Affective nonverbal vocalizations and implications for cochlear implants: A scoping review.

BACKGROUND

Nonverbal vocalizations (NVVs) like laughs, cries and screams are powerful carriers of affective meaning and trigger rapid attentional responses. Evidence linking specific acoustic cues of adult NVVs to affective perception remains fragmented across heterogeneous studies in typically-hearing listeners, and largely absent in cochlear‑implant users.

OBJECTIVE

To map empirical evidence linking acoustic cues of adult NVVs to emotion and salience perception in typically‑hearing listeners, and to determine whether comparable evidence exists for cochlear implant users.

METHODS

Following PRISMA‑ScR guidelines, peer‑reviewed studies were included that quantified acoustic features of NVVs and related them to perceived affect or salience in typically-hearing or cochlear implant listeners. Twenty-seven studies (44 experiments, 2010-2025) met inclusion criteria.

RESULTS

In typically-hearing listeners, multiple acoustic cues show consistent associations with affective dimensions, but do not map onto affective meaning in a one-to-one manner. Overall, affective perception depends on combinations of acoustic cues and is systematically modulated by call type (e.g., laugh, cry). Evidence concerning salience was concentrated on amplitude modulation in the 30-150 Hz range, mainly in screams. Few studies compared cue-perception associations across NVV types. Evidence for cochlear implant users was extremely limited: only one study provided acoustic analyses, indicating compressed affective spaces and reliance on envelope‑based cues.

CONCLUSION

NVV perception depends on integrated cues whose perceptual roles vary across call types, with more convergent evidence for salience than for affect perception. Major gaps include NVV salience beyond screams, differences across call types, and cue‑level investigations in cochlear implant listeners.