Not only decibels: Exploring human judgments of laughter intensity

Paper presented at the 5th Laughter Workshop, Paris, 27-28 September 2018. While laughter intensity is an important characteristic immediately perceivable for the listeners, empirical investigations of this construct are still scarce. Here, we explore the relationship between human judgments of laughter intensity and laughter acoustics. Our results show that intensity is predicted by multiple dimensions, including duration, loudness, pitch variables, and center of gravity. Controlling for loudness confirmed the robustness of these effects and revealed significant relationships between intensity and other features, such as harmonicity and voicing. Together, the findings demonstrate that laughter intensity does not overlap with loudness. They also highlight the necessity of further research on this complex dimension.