Finding high quality emotional sound stimuli is a challenge for many researchers. The Hedonia TrygFonden group, led by Prof. Morten Kringelbach, has developed a set of sounds from adults, infants and animals, conveying a range of basic emotions. A key feature of the database is that it is comprised of spontaneous expressions, rather than the more widely used acted expressions. The sounds are readily recognisable by adults, as demonstrated in a large validation study (doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00562).

These sounds are available to download by filling out this form and returning it to Christine Parsons (Christine.parsons@clin.au.dk).

The OxVoc is a large database of natural affective vocal sounds from human infants, adults and domestic animals. This database consists of 173 non-verbal sounds expressing a range of happy, sad and neutral emotional states. The major advantages of this database are the inclusion of vocalisations from naturalistic situations, which represent genuine expressions of emotion, and the inclusion of vocalisations from animals and infants, providing comparison stimuli for use in cross-species and developmental studies.

Ratings are available for the sounds on a range of dimensions from a number of independent participant samples: 
Parsons C.E, Young K.S., Craske M.G., Stein A. & Kringelbach M.L. (2014) Introducing the Oxford Vocal (OxVoc) Sounds Database: A validated set of non-acted affective sounds from human infants, adults and domestic animals. Frontiers in Psychology: Emotion Science. 

Ratings related to valence, including distress, vocaliser mood, listener mood, and other ratings including arousal of the sound, listener motivation to respond and valence (positive, negative) are available.