Charismatic Speech
Andrew Rosenberg
Spoken Language Processing
4/27/04
Overview
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Background
Previous Work
Speech Study
Text Study
Conclusion & Future Work
Overview
• Background
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What is charisma?
Does charismatic speech exist?
Charismatic Speech vs. Emotional Speech
Why study charismatic speech?
Previous Work
Speech Study
Text Study
Conclusion & Future Work
Background - What is charisma?
(What do I mean by charisma?)
• Not “closed door” charisma.
• Rather, political (or religious) charisma
– The ability to attract, and retain followers by virtue of
personality as opposed to tradition or laws. (Weber)
• E.g. Ghandi, Hitler, Che Guevara.
• Charismatic speech: Speech that encourages
listeners to perceive the speaker as “charismatic”.
Background - Is there such a
thing as charismatic speech?
• Pro:
– Potential charismatic leaders must communicate with
would-be followers.
– Charismatic leaders have historically had a particular
gift at public speaking
• Hitler, MLK Jr., Castro.
• Con:
– Charisma as a relationship between leader and
followers.
– The mythologizing of a charismatic leader extends
beyond public address.
Background - Charismatic speech
vs. Emotional speech
• Similarities
– Paralinguistic phenomena.
• Not represented the traditional syntax-semantics-pragmatics
paradigm.
– Can be studied in the same way via perceptual studies
• Differences
– Charisma is not a “speaker state”.
– Social context of charisma.
– Personal attitudes towards charisma.
Background - Why study
charismatic speech?
• General scientific interest.
• Feedback system for politicians and
academic instructors.
• Identification of potential charismatic
leaders
• Automatic generation of “charismatic-like”
speech
Overview
• Background
• Previous Work
– C. Tuppen, “Dimensions of Communicator Credibility:
An oblique solution.”
– A. Hamilton & B. Stewart, “Extending an Information
Processing Model of Language Intensity Effects”
• Speech Study
• Text Study
• Conclusion & Future Work
Previous Work - Tuppen
• Christopher Tuppen, “Dimensions of
communicator credibility: An oblique solution”,
Speech Monographs(41), 1974.
• 101 subjects read a booklet containing ten
character sketches.
– Student, professor, ad exec, farmer, unethical businessman, doctor, ret.
Army officer, man of religion, hippie, tv personality.
– Topics: how much sleep you need, marijuana and health, duration of US
envolvement in SE Asia, and tuition at State Colleges.
• The subjects rated each communicator on 64
scales.
– 28 bipolar adjective, 36 seven-point Likert scales.
Previous Work - Tuppen (2)
• The subject ratings were grouped using “cluster
analysis”
• Cluster 1: “Trustworthiness”
– Trustworthy, honest, safe, dependable, reputable, etc.
• Cluster 2: “Expertise”
– Qualified, skilled, informed, experienced, etc.
• Cluster 3: “Dynamism”
– Bold, active, aggressive, strong, emphatic, etc.
Previous Work - Tuppen (3)
• Cluster 4: “Co-orientation”
– Created a favorable impression, stood for a group
whose interests coincided with the rater, represented
acceptable values, was someone to whom the rater
would like to listen.
• Cluster 5: “Charisma”
– Convincing, reasonable, right, logical, believable,
intelligent, whose opinion is respected, whose
background is admired, in whom the reader has
confidence.
Previous Work Hamilton & Stewart (1)
• M. Hamilton & B. Stewart, “Extending an
Information Processing Model of Language
Intensity Effects”, Communication
Quarterly (41:2), 1993
• “How forceful should my language be in
order to maximize my social influence?”
– I.e., what is the relationship between language
intensity and persuasion.
Previous Work Hamilton & Stewart (2)
• Intensity is expressed by manipulating two
language features: emotionality and specificity.
– Emotionality: degree of affect present in the language.
Ranges from stolid displays to histrionics.
– Specificity: degree to which precise reference is made
to attitude objects.
• Attitude change is a product of message
discrepancy, perceived source credibility and
message strength.
a 
fsd
c
a - attitude, f - force, s - source credibility
d - discrepancy, c - counterargument
 - impact parameter
Previous Work Hamilton & Stewart (3)
• 518 subjects presented with a “persuasive
message” with manipulated intensity.
• The message’s language was evaluated on 11
terms using a 7-point bipolar adjective scale.
– Intense, strong, active, extreme, forceful, emotional,
vivid,vigorous, powerful, assertive, potent
• Perceived source competence, trustworthiness and
dynamism were assessed.
Previous Work Hamilton & Stewart (4)
• Correlations between subject ratings and
manipulated features were calculated using
a causal modeling program, PATH.
.42
Extremity of
position
-.32
Manipulated .64
intensity
Perceived .78
intensity
.52
Source
Source
dynamism
competence
-.18
“charisma sequence”
.73
Source
trustworthiness
Overview
• Background
• Previous Work
• Speech Study
– Questions
– Description
– Results
• Text Study
• Conclusion & Future Work
Speech Study - Questions
• Do subjects agree about what is
charismatic?
• What do subjects mean by charismatic?
• What makes speech charismatic?
Speech Study - Description
• Subjects: Friends and colleagues, no
incentive
• Interface: Presentation of 45 short speech
segments (2-30secs) via a web form
• Dependent variables: 5-point Likert scale
ratings of agreement on 26 statements.
• Duration: avg. 1.5 hrs, min 45m, max ~3hrs
Speech Study - Description
• Interface
– http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~amaxwell/survey/
Speech Study - Description
• Materials: 45 tokens of American political speech
• Speakers: 9 Candidates for Democratic Party’s
nomination for President
– Clark, Dean, Edwards, Gephardt, Kerry, Kucinich,
Lieberman, Mosley Braun, Sharpton
• Topics: Postwar Iraq, Healthcare, Bush’s Tax plan,
Reason for Running, Content-Neutral
Speech Study - Description
• Example Tokens:
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1.
2.
3.
4.
Speech Study - Results
• Inter-subject agreement
– Using the weighted kappa statistic with
quadratic weighting, mean kappa was 0.213
• Inter-subject agreement by token
– No significant differences across all tokens
• Inter-subject agreement by statement
– The individual statements demonstrate
significantly different agreements
Speech Study - Results
• Most consistent
statements
• Least consistent
statements
The speaker is accusatory
0.512
The speaker is trustworthy
0.037
The speaker is passionate
0.458
The speaker is reasonable
0.070
The speaker is intense
0.431
The speaker is believable
0.074
The speaker is angry
0.404
The speaker is desperate
0.076
The speaker is ordinary
0.115
The speaker is enthusiastic 0.362
• Charisma: 0.224 (8th)
Speech Study - Results
• Statement Co-occurrence
– Using the kappa statistic determined which
pairs of statements were most closely correlated
with the charismatic statement.
The speaker is enthusiastic
0.606
The speaker is charming
0.602
The speaker is persuasive
0.561
The speaker is boring
-0.513
The speaker is passionate
0.512
The speaker is convincing
0.503
Speech Study - Results
• Speaker Influence
– There is a significant difference between speakers
(p=1.75e-2)
– Most charismatic
• Rep. Edwards (3.73)
• Rev. Sharpton (3.40)
• Gov. Dean (3.32)
– Least charismatic
• Sen. Lieberman (2.38)
• Rep. Kucinich (2.73)
• Rep. Gephardt (2.77)
Speech Study - Results
• Genre Influence
– The tokens were taken from debates, interviews, stump
speeches, and a campaign ad
– Stump speeches were the most charismatic. (3.28)
– Interviews the least. (2.90)
• Topic Influence
– No significant influence.
Speech Study – Results
• Speaker Recognition
– Subjects were asked to identify which, if any,
speakers they recognized at the end of the
study.
– Subjects rated recognized speakers (3.28)
significantly more charismatic than those they
did not (2.99).
Speech Study - Results
• Acoustic/Prosodic Properties
– Min, max, mean, std. dev. F0 and intensity
– Phrase dynamics
– Length (seconds)
• Lexical Properties
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Function/Content word ratio
Pronoun density
Lexical complexity
Length (words, syllables)
Speech Study - Results
• Properties highly correlated with ratings of
charisma:
– Length. More content, more charismatic.
– Min, max, mean std. dev. of F0 over male
speakers
– zscore of mean F0 (calculated over speaker)
• Higher in pitch range, more charismatic
– Mean intensity
Speech Study – Results
– Faster speaking rate (syllables per second)
– Mean and standard deviation of normalized
phrase intensity
– Standard deviation of normalized maximum
pitch
– First person, but not second person, pronoun
density
– Lexical complexity (mean syllables per word)
Overview
•
•
•
•
Background
Previous Work
Speech Study
Text Study
– Questions
– Description
– Results
• Comparisons to Speech results
• Conclusion & Future Work
Text Survey - Questions
• When reading a transcript of speech, do
subjects rate charisma consistently?
• What do subjects mean by charisma?
– Do they mean the same thing when referring to
text and speech?
• How does what is said influence subject
ratings of charisma?
Text Survey - Description
• Subjects: 24 paid participants found
– http://newyork.craigslist.org
– “Talent gigs” section
• Interface: Presentation of 60 short
transcripts (words…) via a web form
• Dependent variables: 5-point Likert scale
ratings of agreement on 26 statements.
• Duration: avg. 1.5 hrs, min 45m, max ~3hrs
Text Survey - Description
• Interface:
– http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~amaxwell/textsurvey/A/
Text Study - Descrption
• Materials: 60 of 90 tokens of American political
speech
– The 90 transcripts were the 45 used in the speech study,
and 45 longer paragraphs
– Each subject was presented with all 45 short (mean ~28
words) and a semi-random set of 15 long transcripts
(mean ~130 words)
• Speakers: Same as Speech Study
• Topics: Same as Speech Study
Text Study - Description
• Examples:
– Token 1:
We’re driving seniors out of medicare
into HMOs. Every provision that
would’ve brought down the cost of
prescription drugs, the drug companies
were against em all. They all came out.
Text Study - Description
• Examples:
– Token 2.
…and I’d like to begin by, saying that I
hope that, this afternoon’s talk will be
an opportunity to challenge some
underlying assumptions that we have
about the world cause that’s why I’m uh
running for President.
Text Study - Description
• Examples
– Token 3:
…stabilize iraq because we occupy it.
Yet he will not talk about the deficits in
the fifty states we already occupy.
Text Study - Description
• Examples
– Token 4:
…by two thousand five and then let
their parents on a sliding scale based on
income buy into medicaid at a price
much below what they’d have to pay in
the market.
Text Study - Description
• Some tokens are rated very similarly
whether presented as speech or a transcript.
– Example 1 always charismatic
– Example 2 always uncharismatic
• Others are rated very differently
– Example 3 more charismatic in speech
– Example 4 in text
Text Study - Results
• Inter-subject agreement
– Using the weighted kappa statistic with
quadratic weighting, mean kappa was 0.149
• Inter-subject agreement by token
– No significant differences across all tokens
• Inter-subject agreement by statement
– The individual statements demonstrate
significantly different agreements
Text Study - Results
• Most consistent
statements
• Least consistent
statements
The speaker is accusatory
0.280
The speaker is angry
0.263
The speaker’s message is clear
0.206
The speaker is friendly
0.197
The speaker is knowledgeable
0.193
The speaker is
spontaneous
0.039
The speaker is ordinary
0.048
The speaker is boring
0.050
The speaker is desperate
0.064
The speaker is enthusiastic 0.093
• Charisma: 0.134 (18th)
Text Study - Results
• Charismatic statement cooccurrence
– Using the kappa statistic determined which
pairs of statements were most closely correlated
with the charismatic statement.
The speaker is charming
0.576
The speaker is enthusiastic
0.511
The speaker is persuasive
0.503
The speaker is powerful
0.485
The speaker is convincing
0.483
The speaker is passionate
0.446
Text Study - Results
• Those statements that positively cooccur
with the charismatic are identical in the
speech and text study
– Charming, enthusiastic, persuasive, convincing,
passionate
Text Study - Results
• Speaker Influence
– There is a significant difference between speakers
(p=1.67e-10)
– Most Charismatic:
• Gen. Clark (3.61)
• Sen. Kerry (3.56)
• Gov. Dean (3.54)
– Least Charismatic:
• Sen. Lieberman (3.03)
• Rep. Kucinich (3.12)
• Amb. Mosley-Braun (3.23)
Text Study - Results
• Genre Influence
– Looking at only original speech tokens, genre
demonstrates a significant influence on
charisma (p=9.18e-14)
– Stump (3.34) and debate (3.32) above mean
(3.15)
– Interview below mean (2.85)
Text Study - Results
• Topic Influence
– Topic was significantly influenced ratings of
charisma (p=1.5e-10)
• In speech study, topic had no impact.
– Most charismatic topics:
• Content Neutral/Greetings (3.64), Reason for
running (3.53) mean:3.36
– Least charismatic:
• Taxes (3.12), Iraq (3.22), Healthcare (3.28)
Text Study - Results
• Correlation of lexical properties with ratings of
charisma
– Function/Content word ratio
• Positively correlated (p=.0058)
– Pronoun density
• First person very significant (p=1.4e-4) but negatively
correlated.
– Lexical complexity (mean syllables per word)
• uncorrelated
– Length
• Positively correlated: words (p=5.0e-7), syllables (p=3.9e-7)
Overview
•
•
•
•
•
Background
Previous Work
Speech Study
Text Study
Conclusion
– Future Work
Conclusion
• “Enthusiasm, passion, charm, persuasion and
being convincing” used to describe someone who
they find “charismatic”.
• Personal speech is considered more charismatic
when heard, but not when read.
• Emotion is largely insignificant to judgments of
charisma.
• The lexical and acoustic/prosodic properties
reflect the presence of enthusiasm and passion
Conclusion
• Broadly, this type of approach can be
applied to any paralinguistic phenomena.
– Make no assumptions about the phenomena a
priori
– Have subjects evaluate examples that are
presumed to demonstrate the phenomena
– Analyze the examples, using subject ratings as
dependent variable.
Conclusion - Future Work
• Further analysis of speech vs. transcription results
• TTS modification study.
– By modifying prosody of tokens can we make
Lieberman charismatic? Sharpton uncharismatic?
• Repetition of the both studies with Palestinian
Arabic political speech tokens.
– What are the similarities and differences between
American and Palestinian notions of charisma?
– What lexical and acoustic/prosodic properties are
displayed by charismatic Palestinian speech?