Emotional McGurk effect and gender difference – A Swedish study
The study concerns the integration of visual and auditive information in the perception of emotions. Speakers expressed the five emotions happy, angry, surprised, afraid and disgusted, saying “hallo, hallo”. Audio and video were separated and combined to form 13 mismatching stimuli. Perceivers interpreted the stimuli in accordance with the face, the voice, or as another emotion. Perceivers relied more on the face than on the voice, and were better at interpreting the face of the person of their own sex. Females were better at interpreting the visual channel and males better at interpreting the auditive channel. The findings are consistent with reports that although happiness is an easily recognizable facial expression it is more difficult to identify in the voice.