well with what he says. His one facial foible may be the tendency to furrow his brow, conveying constant concern. His fluency, high speech rate and good use of pitch make him a dynamic speaker.
McCain's voice changes little in pitch as he speaks and conveys very little emotion or impact – whether he is addressing positive prospects or discussing sad facts. "His voice always sounds the same. His voice and facial movements often do not match up. And when he addresses controversial statements, he often smiles in a manner that commonly conveys sarcasm, which may lead to a lack of credibility," she says.
Tony Blair is more communicative, particularly when he looks at the people he is addressing at the end of sentences. But Brown doesn't do this. Blair shows emotion; Brown lacks expressions of positive emotions.
What do these examples illustrate? That the voice reflects our affective state and the emotional components of delivery have a strong impact on our audience.
Speech reveals the speaker's qualities
When we hear other people's emotions we sometimes feel the same. Do you know why?
The answer comes from two Italian neurologists Giacomo Rizzolatti and Vittorio Gallese. "They explain the physiological basis of this emotional contagion. When we hear other people's emotions our mirror neurons are automatically activated [fired] and we feel the same type of emotion. They also explain why emotional aspects of speech, including facial expressions, gestures and gaze, can be so stirring," says Pollermann.
She talks about how we respond to a confident tone with a tone of confidence. "Ways of speaking are contagious. Even partners often resemble each other in their ways
of talking."
So it isn't surprising to learn that we can get sad when we listen to a depressed person's voice. Research on mirror neurons has shown that listening to depressed voices can make others feel depressed themselves.
She says, "Again, sadness encoded in the patient's voice automatically triggers the firing of mirror neurons in the hearer's brain. The latter may then also feel sad."
The voice, says Pollermann, is the bodily signature of the three systems involved in its production – respiratory, phonatory and articulatory. "Yet the functioning of these is influenced by the emotional state of the speaker. For a given emotional arousal there is a corresponding modification of these three activities."
So if you are stressed, the increased action of the sympathetic nervous system leads to a tense phonation manifested in the intensity level of the voice, pitch height and the manner of articulating the sounds of the language.
"For example, the prolongation of consonants is related to aggressive emotions and prolongation of vowels to tender emotions," explains Pollermann.
Research worldwide and more specifically based on a survey done by the Vox Institute reveals that people's voices transmit the following qualities: kindness, dynamism, competence, benevolence, implication (sincere involvement in the interaction), indifference, lack of interest, incompetence, impatience and aggressive attitude.
The role of voice analysis
While we have mastered the use of all 196 muscles involved in speech and song, Pollermann states that there isn't one universally good voice or ideal speaking style.
People sign up for a voice audit or analysis for several reasons: to sound convincing; create a specific impact on the audience; teach efficiently or speak on radio.
The study of voice is particularly interesting in the field of management where the voice is used differently in competitive and decision-making situations, explains Pollermann.
"It is well-known that the subtleties of a negotiation bear a direct relationship to the vocal behaviour of the interlocutors who will be perceived as being collaborative or hostile according to the degree of adaptation of their vocal styles."
Interest in voice analysis
The increasing interest in voice analysis comes from the political and publicity sectors. For many individuals as well as companies it has become the norm to take care of the brand image by taking care of the vocal image. Voice analysis is also used in psychiatry and medicine as a diagnostic tool.
It has helped differentiate two types of schizophrenia and diagnosed depression in children.
Pollermann says, "Monotonous voices run the risk of putting listeners to sleep; high-pitched voices with frequent rising intonations risk irritating. In the teaching profession, the voice exerts a remarkable impact on the entire pedagogical process.
As part of quality control some companies organise courses for telephone operators and secretaries because the first contact with clients is often vocal. The voice acts as the company's visiting card."
Voice analysis
A voice analysis includes objective assessment of the subtlest features of the human voice, and determines the vocal image precisely as projected by the speaker.
Ideally a person provides seven digital samples of his voice – three related to emotional experiences, three standard phrases that are read and one of a professional presentation. "One can also record his voice in different languages to compare performance," says Pollermann. The auditory analysis software maps various parameters of a person's speech, including the pitch's height, range and modulation, loudness, loudness range, speech rate (rate of delivery), fluency and articulatory precision, to create a voice profile.
She says, "A specific configuration of these parameters defines a style.
A dynamic style for example would
be characterised by the configuration of these vocal parameters: strong pitch modulation, a speech rate of at least five syllables per second, considerable variation of loudness and good fluency."
She says the analysis measures the principal parameters of a voice and their relation to the most important attributes of one's personality and attitude.
Most attributes are derived from several vocal dimensions. "These are related to the pitch height, intensity, spectrum [energy distribution in the frequency field] and the speed of delivery [measured by the number of syllables uttered per second]," she says.
According to her findings, a rather fast delivery combined with a loud voice can characterise an extrovert personality. Slow speech rate combined with vocal monotony
and weak intensity may characterise the speaker as sad, uninterested, indifferent or depressed.
In addition to the voice analysis, Pollermann analyses non-verbal features through a video recording of the verbal interaction where slow motion viewing is applied and snapshots are taken at crucial moments of the person's speech.
Non-verbal behaviour
Pollermann then compares the voice profile with the speaker's facial expressions interpreted according
to the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to develop an overall picture
of what messages they convey.
FACS is a worldwide tool for scientific and accurate analysis of facial expressions, elaborated by professor Paul Ekman. It detects subtle and micro-expressions of cognitive states like surprise, concentration, divergence, determination and affective states like pleasantness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust and contempt.
Since speech is a result of a joint action of non-linguistic and linguistic aspects of communication, Pollermann urges us to drop the assumption of separate – linguistic and non-linguistic – channels.
"There is much evidence that attitudes, affective stances and emotions in speech are coded. There is a coordinated action of verbal and non-verbal channels like facial expressions and body movements."
In a voice analysis, the FACS report includes a repertory of emotional expressions, degrees of facial expressiveness, coherence between the verbal content of a message and accompanying facial expression, repertory of frequently used facial muscles, emotional constants, types of gestures and the speaker's posture and gaze.
But even without technology, Pollermann admits she can pick cues from one's speech. "As I have extensive knowledge in this field, I can hear the main features such as pitch height, rate of delivery and loudness. Nevertheless such intuitive judgments can be wrong because it is difficult to pay attention to so many different parameters at the same time and listen to the message."
Vocal projection: a voice lift
Once the voice analysis is complete, she diagnoses its strengths, weaknesses and its scope for improvement. This provides a framework to change the projection
to produce a more confident-sounding and assertive person.
Pollermann says voice analysis is important in the modern era where one is no longer satisfied with voice coaching that often lacks scientific evidence. "We need accurate measurement to monitor progress in speaking skills so we can set precise objectives for professional training in speech delivery."
To judge the impact of a change of voice, the software allows her to change certain characteristics of the person's speech through electronic manipulation. For instance, she can alter a high-pitched voice to sound deeper. This new voice with its ideal changes then becomes a model voice to work with.
"Practically speaking, the objective for voice work is first defined so the person can communicate more effectively,"
she says.
Carolina D'Souza is Lifestyle Features Coordinator, Friday
caption
Branka Pollermann with a client at the Vox Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, during a voice recording which will help her diagnose the speaker's voice for strengths, weaknesses and its scope for improvement.
Photo courtesy: Vox Institute, Switzerland
