Evaluation of Two Methods for Graphically Representing Emotional Content in Functional Phrases
Yunju Han, John McCarthy · Journal of speech-language & hearing disorders · 2025
Purpose : The purpose of this study was to evaluate two methods to represent emotional content in functional phrases in Augmentative and Alternative Communication systems. Methods : Forty participants were asked to match either a set of line-drawn manikins (Self-Assesment Manikin: SAM) or stylized typographic phrases to the voices recorded according to different emotional states in three dimensions of the Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance emotional state model. The participants completed three experiments. They also responded to survey questions to provide their opinions, strategies, and what could be added to represent the emotions and benefits of the two methods at the end of the experiments. In the application task, the participants expressed their possible emotions based on the given situations using the SAM and stylized typographic phrases. Results : Participants matched a manikin or a stylized typographic phrase to a voice with an average of 80% accuracy. There was no significant difference in the accuracy between the two methods. However, 80% of participants preferred the SAM to the stylized typographic cue. The participants selected background color as the most helpful feature in the SAM task, whereas they selected punctuation in the stylized typographic phrase task. In both tasks, focusing on acoustic features was reported as the most frequently used strategy to match each representation to the voices. Conclusions : The new methods introduced in this study can be useful tools for conveying emotional content, depending on the method’s specific benefits or the AAC user's preferences.