Professor Silke Paulmann
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Email
paulmann@essex.ac.uk -
Telephone
+44 (0) 1206 873422
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Location
2.724, Colchester Campus
Profile
Biography
Silke Paulmann studied English Linguistics, American Literature and Media at the Universities of Paderborn, Germany, and Groningen, The Netherlands. Her PhD work on brain processes underlying emotional tone of voice processing was conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. She obtained her PhD in Cognitive Sciences from the University of Potsdam in 2006. Silke then held a position at the Max Planck Institute as a postdoctoral research fellow and, in 2007, received a postdoctoral research fellowship award from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), allowing her to join the Neuropgragmatics and Emotion Lab at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. She joined our Department in September 2009. Her current research focuses on how emotional, motivational, and attitudinal voice signals shape emotions and reactions. To explore this, she frequently works with external partners in applied settings, including teaching, health care, and parenting contexts. Silke also provides voice awareness training for diverse audiences. For example, for more information on how "teacher voices shape classroom atmosphere", please visit: https://www.tone4you.co.uk/.
Qualifications
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PhD University of Potsdam/Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, (2006)
Appointments
University of Essex
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Head of Department, Psychology, University of Essex (1/8/2021 - present)
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Acting Deputy Dean (Research), Science and Health Faculty, University of Essex (1/2/2020 - 1/9/2020)
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Director of Research, Psychology, University of Essex (1/1/2018 - 31/7/2021)
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Director of Marketing, Psychology, University of Essex (1/9/2009 - 31/12/2017)
Research and professional activities
Research interests
Social language processing in normal and special populations (e.g., bilinguals, brain damaged, aging)
Emotional and attitudinal language processing across different cultures
Motivational prosody processing
Event-related brain potentials
How teachers' tone of voice can influence students' wellbeing and behaviour
Current research
How vocal signals can affect others
Broadly speaking, Silke is exploring the way we communicate emotions, motivations, and attitudes via speech. This includes both the perception and production side. Currently, she is running different studies to investigate the cognitive architecture underlying emotional, motivational and attitudinal language processing in different populations (e.g., different age groups from toddlers to seniors; neurodiverse populations; cross-cultural groups). She likes to apply her lab work into different contexts (e.g., teaching; coaching; business; health care).
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Neurocognition of Human Interaction (PS935)
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The Criminal Mind (PS518)
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MSc Psychology Research Project (PS900)
Current supervision
Previous supervision
Degree subject: Psychology
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 4/3/2020
Degree subject: Psychology
Degree type: Master of Science (by Dissertation)
Awarded date: 5/11/2018
Degree subject: Psychology
Degree type: Master of Science (by Dissertation)
Awarded date: 27/6/2016
Degree subject: Psychology
Degree type: Master of Science (by Dissertation)
Awarded date: 18/5/2016
Degree subject: Psychology
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 9/9/2015
Degree subject: Psychology
Degree type: Master of Science (by Dissertation)
Awarded date: 20/1/2015
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 26/6/2013
Publications
Journal articles (50)
Gutiérrez-Serafín, B., Andreu-Perez, J., Pérez-Espinosa, H., Paulmann, S. and Ding, W., (2024). Toward assessment of human voice biomarkers of brain lesions through explainable deep learning. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control. 87B, 105457-105457
Holmes, L., Rieger, G. and Paulmann, S., (2024). The effect of sexual orientation on voice acoustic properties. Frontiers in Psychology. 15, 1412372-
Vrijders, B., Weinstein, N., Paulmann, S., Soenens, B., Waterschoot, J. and Vansteenkiste, M., (2024). Your Prosody Matters! The Effect of Controlling Tone of Voice on Listeners’ Experienced Pressure, Closeness, and Intention to Collaborate with the Speaker. Motivation Science
Schmidt-Kassow, M., Günther, A-N., Salim-Latzel, M., Kaiser, J. and Paulmann, S., (2024). Perceived prolonged stress leads to difficulties in recognizing sadness from voice cues in men but not women. Emotion
Paulmann, S. and Weinstein, N., (2023). Teachers’ Motivational Prosody: A Pre-Registered Experimental Test of Children’s Reactions to Tone of Voice Used by Teachers. British Journal of Educational Psychology. 93 (2), 437-452
Gibson, MT., Schmidt-Kassow, M. and Paulmann, S., (2023). How neurotypical listeners recognize emotions expressed through vocal cues by speakers with high-functioning autism.. PLoS One. 18 (10), e0293233-e0293233
Maltezou-Papastylianou, C., Russo, R., Wallace, D., Harmsworth, C. and Paulmann, S., (2022). Different stages of emotional prosody processing in healthy ageing-evidence from behavioural responses, ERPs, tDCS, and tRNS.. PLoS One. 17 (7), e0270934-e0270934
Weinstein, N., Vansteenkiste, M. and Paulmann, S., (2020). Don’t You Say it that Way! Experimental Evidence that Controlling Voices Elicit Defiance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 88, 103949-103949
Furnes, D., Berg, H., Mitchell, RM. and Paulmann, S., (2019). Exploring the Effects of Personality Traits on the Perception of Emotions From Prosody. Frontiers in Psychology. 10 (FEB), 184-
Gerson, S., Weinstein, N., Gattis, M. and Paulmann, S., (2019). Infants Attend Longer to Controlling versus Supportive Directive Speech. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 187, 104654-104654
Weinstein, N., Vansteenkiste, M. and Paulmann, S., (2019). Listen to Your Mother: Motivating Tones of Voice Predict Adolescents’ Reactions to Mothers. Developmental Psychology. 55 (12), 2534-2546
Paulmann, S., Weinstein, N. and Zougkou, K., (2019). Now Listen to This! Evidence from a Cross-Spliced Experimental Design Contrasting Pressuring and Supportive Communications. Neuropsychologia. 124, 192-201
Weinstein, N., Zougkou, K. and Paulmann, S., (2018). You 'Have' to Hear This: Using Tone of Voice to Motivate Others.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 44 (6), 898-913
Garrido-Vásquez, P., Pell, MD., Paulmann, S. and Kotz, SA., (2018). Dynamic Facial Expressions Prime the Processing of Emotional Prosody. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 12, 244-
Clahsen, H., Paulmann, S., Budd, MJ. and Barry, C., (2018). Morphological encoding beyond slots and fillers: An ERP study of comparative formation in English. PLoS ONE. 13 (7), e0199897-e0199897
Harmsworth, C. and Paulmann, S., (2018). Emotional Communication in Long-Term Abstained Alcoholics.. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 42 (9), 1715-1724
Paulmann, S. and Uskul, AK., (2017). Early and late brain signatures of emotional prosody among individuals with high versus low power. Psychophysiology. 54 (4), 555-565
Zougkou, K., Weinstein, N. and Paulmann, S., (2017). ERP correlates of motivating voices: quality of motivation and time-course matters. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 12 (10), 1687-1700
Wallace, D., Cooper, NR., Paulmann, S., Fitzgerald, PB. and Russo, R., (2016). Perceived Comfort and Blinding Efficacy in Randomised Sham-Controlled Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) Trials at 2 mA in Young and Older Healthy Adults. PLoS One. 11 (2), e0149703-e0149703
Paulmann, S., Furnes, D., Bøkenes, AM. and Cozzolino, PJ., (2016). How Psychological Stress Affects Emotional Prosody. PLoS ONE. 11 (11), e0165022-e0165022
Garrido-Vásquez, P., Pell, MD., Paulmann, S., Sehm, B. and Kotz, SA., (2016). Impaired neural processing of dynamic faces in left-onset Parkinson's disease. Neuropsychologia. 82, 123-133
Uskul, AK., Paulmann, S. and Weick, M., (2016). Social power and recognition of emotional prosody: High power is associated with lower recognition accuracy than low power.. Emotion. 16 (1), 11-15
Jiang, X., Paulmann, S., Robin, J. and Pell, MD., (2015). More than accuracy: Nonverbal dialects modulate the time course of vocal emotion recognition across cultures.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 41 (3), 597-612
Pell, MD., Rothermich, K., Liu, P., Paulmann, S., Sethi, S. and Rigoulot, S., (2015). Preferential decoding of emotion from human non-linguistic vocalizations versus speech prosody. Biological Psychology. 111, 14-25
Budd, M-J., Paulmann, S., Barry, C. and Clahsen, H., (2015). Producing morphologically complex words: an ERP study with children and adults.. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. 12 (1), 51-60
Paulmann, S. and Uskul, AK., (2014). Cross-cultural emotional prosody recognition: Evidence from Chinese and British listeners. Cognition and Emotion. 28 (2), 230-244
Budd, M., Paulmann, S., Barry, C. and Clahsen, H., (2013). Brain potentials during language production in children and adults: An ERP study of the English past tense. Brain and Language. 127 (3), 345-355
Paulmann, S., Bleichner, M. and Kotz, SA., (2013). Valence, arousal, and task effects in emotional prosody processing. Frontiers in Psychology. 4, 345-
Garrido-Vásquez, P., Pell, MD., Paulmann, S., Strecker, K., Schwarz, J. and Kotz, SA., (2013). An ERP study of vocal emotion processing in asymmetric Parkinson’s disease. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 8 (8), 918-927
Paulmann, S., Jessen, S. and Kotz, SA., (2012). It's special the way you say it: An ERP investigation on the temporal dynamics of two types of prosody. Neuropsychologia. 50 (7), 1609-1620
Paulmann, S., Titone, D. and Pell, MD., (2012). How emotional prosody guides your way: Evidence from eye movements. Speech Communication. 54 (1), 92-107
Paulmann, S., Ott, DVM. and Kotz, SA., (2011). Emotional speech perception unfolding in time: the role of the basal ganglia.. PLoS ONE. 6 (3), e17694-e17694
Paulmann, S. and Pell, MD., (2011). Is there an advantage for recognizing multi-modal emotional stimuli?. Motivation and Emotion. 35 (2), 192-201
Kotz, SA. and Paulmann, S., (2011). Emotion, Language, and the Brain. Language and Linguistics Compass. 5 (3), 108-125
Paulmann, S. and Pell, MD., (2010). Contextual influences of emotional speech prosody on face processing: How much is enough?. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. 10 (2), 230-242
Paulmann, S., Seifert, S. and Kotz, SA., (2010). Orbito-frontal lesions cause impairment during late but not early emotional prosodic processing. Social Neuroscience. 5 (1), 59-75
Paulmann, S. and Pell, MD., (2010). Dynamic emotion processing in Parkinson's disease as a function of channel availability. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. 32 (8), 822-835
Paulmann, S., Pell, MD. and Kotz, SA., (2009). Comparative processing of emotional prosody and semantics following basal ganglia infarcts: ERP evidence of selective impairments for disgust and fear. Brain Research. 1295, 159-169
Paulmann, S. and Pell, MD., (2009). Facial expression decoding as a function of emotional meaning status: ERP evidence. NeuroReport. 20 (18), 1603-1608
Kotz, SA., Jessen, S. and Paulmann, S., (2009). Investigating the Multimodal Nature of Human Communication. Journal of Psychophysiology. 23 (2), 63-76
Pell, MD., Paulmann, S., Dara, C., Alasseri, A. and Kotz, SA., (2009). Factors in the recognition of vocally expressed emotions: A comparison of four languages. Journal of Phonetics. 37 (4), 417-435
Pell, MD., Monetta, L., Paulmann, S. and Kotz, SA., (2009). Recognizing Emotions in a Foreign Language. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 33 (2), 107-120
Paulmann, S. and Kotz, SA., (2008). An ERP investigation on the temporal dynamics of emotional prosody and emotional semantics in pseudo- and lexical-sentence context. Brain and Language. 105 (1), 59-69
Paulmann, S. and Kotz, SA., (2008). Early emotional prosody perception based on different speaker voices. NeuroReport. 19 (2), 209-213
Paulmann, S., Pell, MD. and Kotz, SA., (2008). Functional contributions of the basal ganglia to emotional prosody: Evidence from ERPs. Brain Research. 1217, 171-178
Paulmann, S., Pell, MD. and Kotz, SA., (2008). How aging affects the recognition of emotional speech. Brain and Language. 104 (3), 262-269
Kotz, SA. and Paulmann, S., (2007). When emotional prosody and semantics dance cheek to cheek: ERP evidence. Brain Research. 1151 (1), 107-118
Paulmann, S., Elston-Güttler, KE., Gunter, TC. and Kotz, SA., (2006). Is bilingual lexical access influenced by language context?. NeuroReport. 17 (7), 727-731
Elston-Güttler, KE., Paulmann, S. and Kotz, SA., (2005). Who's in Control? Proficiency and L1 Influence on L2 Processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 17 (10), 1593-1610
Paulmann, S., Pell, MD. and Kotz, SA., (2005). Emotional prosody recognition in BG-patients: Disgust recognition revisited. Brain and Language. 95 (1), 143-144
Book chapters (6)
Paulmann, S., (2023). Neurophysiological Underpinnings of Prosody. In: Neuromethods. Springer US. 669- 685. 9781071632628
Paulmann, S., Ghareeb-Ali, Z. and Felser, C., (2015). Neurophysiological markers of phrasal verb processing: evidence from L1 and L2 speakers. In: Bilingual Figurative Language Processing. Editors: Heredia, RR. and Cieślicka, AB., . Cambridge University Press. 245- 267. 9781107609501
Paulmann, S., (2015). The Neurocognition of Prosody. In: Neurobiology of Language. Editors: Hickok, G. and Small, SL., . Elsevier (Academic Press). 1109- 1120. 9780124077942
Paulmann, S., Ghareeb-Ali, Z. and Felser, C., (2015). Neurophysiological markers of phrasal verb processing: evidence from L1 and L2 speakers. In: Bilingual Figurative Language Processing. Editors: Heredia, RR. and Cieślicka, AB., . Cambridge University Press. 9781107609501
Kotz, SA., Hasting, AS. and Paulmann, S., (2013). On the orbito-striatal interface in (acoustic) emotional processing. In: Evolution of emotional communication: from sounds in non-human mammals to speech and music in man. Editors: Altenmüller, E., Schmidt, S. and Zimmermann, E., . Oxford University Press. 229- 240. 0199583560. 9780199583560
Kotz, SA., Meyer, M. and Paulmann, S., (2006). Lateralization of emotional prosody in the brain: an overview and synopsis on the impact of study design. In: Understanding Emotions. Editors: Anders, S., Ende, G., Junghofer, M., Kissler, J. and Wildgruber, D., . Elsevier. 285- 294. 978-0-444-52182-8
Conferences (8)
Paulmann, S., Vrijders, B., Weinstein, N. and Vansteenkiste, M., (2018). How parents motivate their children through prosody
Brognaux, S. and Drugman, T., (2014). Phonetic variations : Impact of the communicative situation
Pell, MD., Robin, J. and Paulmann, S., (2012). How quickly do listeners recognize emotional prosody in their native versus a foreign language?
Paulmann, S., Schmidt, P., Pell, M. and Kotz, SA., (2008). Rapid processing of emotional and voice information as evidenced by ERPs
Paulmann, S. and Kotz, SA., (2006). Temporal interaction of emotional prosody and emotional semantics: Evidence from ERPs
Kotz, SA., Paulmann, S. and Raettig, T., (2006). EfMRI evidence for implicit emotional prosodic processing
Paulmann, S. and Kotz, SA., (2005). When emotional prosody and semantics interact in time: ERP evidence
Kotz, SA., Paulmann, S. and Raettig, T., (2005). Varying task demands during the perception of emotional content: EFMRI evidence
Thesis dissertation (1)
Paulmann, S., (2006). Electrophysiological Evidence on the Processing of Emotional Prosody: Insights from Healthy and Patient Populations
Grants and funding
2024
Ed-Heads Motivational Assessment and Messaging
Ed-Heads Ltd
Ed-Heads Motivational Assessment and Messaging - Phase 2
Ed-Heads Ltd
2023
Semantic brain to computer communication
Leverhulme Trust
The concept of marvellous voices in marketing campaigns
Speed Communications Agency Limited
Personal Relative Deprivation and Health and Wellbeing: A Multi-Method Approach
Leverhulme Trust
The impact of teachers� voices on pupils� wellbeing
University of Essex (QR Impact Fund)
2020
Educational effects of teacher�s voice training
University of Essex (ESRC IAA)
2013
Motivational prosody: A new approach to understanding motivational communications
Leverhulme Trust
2010
Exploring Implicit Emotional Prosody Perception
The British Academy
