Ik ben volledig te vertrouwen!

Abstract

Earlier studies have shown that it is possible to hear whether a person is speaking with or without a smile on their face, and that this prosodic information that is being sent by the facial expression is processed unconsciously. It had been shown that this effect affects text comprehension, but is it unclear what is does to credibility. To find out, the main question is asked: “Do the phonetic effects of a smile affect the credibility of an utterance?” In this study there have been made recordings of several sentences, all produced with and without a smile on the speakers face. These recordings were judged on credibility by a collection of test subjects. The study has shown that sentenced uttered with a smile were regarded as less credible. This is why the main question is answered with “the phonetic effects caused by a smile affect the credibility of an utterance in a negative way”. When a speaker is trying to convince a listener, speaking with a smile will make things harder for him.