Chants across seven traditions share acoustic traits that enhance subjective relaxation

Canessa-Pollard, V., Anikin, A. and Reby, D. (2025) Chants across seven traditions share acoustic traits that enhance subjective relaxation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). pp. 1-26. ISSN 0027-8424 (In Press)

[thumbnail of Manuscript_accepted.docx] Text
Manuscript_accepted.docx - Accepted Version
Restricted to Repository staff only until 31 December 2025.
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

Download (4MB) | Request a copy

Abstract

For over 5,000 years, chanting has been practiced across many Western and Eastern traditions. However, there is hardly any empirical research on 1) whether chants from across the globe share common acoustic properties, 2) whether these acoustic features make them distinct from other human vocalizations, and 3) the extent to which they may positively impact listeners’ well-being. Here we collected 242 chants belonging to seven distinct traditions and associated with a wide range of language families, and compared them acoustically to a large corpus of song (n=126) and speech (n=616) samples from across 14 linguistic and 12 geographical regions. We show that, irrespective of language and geographical origin, chants share distinctive acoustic traits, namely relatively flat and slow-changing intonation and steady, unbroken voicing in a comfortable, rather low pitch range with a prevalence of mid-central vowels. Thus, chants are produced in a relaxed vocal tract configuration with minimal articulation. Additionally, playback experiments involving original chants (with a participant pool of 61 listeners), resynthesized chants (with 114 listeners), and fully synthetic chants (with 80 listeners) demonstrate that these acoustic characteristics enhance listeners' perceived sensations of relaxation. Specifically, relatively flat and slow-changing intonation, combined with vowel production in a relatively relaxed vocal tract configuration, resulted in higher overall relaxation ratings. Together these results hint at a specific function of chants’ acoustic commonalities: the enhancement of well-being through relaxation

Publication Type: Articles
Uncontrolled Keywords: chants, acoustic traits, subjective relaxation, vocal communication, experimental psychology
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Q Science > Q Science (General)
Q Science > QP Physiology
Divisions: Academic Areas > Institute of Education, Social and Life Sciences > Psychology
Research Entities > POWER Centre
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Valentina Canessa-Pollard
Date Deposited: 28 Jul 2025 14:34
Last Modified: 28 Jul 2025 14:34
URI: https://eprints.chi.ac.uk/id/eprint/8164

Actions (login required)

View Item
View Item
▲ Top

Our address

I’m looking for