Tone deaf miss speech nuances
People who are tone deaf may have difficulty picking up nuances like anger, fear or sarcasm in everyday speech, according to new Australian research.
Macquarie University psychology professor Bill Thompson says people who can't hear music accurately - amusics - may also miss out on the subtle shades of meaning conveyed by a person's tone of voice.
The findings will be presented at a music science conference in Sydney.
"It is possible that somebody who is completely tone deaf might not pick up that somebody they're talking to is getting increasingly irritable," Prof Thompson told AAP.
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The study found tone deaf individuals also had "dramatic" difficulties decoding emotions such as fear and irritation.
"It kind of makes sense in a way because music communicates emotions through changes in pitch, changes in loudness and through its pace and timbre - all of the same qualities that communicate emotions in speech and tone of voice," he said.
Prof Thompson, who was presenting his paper on intonation insensitivity at the International Conference on Music Communication Science at the University of NSW, said tone of voice, or "speech prosody", can completely change the meaning of a sentence.
"For example if someone says `It's nice to see you', you don't know whether they're being sarcastic or if they're genuinely happy," he said.
Around four per cent of Australians exhibit congenital tone deafness, or "amusia". |
