Does flat voice correlate with limited emotional range?

Post Reply New Topic

I was wondering, when it comes down to expressing emotive content, do aspies speak in a flat voice as a result of our/their limited emotion range?

It took me a while to understand that tone of voice actually carried information, that you could tell someone was angry from just their voice. Maybe not noticing the voice information would stop you trying to learn the method and imitate it?

Also, I wasn't aware that we had a limited emotional range.

That's what I was thinking too, that learning to listen to people's voices could help us to pic up on those social cues we are said to miss.

As far as emotional range goes, a lot of aspies have said on this forum and others that they think they lack emotional range. Also, it is somewhere in an official list of criteria that we lack emotional range because we tend to have a narrow focus.

Interesting. I didn't think I lacked emotional range, but then I have never experienced the world as an NT, so I haven't got a point of reference to compare to.

One thing I do sometimes do, is group emotions together where my (NT) friends would actually say there is a difference. But I view that as not having a subtle understanding of my emotions, rather than the emotions not being present.

But if you can't acknowledge or understand your emotions do they exist? I am an aspie and I think that if we can't acknowledge emotion or express it in tone of voice or acknowledge feeling then the emotion doesn't exist.

my voice lacks the tomes and inflections that other can pick up on.
i have been told i speak flat without emotion...and i cant pick this up in others as well.

I had a very narrow (nearly non-existent) emotional range for a while (in the form of chills running through the body instead of the appropriate responses). The cause was depression, not aspergers.

Most of my emotions are very complicated and don't fit the labels that NTs usually use (though I certainly do experience ones that fit those labels).

I experience lots of emotions, but have trouble identifying what they are. I don't know what my voice is like though.

Now see, here we go again.
I'm the exact opposite, but to another total extreme. I have often been accused of "using sing song speech" or over exaggerating tones and inflections. (Yes, I scare people.)

I've read that this could be another form of echolalic behavior, although adaptive and advanced over the first 'learning to speak' echoing attempts that some of us do, involuntarily. I'm no longer echoing just words, but I'm echoing moods and tones from other conversations I've had or heard. However, the control, intensity and correct use of those "moods" is lacking, or at least a bit 'off'. The result is a cartoonish sounding, bouncy caricature of what I'm trying to express, almost like I'm doing melodrama. I've heard myself recorded on tape, before ... it would be embarrassing, if I really cared.

ahhh glad to see her back dirt dawg you high pitched cartoon chracter.

I am not sure how I sound to others...many people have said that I look depressed,tired or angry...whenI did not think I was "feeling" this way at allI dont know if this means I am out of touch with my emotions or miscommunicating them(ussually,in public,I feel nervious,paranoid,bored,
frustrated,over whelmed,confused...needless to say,I avoid the public when possible)

When I answer the phone...rarely...I get,"Did I wake you?"guess I sound sleepy?

When I first read about AS and lack of tone of voice...I thought..that cant be me...I won awards in Drama for "literary interpretation"....but I always chose characters that were depressed or thoughtful
and I always dissociate when I was preforming...I "became" the character and never remembered
doing the readings...so I guess I do a good "suicidal" tone.

I also,always felt like the people around me were "acting" and often over-acting,in my opinion,I just never understood the whole "loud,giggling,exuberent voice"that so many females seemed to have.


On the other hand I have had people tell me that I am "to intense"????This only happens when I am involved in some sort of "debate" about a topic of interest(psyc,politics,religion,history)but internally I dont "feel" intense...I feel "engaged and intellectually stimulted"...weird

I've been told I have no emotions and a monotone voice, and it's true that I rarely show strong emotions outwardly. It would be wrong to say I have no emotions - I have emotions exactly the same as everyone else, but I show them differently.

all aspies have emotions liek everyone...we just cant and dont express them appropriately..this is part of the problem

No, voice tone and emotional range don't necessarily have anything to do with each other.

edit for double post

Last edited by KimJ on 03 Sep 2006, 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

DirtDawg, my son has the same voice. It's one of the factors that one teacher believed he wasn't autistic. But I think it's more of the script-talk, he even dresses like a "princess" and will speak in a high-pitched voice. He uses a lot of jargon that he doesn't always know the meaning of. He adopts the tone and pitch he heard it in originally.
It's becoming a problem and factor in why he is being pushed out of his current school. They think he is knowingly mocking the adults, when he means something totally different.
(My husband had the same problem at his age)

I either get accused of being angry, depressed, aloof or stuck up. When I'm nervous, my throat tightens up and my voice gets out of control. I have a paralyzed vocal chord and can't control my volume. Normal voice sounds like a whisper and shouting turns into shrieks.