Decoding Emotion: Speech Perception Patterns in Individuals with Self-reported Depression

TL;DR

This study investigates how self-reported depression affects perception of emotional speech in an Indian sample, finding no significant differences except for neutral stimuli, and highlighting the influence of pre-existing mood on emotional reactivity.

Contribution

It provides new insights into speech emotion perception in depressed individuals within an Indian context, contrasting prior findings by showing no reduced positive emotional reactivity.

Findings

No significant differences in emotional reactivity between groups for most stimuli

Depressed group showed higher PANAS scores indicating mood impact

Consistent recognition of sadness and anger across groups

Abstract

The current study examines the relationship between self-reported depression and the perception of affective speech within the Indian population. PANAS and PHQ-9 were used to assess current mood and depression, respectively. Participants' emotional reactivity was recorded on a valence and arousal scale against the affective speech audio presented in a sequence. No significant differences between the depression and no-depression groups were observed for any of the emotional stimuli, except the audio file depicting neutral emotion. Significantly higher PANAS scores by the depression than the no-depression group indicate the impact of pre-disposed mood on the current mood status. Contrary to previous findings, this study did not observe reduced positive emotional reactivity by the depression group. However, the results demonstrated consistency in emotional reactivity for speech stimuli depicting sadness and anger across all measures of emotion perception.