The Role of Perceived Voice and Speech Characteristics in Vocal Emotion Communication

Aiming at a more comprehensive assessment of nonverbal vocal emotion communication, this article presents the development and validation of a new rating instrument for the assessment of perceived voice and speech features. In two studies, using two different sets of emotion portrayals by German and French actors, ratings of perceived voice and speech characteristics (loudness, pitch, intonation, sharpness, articulation, roughness, instability, and speech rate) were obtained from non-expert (untrained) listeners. In addition, standard acoustic parameters were extracted from the voice samples. Overall, highly similar patterns of results were found in both studies. Rater agreement (reliability) reached highly satisfactory levels for most features. Multiple discriminant analysis results reveal that both perceived vocal features and acoustic parameters allow a high degree of differentiation of the actor-portrayed emotions. Positive emotions can be classified with a higher hit rate on the basis of perceived vocal features, confirming suggestions in the literature that it is difficult to find acoustic valence indicators. The results show that the suggested scales (Geneva Voice Perception Scales) can be reliably measured and make a substantial contribution to a more comprehensive assessment of the process of emotion inferences from vocal expression.     

Robust Bayesian methods in simple ANOVA models

A robust Bayesian analysis in a conjugate normal framework for the simple ANOVA model is suggested. By fixing the prior mean and varying the prior covariance matrix over a restricted class, we obtain the so-called HiFi and core region, a union and intersection of HPD regions. Based on these robust HPD regions we develop the concept of a ‘robust Bayesian judgement’ procedure. We apply this approach to the simple analysis of variance model with orthogonal designs. The example analyses the costs of an asthma medication obtained by a two-way cross-over study.     

New directions for an organised health care system in Germany: The concept of managed care

Against the background of continually rising public sector health costs in Germany, Michael Müller and Klaus Uedelhofen discuss the merits of ‘Managed Care’, a philosophy of organised health care, having its origins in the US in the early 1970s. Managed care is based on networking all separate groups within the healthcare system, standardising the services and performance, and distributing or sharing risks between all parties involved. Advantages, beyond cost reductions, include quality assurance, greater transparency, the establishment of therapy standards and increased responsibility by patients. The outlook for managed care in Germany looks optimistic.     

REFERENCE POINTS,SOCIAL NORMS,AND FAIRNESS IN CONTRACT RENEGOTIATIONS

How does an ex‐ante contract affect behavior in an ex‐post renegotiation game? We address this question in a canonical buyer–seller relationship with renegotiation. Our paper provides causal experimental evidence that an initial contract has a highly significant and economically important impact on renegotiation behavior that goes beyond the effect of contracts on bargaining threat points. We compare situations in which an initial contract is renegotiated to strategically equivalent bargaining situations in which no ex‐ante contract was written. The ex‐ante contract causes sellers to ask for markups that are 45% lower than in strategically equivalent bargaining situations without an initial contract. Moreover, buyers are more likely to reject given markups in renegotiations than in negotiations. These effects do not depend on whether the contract was written under competitive or monopolistic conditions. Our results provide strong evidence supporting the hypothesis that contracts serve as reference points that shape and coordinate the expectations of the contracting parties.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Lothar Krempel</Emphasis>: Visualisierung komplexer Strukturen. Grundlagen der Darstellung mehrdimensionaler Netzwerke. Schriften des Max-Planck-Instituts für Gesellschaftsforschung,Sonderband

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Parent‐Child Value Similarity: The Role of Zeitgeist

Reporting a study of German 2‐child families, the article focuses on a neglected issue in value transmission studies: contemporaneous societal context. Parent‐child value similarity depends not only on family characteristics but also on zeitgeist, the modal value climate of a society. To evaluate the role of zeitgeist in value transmission, differences in parent‐child value similarity between families agreeing and disagreeing with the zeitgeist are studied, focusing on a core value of modern societies: hierarchic self‐interest. Results show a weak general zeitgeist effect. A family’s relative position vis‐à‐vis the societal value climate, however, is shown to strongly influence intergenerational similarity in hierarchic self‐interest, families distant from the zeitgeist showing a much higher intergenerational value similarity than families close to the zeitgeist.     

Ethnic Self‐Identification of First‐Generation Immigrants1

This paper uses the concept of ethnic self‐identification of immigrants in a two‐dimensional framework. It acknowledges that attachments to both the country of origin and the host country are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There are three possible paths of adjustment from separation at entry, namely the transitions to assimilation, integration, and marginalization. We analyze the determinants of ethnic self‐identification in this process using samples of first‐generation male and female immigrants, and controlling for pre‐ and post‐immigration characteristics. While we find strong gender differences, a wide range of pre‐immigration characteristics like education in the country of origin are not important.     

Eco‐Sociology: Inside and outside of the cocoon

The present article examines how American and German sociological theories deal with the concept of nature and with environmental problems. The results of an analysis of professional sociological publications are presented. Various conceptions of sociological theorists are discussed focussing on nature and environmental problems. It is argued that the social sciences and the mass media are becoming more and more intertwined, increasingly coming to comprise ‘parallel systems of meaning production’ (Gamson and Modgliani, 1989). The basic cultural orientations (subsystems) determine how the concept of nature is discussed. It is suggested to investigate how different conceptions of nature are used in social actions and social situations.