Positive emotions are of great importance for individuals’ physical and mental health as well as the quality of our social relationships. One of the ways in which we can tell if someone is happy is from their voice, but how do we actually sound when we are happy?

Much of what we know about positive emotions comes from studies focusing on broad positive affect or a single positive emotion, happiness. In a new review article, AICE members Roza Kamiloglu, Agneta Fisher, and Disa Sauter comprehensively survey the literature on vocal expression of all different positive emotions that have been studied to date. The results outline specific acoustic patterns characterising different positive emotions. For instance, when compared with other positive emotions, pitch is higher for joy, amusement, interest and relief, moderate for pleasure and contentment, and lower for lust and admiration. The review also highlights the great variability in how positive emotions have been studied in vocalisation research and provides a roadmap for future research.