Screams of 'joy' sound like 'fear' when heard out of context
The researchers in the US tested the ability of listeners to decode the emotion underlying a scream, based solely on its sound. A total of 182 participants listened through headphones to 30 screams from movies that were associated with one of the six emotions. After hearing a scream, the listeners rated how likely it was associated with each of six of the emotions, on a scale of one to five. The results showed that the participants most often matched a scream to its correct emotional context, except in the case of screams of happiness, which participants more often rated highly for fear.
Source: sciencedaily.com