Exploring the Impact of Emotional Voice Integration in Sign-to-Speech Translators for Deaf-to-Hearing Communication

Emotional voice communication plays a crucial role in effective daily interactions. Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) individuals, who often have limited use of voice, rely on facial expressions to supplement sign language and convey emotions. However, in American Sign Language (ASL), facial expressions serve not only emotional purposes but also function as linguistic markers that can alter the meaning of signs. This dual role can often confuse non-signers when interpreting a signer’s emotional state. In this paper, we present studies that: (1) confirm the challenges non-signers face when interpreting emotions from facial expressions in ASL communication, and (2) demonstrate how integrating emotional voice into translation systems can enhance hearing individuals’ understanding of a signer’s emotional intent. An online survey with 45 hearing participants (non-ASL signers) revealed frequent misinterpretations of signers’ emotions when emotional and linguistic facial expressions were used simultaneously. The findings show that incorporating emotional voice into translation systems significantly improves emotion recognition by 32%. Additionally, follow-up survey with 48 DHH participants highlights design considerations for implementing emotional voice features, emphasizing the importance of emotional voice integration to bridge communication gaps between DHH and hearing communities.