Temporal coordination of vocal exchanges between mothers and their infants emerges from a developmental process that relies on the ability of communication partners to co-coordinate and predict each other’s turns. Consequently, the partners engage in communicative niche construction that forms a foundation for language in human infancy. While robust universals in vocal turn-taking have been found, differences in the timing of maternal and infant vocalizations have also been reported across cultures. In this study, we examine the temporal structure (...) of vocal interactions in 38 mother–infant dyads in the first two years across two cultures—American and Lebanese—by studying observed and randomized distributions of vocalizations, focusing on both gaps and overlaps in naturalistic 10-min vocal interactions. We conducted a series of simulations using Kolmogorov–Smirnov (K–S) tests to examine whether the observed responsivity patterns differed from randomly generated simulations of responsivity patterns in both Arabic and English for mothers responding to infants and for infants responding to mothers. Results revealed that both mothers and infants engaged in conversational alternation, with mothers acting similarly across cultures. By contrast, significant differences were observed in the timing of infant responses to maternal utterances, with the Lebanese infants’ tendency to cluster their responses in the first half-second after the offset of the Lebanese mothers’ utterances to a greater extent than their American counterparts. We speculate that the results may be due to potential phonotactic differences between Arabic and English and/or to differing child-rearing practices across Lebanese and American cultures. The findings may have implications for early identification of developmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders within and across cultures. (shrink)

From the first months of life, human infants produce “protophones,” speech-like, non-cry sounds, presumed absent, or only minimally present in other apes. But there have been no direct quantitative comparisons to support this presumption. In addition, by 2 months, human infants show sustained face-to-face interaction using protophones, a pattern thought also absent or very limited in other apes, but again, without quantitative comparison. Such comparison should provide evidence relevant to determining foundations of language, since substantially flexible vocalization, the inclination (...) to explore vocalization, and the ability to interact socially by means of vocalization are foundations for language. Here we quantitatively compare data on vocalization rates in three captive bonobo (Pan paniscus) mother–infant pairs with various sources of data from our laboratories on human infant vocalization. Both humans and bonobos produced distress sounds (cries/screams) and laughter. The bonobo infants also produced sounds that were neither screams nor laughs and that showed acoustic similarities to the human protophones. These protophone-like sounds confirm that bonobo infants share with humans the capacity to produce vocalizations that appear foundational for language. Still, there were dramatic differences between the species in both quantity and function of the protophone and protophone-like sounds. The bonobo protophone-like sounds were far less frequent than the human protophones, and the human protophones were far less likely to be interpreted as complaints and more likely as vocal play. Moreover, we found extensive vocal interaction between human infants and mothers, but no vocal interaction in the bonobo mother–infant pairs—while bonobo mothers were physically responsive to their infants, we observed no case of a bonobo mother vocalization directed to her infant. Our cross-species comparison focuses on low- and moderate-arousal circumstances because we reason the roots of language entail vocalization not triggered by excitement, for example, during fighting or intense play. Language appears to be founded in flexible vocalization, used to regulate comfortable social interaction, to share variable affective states at various levels of arousal, and to explore vocalization itself. (shrink)

From the first months of life, human infants produce “protophones,” speech-like, non-cry sounds, presumed absent, or only minimally present in other apes. But there have been no direct quantitative comparisons to support this presumption. In addition, by 2 months, human infants show sustained face-to-face interaction using protophones, a pattern thought also absent or very limited in other apes, but again, without quantitative comparison. Such comparison should provide evidence relevant to determining foundations of language, since substantially flexible vocalization, the inclination (...) to explore vocalization, and the ability to interact socially by means of vocalization are foundations for language. Here we quantitatively compare data on vocalization rates in three captive bonobo (Pan paniscus) mother–infant pairs with various sources of data from our laboratories on human infant vocalization. Both humans and bonobos produced distress sounds (cries/screams) and laughter. The bonobo infants also produced sounds that were neither screams nor laughs and that showed acoustic similarities to the human protophones. These protophone-like sounds confirm that bonobo infants share with humans the capacity to produce vocalizations that appear foundational for language. Still, there were dramatic differences between the species in both quantity and function of the protophone and protophone-like sounds. The bonobo protophone-like sounds were far less frequent than the human protophones, and the human protophones were far less likely to be interpreted as complaints and more likely as vocal play. Moreover, we found extensive vocal interaction between human infants and mothers, but no vocal interaction in the bonobo mother–infant pairs—while bonobo mothers were physically responsive to their infants, we observed no case of a bonobo mother vocalization directed to her infant. Our cross-species comparison focuses on low- and moderate-arousal circumstances because we reason the roots of language entail vocalization not triggered by excitement, for example, during fighting or intense play. Language appears to be founded in flexible vocalization, used to regulate comfortable social interaction, to share variable affective states at various levels of arousal, and to explore vocalization itself. (shrink)

Asif A. Ghazanfar,1,3,* Hjalmar K. Turesson,1,3 statistical pattern recognition [16, 17] and psychophys- Joost X. Maier,1 Ralph van Dinther,2 ics [13, 18–23] have suggested that formants are signif- Roy D. Patterson,2 and Nikos K. Logothetis1 icant contributors to these indexical cues. It is likely, 1Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics then, that detecting formants could have provided 72076 Tuebingen ancestral primates with indexical cues necessary for Germany navigating the complex social interactions that are the 2Centre for the Neural Basis of (...) Hearing essence of primate societies. One important indexical Department of Physiology cue is body size. Formant cues related to body size University of Cambridge could be used by monkeys to determine the sex (in sex- CB2 3EG Cambridge ually dimorphic species), degree of potential threat (e.g., United Kingdom whether a competitor is larger or smaller), and/or age of an individual, as such cues do for human listeners [13, 18, 20, 21]. Summary Formants are the result of acoustic filtering by the supralaryngeal vocal tract—the nasal and oral cavities Vocal-tract resonances (or formants) are acoustic sigabove the vocal folds. During vocal production, pulses natures in the voice and are related to the shape and of air generated by the rapid movement of the vocal length of the vocal tract. Formants play an important folds produce an acoustic signal. The frequency of these role in human communication, helping us not only to pulses—the glottal-pulse rate—determines the fundadistinguish several different speech sounds [1], but mental frequency of the signal, which in turn is perceived also to extract important information related to the as pitch. As the signal passes through the supralaryngphysical characteristics of the speaker, so-called ineal vocal tract, it excites resonances, resulting in the dexical cues. How did formants come to play such an enhancement of particular frequency bands; these are important role in human vocal communication? One the formants.. (shrink)

There is debate within the literature as to whether emotion dysregulation (ED) in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) reflects deviant attentional mechanisms or atypical perceptual emotion processing. Previous reviews have reliably examined the nature of facial, but not vocal, emotion recognition accuracy in ADHD. The present meta-analysis quantified vocal emotion recognition (VER) accuracy scores in ADHD and controls using robust variance estimation, gathered from 21 published and unpublished papers. Additional moderator analyses were carried out to determine whether the nature (...) of VER accuracy in ADHD varied depending on emotion type. Findings revealed a medium effect size for the presence of VER deficits in ADHD, and moderator analyses showed VER accuracy in ADHD did not differ due to emotion type. These results support the theories which implicate the role of attentional mechanisms in driving VER deficits in ADHD. However, there is insufficient data within the behavioural VER literature to support the presence of emotion processing atypicalities in ADHD. Future neuro-imaging research could explore the interaction between attention and emotion processing in ADHD, taking into consideration ADHD subtypes and comorbidities. (shrink)

Modeling of evolution and development of language has principally utilized mature units of spoken language, phonemes and words, as both targets and inputs. This approach cannot address the earliest phases of development because young infants are unable to produce such language features. We argue that units of early vocal development—protophones and their primitive illocutionary/perlocutionary forces—should be targeted in evolutionary modeling because they suggest likely units of hominin vocalization/communication shortly after the split from the chimpanzee/bonobo lineage, and because early development (...) of spontaneous vocal capability is a logically necessary step toward vocal language, a root capability without which other crucial steps toward vocal language capability are impossible. Modeling of language evolution/development must account for dynamic change in early communicative units of form/function across time. We argue for interactive contributions of sender/infants and receiver/caregivers in a feedback loop involving both development and evolution and propose to begin computational modeling at the hominin break from the primate communicative background. (shrink)

Birds produce different types of sounds in different contexts such as begging for food in youngsters, alerting to a danger, defending a territory or attracting a sexual partner. About half of the bird species are able to transform their vocalizations through imitation, improvisation or invention of sounds. Here we review the different experimental procedures that have been used to study the learning capacities of birds in the vocal domain and in the auditory domain, with a particular emphasis on recent (...) technological developments. Nowadays, it is possible to record individual vocalizations of birds living in social groups or to record continuously the vocal ontogeny of birdsong. In conditioning experiments, new paradigms have successfully replaced food rewards with a socio-sexual reward. It is possible to engage in vocal interactions with a bird using dedicated computer systems. In both the laboratory and more recently in the field, different techniques have been used to train young oscine songbirds to learn from acoustic models. The use of virtual social environments and robots as social agents are also promising avenues. All together, these new techniques will permit researchers to explore more deeply the umwelt of bird species. (shrink)

Human–Human and Human–Robot Interaction are known to be influenced by a variety of modalities and parameters. Nevertheless, it remains a challenge to anticipate how a given mobile robot’s navigation and appearance will impact how it is perceived by humans. Drawing a parallel with vocal prosody, we introduce the notion of movement prosody, which encompasses spatio-temporal and appearance dimensions which are involved in a person’s perceptual experience of interacting with a mobile robot. We design a novel robot motion corpus, (...) encompassing variables related to the kinematics, gaze, and appearance of the robot, which we hypothesize are involved in movement prosody. Initial results of three perception experiments suggest that these variables have significant influences on participants’ perceptions of robot socio-affects and physical attributes. (shrink)

The SIMS model offers an embodied perspective to cognition and behaviour that can be applied to organizational studies. This model enriches behavioural and brain research conducted by social scientists on emotional work (also known as emotional labour) by including the key role played by body-related aspects in interpersonal exchanges. Nevertheless, one could also study a more vocal aspect to smiling as illustrated by the development of strategies in organizations. We propose to gather face-to-face and voice-to-voice interactions in an embodied (...) perspective taking into account Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) theory of conceptual metaphors. (shrink)

Low mean fundamental frequency (F 0) in men’s voices has been found to positively influence perceptions of dominance by men and attractiveness by women using standardized speech. Using natural speech obtained during an ecologically valid social interaction, we examined relationships between multiple vocal parameters and dominance and attractiveness judgments. Male voices from an unscripted dating game were judged by men for physical and social dominance and by women in fertile and non-fertile menstrual cycle phases for desirability in short-term (...) and long-term relationships. Five vocal parameters were analyzed: mean F 0 (an acoustic correlate of vocal fold size), F 0 variation, intensity (loudness), utterance duration, and formant dispersion (D f , an acoustic correlate of vocal tract length). Parallel but separate ratings of speech transcripts served as controls for content. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the independent contributions of each of the predictors. Physical dominance was predicted by low F 0 variation and physically dominant word content. Social dominance was predicted only by socially dominant word content. Ratings of attractiveness by women were predicted by low mean F 0, low D f , high intensity, and attractive word content across cycle phase and mating context. Low D f was perceived as attractive by fertile-phase women only. We hypothesize that competitors and potential mates may attend more strongly to different components of men’s voices because of the different types of information these vocal parameters provide. (shrink)

Cetaceans show high cognitive abilities and strong social bonds. Their primary sensory modality to communicate and sense the environment is acoustics. Research on their echolocation and social vocalizations typically uses visual and tactile systems adapted from research on primates or birds. Such research would benefit from a purely acoustic communication system to better match their natural capabilities. We argue that a full duplex system, in which signals can flow in both directions simultaneously is essential for communication research. We designed and (...) implemented a full duplex system to acoustically interact with cetaceans in the wild, featuring digital echo-suppression. We pilot tested the system in Arctic Norway and achieved an echo suppression of 18 dB. We discuss the limiting factors and how to improve the echo suppression further. The system enabled vocal interaction with the underwater acoustic scene by allowing experimenters to listen while producing sounds. We describe our motivations, then present our pilot deployment and give examples of initial explorative attempts to vocally interact with wild orcas and humpback whales. (shrink)

The mid-19th century marked a pivotal transition in Chinese society from a predominantly feudal structure to a more complex semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. This transformation was paralleled by the introduction of Western musical philosophies, including concepts of self-discipline and heteronomy, which began to permeate the Chinese cultural landscape. As these Western ideas took root, they significantly influenced the development of China's traditional vocal music, leading to a distinctive dichotomy between the musical traditions of the North and the South—epitomized by (...) the emergence of four renowned singers and four notable Xusheng in the North, and the Nantong Linggong Society and Qipai styles in the South. This paper delves into the impact of foreign musical philosophies on Chinese vocal traditions, exploring the profound synthesis of spirit and material in music philosophy. It posits that vocal music represents a unique amalgamation of human anatomical structure and the spiritual world. By examining how these philosophical influences merged with the social milieu of the time, the study reveals how modern Chinese vocal music not only encapsulated the characteristics of the era and national identity but also echoed the populace's aspirations. These interactions underscored the music's role in reflecting spiritual and philosophical undercurrents, thereby laying a foundational stone for the resurgence of national vocal music in contemporary times, imbued with both secular and sacred resonances. (shrink)

This study explores the use of deictic gestures, vocalizations and words compared to content-loaded, or representational gestures and words in children’s early one- and two-element utterances. We analyze the spontaneous production of four children, observed longitudinally from 10–12 to 24–25 months of age, focusing on the components of children’s utterances, the information encoded, and the temporal relationship between gestures and vocalizations or words that were produced in combination. Results indicate that while the gestural and vocal modalities are meaningfully and (...) temporally integrated form the earliest stages, deictic and representational elements are unevenly distributed in the gestural vs. the vocal modality, and in one vs. two-element utterances. The findings suggest that while gestural deixis plays a primary role in allowing children to define and articulate their vocal productions, representational skills appear to be markedly more constrained in the gestural as compared to the vocal modality. (shrink)

Interactive social cognition theory and approaches of developmental psychology widely agree that central aspects of emotional and social experience arise in the unfolding of processes of embodied social interaction. Bi-directional dynamical couplings of bodily displays such as facial expressions, gestures, and vocalizations have repeatedly been described in terms of coordination, synchrony, mimesis, or attunement. In this paper, I propose conceptualizing such dynamics rather as processes of affective resonance. Starting from the immediate phenomenal experience of being immersed in interaction, (...) I develop the philosophical notion of affective resonance to refer to a dynamic entanglement of moving and being-moved in relation. The concept of affective resonance makes visible that the interaction dynamic itself creates an affective experience rather than transmitting internal feeling states between pre-existent individuals. This leads to a philosophical framework in which relationality and ontogeny are primary over separate individuals, and in which the naturalistic distinction of a fundamental physical level versus an emerging level of social processes has to be given up. (shrink)

Although all natural languages are spoken, there is no accepted account of the evolution of a skill prerequisite to language—control of the movements of speech. If selection applied at sexual maturity, individuals achieving some command of articulate vocal behavior in previous stages would have enjoyed unusual advantages in adulthood. I offer a parental selection hypothesis, according to which hominin parents apportioned care, in part, on the basis of their infants’ vocal behavior. Specifically, it is suggested that persistent or (...) noxious crying reduced care to individuals who would have had difficulty learning complex behaviors, and that cooing and babbling increased social interaction and care as well as control over complex oralmotor activity of the sort required by spoken language. Several different tests of the hypothesis are suggested. (shrink)

Existing evidence suggests that children from around the age of 8 years strategically alter their public image in accordance with known values and preferences of peers, through the self-descriptive information they convey. However, an important but neglected aspect of this 'self-presentation' is the medium through which such information is communicated: the voice itself. The present study explored peer audience effects on children's vocal productions. Fifty-six children (26 females, aged 8-10 years) were presented with vignettes where a fictional child, matched (...) to the participant's age and sex, is trying to make friends with a group of same-sex peers with stereotypically masculine or feminine interests (rugby and ballet, respectively). Participants were asked to impersonate the child in that situation and, as the child, to read out loud masculine, feminine and gender-neutral self-descriptive statements to these hypothetical audiences. They also had to decide which of those self-descriptive statements would be most helpful for making friends. In line with previous research, boys and girls preferentially selected masculine or feminine self-descriptive statements depending on the audience interests. Crucially, acoustic analyses of fundamental frequency and formant frequency spacing revealed that children also spontaneously altered their vocal productions: they feminized their voices when speaking to members of the ballet club, while they masculinized their voices when speaking to members of the rugby club. Both sexes also feminized their voices when uttering feminine sentences, compared to when uttering masculine and gender-neutral sentences. Implications for the hitherto neglected role of acoustic qualities of children's vocal behaviour in peer interactions are discussed. This article is part of the theme issue 'Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part II)'. (shrink)

In this study of the functionally referential alarm calls in the meerkats, we tested the hypothesis that the ability to refer to a specific location was an important factor in the evolution of discrete vocalizations. We investigated what information receivers gained about the location of the predator from alarm calls with high stimulus specificity compared to alarm calls with low stimulus specificity. Furthermore, we studied whether visual cues about the localization of the predator may be available from the posture of (...) the caller. We described the general behaviour of the caller, the caller’s posture, and in particular its gaze direction. We then observed receivers responding to the different call types, to determine whether the acoustic structure of the calls was enough for them to respond in the appropriate way, or whether they used additional visual cues from the caller. We tested this with specific manipulation experiments, using three set ups of playback experiments: no caller visible; model guard with specific gaze direction; and live sentinel. Natural observations and experiments confirmed that in high urgency situations the meerkats have enough information from the acoustic structure of the call to respond appropriately. When hearing low urgency calls that are less stimuli specific, meerkats used visual cues as an additional source of information in a few cases. This may indicate that functionally referential calls evolved to denote the location of the predator, rather than the predator type or its velocity of approach. However, when discussing this result in comparison to other functionally referential calls, such as the food associated calls and recruitment calls, this localization hypothesis does not appear to apply to the functionally referential calls in general. (shrink)

Potential speech abilities constitute a key component in the description of the Neandertals and their relations with modern Homo Sapiens. Since Lieberman & Crelin postulated in 1971 the theory that “Neanderthal man did not have the anatomical prerequisites for producing the full range of human speech” their speech capability has been a subject of hot debate for over 30 years, and remains a controversial question. In this study, we first question the methodology adopted by Lieberman and Crelin, and we point (...) out articulatory and acoustic flaws in the data and the modeling. Then we propose a general articulatory-acoustic framework for testing the acoustic consequences of the trade-off between oral and pharyngeal cavities. Specifically, following Honda & Tiede, we characterize this trade-off by a Laryngeal Height Index corresponding to the length ratio of the pharyngeal cavity to the oral cavity. Using an anthropomorphic articulatory model controlled by lips, jaw, tongue and larynx parameters, we can generate the Maximal Vowel Space, which is a triangle in the F1 / F2 plane, the three point vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/ being located at its three extremities. We sample the evolution of the position of the larynx from birth to adulthood with four different LHI values, and we show that the associated MVS are very similar. Therefore, the MVS of a given vocal tract does not depend on the LHI: gestures of the tongue body, lips and jaw allow compensations for differences in the ratio between the dimensions of the oral cavity and pharynx. We then infer that the vowel space of Neandertals was potentially no smaller than that of a modern human and that Neandertals could produce all the vowels of the world’s languages. Neandertals were no more vocally handicapped than children at birth are. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the lowering of the larynx and a concomitant increase in pharynx size are necessary evolutionary pre-adaptations for speech. However, since our study is strictly limited to the morphological and acoustic aspects of the vocal tract, we cannot offer any definitive answer to the question of whether Neandertals could produce human speech or not. (shrink)

The current study investigates classroom interactivity in L2 tertiary literature classrooms in Hong Kong and Taiwan when ESL/efl students engage with and interpret literary texts in classroom talk as a pedagogic process of text recontextualization. It proposes a more ecological-based approach to language and languaging dynamics that is complementary to current social semiotic approaches to multimodality. It also aims to open up a more embodied analysis of the meaning-making process in tertiary literature classrooms. The multimodal investigation of real-time classroom interactivity (...) based on a multi-scalar approach showcases an embodied coordination of vocalization and gesticulation as integral aspects of the dynamic whole-body sense-making activity that arises in the pedagogic process of text recontextualization. The dynamics vary from students’ solo speech in individual presentation to teacher–student interactions in group discussion and to student–student interactions in role-play. The distributed language view of first-order languaging dynamics demonstrates the embodied and distributed dimensions of the real-time classroom interactivity that couples pedagogic subjects to the affordances of their pedagogic environment. It also provides insights into the impact of pedagogic activities on the multi-scalar dynamics of the meaning-making process with reference to embodied speech–gesture coordination. The paper demonstrates the value of applying an ecologically embodied perspective to multimodal studies in classroom research and stimulates a re-thinking of some of the important aspects of classroom interactivity that have received little attention thus far. (shrink)

Adult-infant early dyadic interactions have been extensively explored by developmental psychologists. Around the age of 2 months, infants already demonstrate complex, delicate and very sensitive behaviors that seem to express their ability to interact and share emotions with their caregivers. This paper presents 3 pilot studies of parent-infant dyadic interaction in various set-ups. The first two present longitudinal data collected on two infants aged between 1 and 6 months and their mothers. We analyzed the development of coordination between them, (...) at the motor and at the vocal level. The 3rd pilot study aims to explore interpersonal coordination in both vocal behavior and motor activity for one infant and his mother at 2, 4 and 6 months. These pilot studies however leave a number of questions open concerning developmental changes and infants’ progressive mastery of interaction. We identify areas worth examining and try to tease out specific issues that may help develop new methodological pathways for the study of early naturalistic social interaction. We assume that a continuous, rather than discrete, approach would better capture the changes taking place in the various communicative modalities, while also displaying each dyad’s specificity and the narrative dimension of social engagement between infants and caregivers. (shrink)

Previous research shows that simultaneously executed grasp and vocalization responses are faster when the precision grip is performed with the vowel [i] and the power grip is performed with the vowel [ɑ]. Research also shows that observing an object that is graspable with a precision or power grip can activate the grip congruent with the object. Given the connection between vowel articulation and grasping, this study explores whether grasp‐related size of observed objects can influence not only grasp responses but also (...) vowel pronunciation. The participants had to categorize small and large objects into natural and manufactured categories by pronouncing the vowel [i] or [ɑ]. As predicted, [i] was produced faster when the object's grasp‐related size was congruent with the precision grip while [ɑ] was produced faster when the size was congruent with the power grip (Experiment 1). The effect was not, however, observed when the participants were presented with large objects that are not typically grasped by the power grip (Experiment 2). This study demonstrates that vowel production is systematically influenced by grasp‐related size of a viewed object, supporting the account that sensory‐motor processes related to grasp planning and representing grasp‐related properties of viewed objects interact with articulation processes. The paper discusses these findings in the context of size–sound symbolism, suggesting that mechanisms that transform size‐grasp affordances into corresponding grasp‐ and articulation‐related motor programs might provide a neural basis for size‐sound phenomena that links small objects with closed‐front vowels and large objects with open‐back vowels. (shrink)

Communication is inherent to social relationships. Previous papers addressed the correlation between social and communicative complexity, and the origin of sociality in rodents. In subterranean social species, as the number of animals in the same burrow increases, so do interindividual contact rates. This is because of limitations in actually used tunnel length and diameter, leading to an increasing number of agonistic situations probably resulting in time loss, threatening, and fighting with danger of injuries. To avoid this, social species are expected (...) to have an increase in the number of particular vocalizations. Comparison of the adult vocal repertoire of 12 species through regression and phylogenetically independent contrasts suggests three main conclusions: social species increase their repertoire both in number and categories of vocal signals in relation to solitary species, although the coefficient was smaller in the PIC model; the number of agonistic vocalizations was also different between solitary and social species, with the latter displaying higher numbers of these calls; the percentage of agonistic vocalizations in relation to total repertoire was similar between social and solitary species, with no significant relationship between this parameter and the social structure. These results imply that agonistic vocalizations have also increased in number in social species, indicating the importance of these calls in the establishment of new relationships. As repertoire changes are essential to cope with new and frequent kinds of interactions sociality originates, these results suggest that at least for these organisms, communicative changes, especially at the level of agonistic signals, could be a necessary condition to fulfill in the path to the possibility of group living. (shrink)

I consider the five contributions in this special section as evidence that the research area dealing with the vocal expression of emotion is advancing rapidly, both in terms of the number of pertinent empirical studies and with respect to an ever increasing sophistication of methodology. I provide some suggestions on promising areas for future interdisciplinary research, including work on emotion expression in singing and the potential of vocal symptoms of emotional disorder. As to the popular discussion of the (...) respective role of universality versus language/culture differences, I suggest to move on from exclusively studying the accuracy of recognition in judgment studies to a more differentiated approach adding production aspects, taking into account the multiple vocal and acoustic features that interact to communicate emotion. (shrink)

Gesture-first theories of language origins often raise two unsubstantiated arguments against vocal origins. First, they argue that great ape vocal behavior is highly constrained, limited to a fixed, species-typical repertoire of reflexive calls. Second, they argue that vocalizations lack any significant potential to ground meaning through iconicity, or resemblance between form and meaning. This paper reviews the considerable evidence that debunks these two “myths”. Accumulating evidence shows that the great apes exercise voluntary control over their vocal behavior, (...) including their breathing apparatus, larynx, and supralaryngeal articulators. They are also able to learn new vocal behaviors, and even show some rudimentary ability for vocal imitation. In addition, an abundance of research demonstrates that the vocal modality affords rich potential for iconicity. People can understand iconicity in sound symbolism, and they can produce iconic vocalizations to communicate a diverse range of meanings. Thus, two of the primary arguments against vocal origins theories are not tenable. As an alternative, the paper concludes that the origins of language – going as far back as our last common ancestor with great apes – are rooted in iconicity in both gesture and vocalization. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the problems of terminology in the contemporary pop vocal pedagogy field. In the course of the research, which has been conducted from the standpoint of the principle of cultural-conformity, we identified the essence of the concept “contemporary pop vocal-performing thesaurus”, highlighted its structure, and represented the thesaurus in the form of an ontology. The contemporary pop vocal-performing thesaurus as a form of personal activity has a cognitive and creative essence and constitutes an (...) individual professional resource for a performer. As a pedagogical category it is a thematically organized and practically tested outcome of teaching a pop vocalist holistically, and is a renewable interaction of all its components. It consists of cognitive, vocal-technical, artistic-technological, communicative, interpretive, and artistic-figurative components. We note that the artistic-figurative and interpretive components are fully demonstrated in the co-connection of all other components, and reflect the specificity of our concept. We outline some characteristic features of contemporary pop music, the specific components of contemporary non-classical vocal techniques, and modes of presentation of musical information, which are used in the process of forming the contemporary pop vocal-performing thesaurus. We emphasize that the results of our research enable modification of the educational process in the context of contemporary pop vocal, by means of its updating and supplementing with unconventional approaches, principles and methods. Despite the fact that our study primarily concerns the problems of Ukrainian pedagogy we think that its main provisions can apply to the development of methods for teaching pop singing in any country of the world. (shrink)

Child visual discourse: The use of language, gestures, and vocalizations by deaf preschoolers1 This exploratory study examined the linguistic activity and conversational skills of deaf preschoolers by observing child-child dyads in free-play situations. Deaf child of deaf parents - deaf child of deaf parents pairs were compared with deaf child of hearing parents - deaf child of hearing parents pairs. Children from the two groups were videotaped during dyadic peer interactions in a naturalistic play situation. The findings indicated that deaf (...) children were able to engage in successful communicative interaction. However, statistically significant differences were found between the two groups of deaf preschoolers with regard to some categories of communicative behaviors from the point of view of sign and spoken languages. For example, DCHP were found to be less actively than DCDP through using speech. The results of this study suggest that intervention efforts should be focused on improving the language learning environment by facilitating signing by the parents and increasing their skills in visual-gestural strategies. (shrink)

Grey parrots do not acquire referential English labels when tutored with videotapes displayed on CRT screens if socially isolated, reward for attempted labels is possible, trainers direct birds’ attention to the monitor, live video feed avoids habituation or one trainer repeats labels produced on video and rewards label attempts. Because birds learned referential labels from live tutor pairs in concurrent sessions, we concluded that video failed because input lacked live social interaction and modeling. Recent studies, however, suggest that standard (...) CRT monitor flickering could instead have prevented learning. Using an LCD monitor, we found that eliminating flickering did not enable birds to learn from video under conditions of limited social interaction. Results emphasize the role of social interaction in referential label learning and may generalize to other systems. (shrink)

There is a growing interest in assessing how cognitive processes fluidly adjust across trials within a task. Dynamic adjustments of control are typically measured using the congruency sequence effect (CSE), which refers to the reduction in interference following an incongruent trial, relative to a congruent trial. However, it is unclear if this effect stems from a general control mechanism or a distinct process tied to cross-trial reengagement of the task set. We examine the relationship of the CSE with another measure (...) of control referred to as the item-specific proportion congruency effect (ISPC), the finding that frequently occurring congruent items exhibit greater interference than items that are often incongruent. If the two effects reflect the same control mechanism, one should find interactive effects of CSE and ISPC. We report results from three experiments utilizing a vocal Stroop task that manipulated these two effects while controlling for variables that are often confounded in the literature. Across three experiments, we observed large CSE and ISPC effects. Importantly, these effects were robustly additive with one another (Bayes Factor for the null approaching 9). This finding indicates that the CSE and ISPC arise from independent mechanisms and suggests the CSE in Stroop may reflect a more general response adjustment process that is not directly tied to trial-by-trial changes in attentional control. (shrink)

We use speech shadowing to create situations wherein people converse in person with a human whose words are determined by a conversational agent computer program. Speech shadowing involves a person (the shadower) repeating vocal stimuli originating from a separate communication source in real-time. Humans shadowing for conversational agent sources (e.g., chat bots) become hybrid agents ("echoborgs") capable of face-to-face interlocution. We report three studies that investigated people’s experiences interacting with echoborgs and the extent to which echoborgs pass as autonomous (...) humans. First, participants in a Turing Test spoke with a chat bot via either a text interface or an echoborg. Human shadowing did not improve the chat bot’s chance of passing but did increase interrogators’ ratings of how human-like the chat bot seemed. In our second study, participants had to decide whether their interlocutor produced words generated by a chat bot or simply pretended to be one. Compared to those who engaged a text interface, participants who engaged an echoborg were more likely to perceive their interlocutor as pretending to be a chat bot. In our third study, participants were naïve to the fact that their interlocutor produced words generated by a chat bot. Unlike those who engaged a text interface, the vast majority of participants who engaged an echoborg neither sensed nor suspected a robotic interaction. These findings have implications for android science, the Turing Test paradigm, and human-computer interaction. The human body, as the delivery mechanism of communication, fundamentally alters the social psychological dynamics of interactions with machine intelligence. (shrink)

Falk has much of interest to say on the evolution of mothering, but she fails to address the core issue of language evolution: how symbolism or structure evolved. Control of infants does not require either, and Falk provides neither evidence nor arguments supporting referential symbolism as a component of mother-infant interactions.

A growing amount of research has shown associations between sexually dimorphic vocal traits and physiological conditions related to reproductive advantage. This paper presented a review of the literature on the relationship between sexually dimorphic vocal traits and sex hormones, body size, and physique. Those physiological conditions are important in reproductive success and mate selection. Regarding sex hormones, there are associations between sex-specific hormones and sexually dimorphic vocal traits; about body size, formant frequencies are more reliable predictors of (...) human body size than pitch/fundamental frequency; with regard to the physique, there is a possible but still controversial association between human voice and strength and combat power, while pitch is more often used as a signal of aggressive intent in conflict. Future research should consider demographic, cross-cultural, cognitive interaction, and emotional motivation influences, in order to more accurately assess the relationship between voice and physiology. Moreover, neurological studies were recommended to gain a deeper understanding of the evolutionary origins and adaptive functions of voice modulation. (shrink)

Research has shown that processing dynamics on the perceiver's end determine aesthetic pleasure. Specifically, typical objects, which are processed more fluently, are perceived as more attractive. We extend this notion of perceptual fluency to judgments of vocal aesthetics. Vocal attractiveness has traditionally been examined with respect to sexual dimorphism and the apparent size of a talker, as reconstructed from the acoustic signal, despite evidence that gender-specific speech patterns are learned social behaviors. In this study, we report on a (...) series of three experiments using 60 voices to compare the relationship between judgments of vocal attractiveness, stereotypicality, and gender categorization fluency. Our results indicate that attractiveness and stereotypicality are highly correlated for female and male voices. Stereotypicality and categorization fluency were also correlated for male voices, but not female voices. Crucially, stereotypicality and categorization fluency interacted to predict attractiveness, suggesting the role of perceptual fluency is present, but nuanced, in judgments of human voices. (shrink)

In the present study, we examine the interactive effect of vowels on Mandarin fricative sibilants using a passive oddball paradigm to determine whether theHEIGHTfeatures of vowels can spread on the surface and influence preceding consonants with unspecified features. The stimuli are two pairs of Mandarin words ([sa] ∼ [ʂa] and [su] ∼ [ʂu]) contrasting in vowelHEIGHT([LOW] vs. [HIGH]). Each word in the same pair was presented both as standard and deviant, resulting in four conditions (/standard/[deviant]: /sa/[ʂa]∼ /ʂa/[sa]and /su/[ʂu]∼ /ʂu/[su]). In (...) line with the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon (FUL) model, asymmetric patterns of processing were found in the [su] ∼ [ʂu] word pair where both the MMN (mismatch negativity) and LDN (late discriminative negativity) components were more negative in /su/[ʂu](mismatch) than in /ʂu/[su](no mismatch), suggesting the spreading of the feature [HIGH] from the vowel [u] to [ʂ] on the surface. In the [sa] ∼ [ʂa] pair, however, symmetric negativities (for both MMN and LDN) were observed as there is no conflict between the surface feature [LOW] from [a] to [ʂ] and the underlying specified feature [LOW] of [s]. These results confirm that not all features are fully specified in the mental lexicon: features of vowels can spread on the surface and influence surrounding unspecified segments. (shrink)

Despite the variety of theories suggesting how human language might have evolved, very few consider the potential role of emotions in such scenarios. The few existing theories jointly highlight that gaining control over the production of emotional communication was crucial for establishing and maintaining larger social groups. This in turn resulted in the development of more complex social emotions and the corresponding sophisticated socio-cognitive skills to understand others’ communicative behavior, providing the grounds for language to emerge. Importantly, these theories propose (...) that the ability of controlling emotional communication is a uniquely human trait, an assumption that we will challenge. By taking a comparative approach, we discuss recent findings from behavioral and neurobiological studies from our closest relatives, the non-human primates, on the extent of control over their gestural, facial and vocal signals. This demonstrates that research foci differ drastically across these modalities, which further enhances the traditional dichotomy between emotional, involuntary facial and vocal expressions in contrast to intentionally, voluntarily produced gestures. Based on this brief overview, we point to gaps of knowledge in primate communication research and suggest how investigating emotional expressions in our closest relatives might enrich the road map towards the evolution of human language. (shrink)

Our everyday interactions increasingly involve both embodied face-to-face communication and various forms of mediated and distributed communication such as email, skype, and facebook. In daily face-to-face communications, we are connected in rhythm and synchrony at multiple levels ranging from the moment-by-moment continuity of timed syllables to emergent body and vocal rhythms of pragmatic sense-making. Our human capacity to synchronize with each other may be essential for our survival as social beings. Moving our bodies and voices together in time embodies (...) a potent pragmatic purpose that of being together. In this synchrony of self with other, witnessing and being present become part of each other. There is growing research into how rhythm and synchrony operate in embodied face-to-face interaction and this provides parameters for investigating the relations and differences in how we connect and are socially present in the embodied and distributed settings, and understanding the effect of one setting upon the other. This paper explores the arena of research into rhythm in human interaction, musical and linguistic, with a focus on the movements of body and voice. It draws together salient issues and ideas that would form the basis for a framework of rhythm in embodied interaction. (shrink)

L’évolution industrielle nous destine à vivre dans des environnements technologiques caractérisés par une dissémination informatique totale dans la multitude et d’objets connectés capables de traitement sémantique et d’interaction informationnelle avec les humains. Dans ce contexte d’Intelligence ambiante se déploient des dispositifs domotiques d’Interactions dites naturelles Homme / machine. Ainsi de Google Home présenté comme : « une enceinte à commande vocale qui fonctionne avec l'Assistant Google ». On pourra tout aussi bien discuter avec les agents de la concurrence : (...) Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod, etc. Ces dispositifs nous conduisent à interroger une étape contemporaine majeure de « la révolution technologique du langage » et de son automatisation, qui fait des machines de réels sujets parlants, inscrits dans un « couplage humano-machinique ». Dans ce contexte fortement marqué par les affordances, nous observons les modalités de cette interaction artéfactuelle et dite naturelle, caractérisée notamment par une simulation conversationnelle et une personnalisation des dispositifs technologiques. La perspective est celle d’une linguistique post-dualiste et non logocentrée, dans la lignée du courant de l’analyse du discours : Texte-Discours-Interaction. (shrink)

Spoken language is an innate ability of the human being and represents the most widespread mode of social communication. The ability to share concepts, intentions and feelings, and also to respond to what others are feeling/saying is crucial during social interactions. A growing body of evidence suggests that language evolved from manual gestures, gradually incorporating motor acts with vocal elements. In this evolutionary context, the human mirror mechanism (MM) would permit the passage from “doing something” to “communicating it to (...) someone else.” In this perspective, the MM would mediate semantic processes being involved in both the execution and in the understanding of messages expressed by words or gestures. Thus, the recognition of action related words would activate somatosensory regions, reflecting the semantic grounding of these symbols in action information. Here, the role of the sensorimotor cortex and in general of the human MM on both language perception and understanding is addressed, focusing on recent studies on the integration between symbolic gestures and speech. We conclude documenting some evidence about MM in coding also the emotional aspects conveyed by manual, facial and body signals during communication, and how they act in concert with language to modulate other’s message comprehension and behavior, in line with an “embodied” and integrated view of social interaction. (shrink)

How do we align the distinct neural patterns associated with the articulation and the acoustics of the same utterance in order to guide behaviors that demand sensorimotor interaction, such as vocal learning and the use of feedback during speech production? One hypothesis is that while the representations are distinct, their patterns of change over time (temporal modulation) are systematically related. This hypothesis is pursued in the exploratory study described here, using paired articulatory and acoustic data from the X-ray (...) microbeam corpus. The results show that modulation in both articulatory movement and in the changing acoustics has the form of a pulse-like structure related to syllable structure. The pulses are aligned with each other in time, and the modulation functions are robustly correlated. These results encourage further investigation and testing of the hypothesis. (shrink)

Music and language are universal human abilities with many apparent similarities relating to their acoustics, structure, and frequent use in social situations. We might therefore expect them to be understood and processed similarly, and indeed an emerging body of research suggests that this is the case. But the focus has historically been on the individual, looking at the passive listener or the isolated speaker or performer, even though social interaction is the primary site of use for both domains. Nonetheless, (...) an important goal of emerging research is to compare music and language in terms of acoustics and structure, social interaction, and functional origins to develop parallel accounts across the two domains. Indeed, a central aim of both of evolutionary musicology and language evolution research is to understand the adaptive significance or functional origin of human music and language. An influential proposal to emerge in recent years has been referred to as the social bonding hypothesis. Here, within a comparative approach to animal communication systems, I review empirical studies in support of the social bonding hypothesis in humans, non-human primates, songbirds, and various other mammals. In support of this hypothesis, I review six research fields: (i) the functional origins of music; (ii) the functional origins of language; (iii) mechanisms of social synchrony for human social bonding; (iv) language and social bonding in humans; (v) music and social bonding in humans; and (vi) pitch, tone and emotional expression in human speech and music. I conclude that the comparative study of complex vocalizations and behaviors in various extant species can provide important insights into the adaptive function(s) of these traits in these species, as well as offer evidence-based speculations for the existence of “musilanguage” in our primate ancestors, and thus inform our understanding of the biology and evolution of human music and language. (shrink)

When I see a mountain to be far away, there is non-reflective awareness of myself as that from which distance is measured. Likewise, there is self-awareness when I see a tree as offering shade or a hiding place. In such cases, how can the self I am aware of be the same as I who am aware of it? Can the perceived be its perceiver? Mobilizing infancy research, I offer the following thesis as to how one can be aware of (...) oneself, at a single stroke, as perceiver and as embodied entity. During face-to-face interaction at 2 or 3 months, the infant has a sensuous perception of the caregiver as well as a non-sensuous impression of something she is eyeing and vocalizing toward. This implicit target is the self as it first becomes present to the child. It is shown how the target of her attending is experienced by him as embodied, active, affective, and continuous. After acquiring language, however, the child becomes capable of playing the caregiver toward himself: He can speak in her manner while listening as the one addressed. Thus the relation is internalized. The outcome is the independent and secure self-awareness that typifies post-infancy life. Independence bears a price, which is assessed. (shrink)

Received approaches to a unified phenomenon called “language” are firmly committed to a Cartesian view of distinct unobservable minds. Questioning this commitment leads us to recognize that the boundaries conventionally separating the linguistic from the non-linguistic can appear arbitrary, omitting much that is regularly present during vocal communication. The thesis is put forward that uttering, or voicing, is a much older phenomenon than the formal structures studied by the linguist, and that the voice has found elaborations and codifications in (...) other domains too, such as in systems of ritual and rite. Voice, it is suggested, necessarily gives rise to a temporally bound subjectivity, whether it is in inner speech (Descartes' “cogito”), in conversation, or in the synchronized utterances of collective speech found in prayer, protest, and sports arenas world wide. The notion of a fleeting subjective pole tied to dynamically entwined participants who exert reciprocal influence upon each other in real time provides an insightful way to understand notions of common ground, or socially shared cognition. It suggests that the remarkable capacity to construct a shared world that is so characteristic of Homo sapiens may be grounded in this ability to become dynamically entangled as seen, e.g., in the centrality of joint attention in human interaction. Empirical evidence of dynamic entanglement in joint speaking is found in behavioral and neuroimaging studies. A convergent theoretical vocabulary is now available in the concept of participatory sense-making, leading to the development of a rich scientific agenda liberated from a stifling metaphysics that obscures, rather than illuminates, the means by which we come to inhabit a shared world. (shrink)

Visual (facial), tactile, and gestural, as well as vocal, elements of mother-infant interactions are each formalizations, repetitions, exaggerations, and elaborations of ordinary adult communicative signals of affiliation – suggesting ritualization. They are temporally organized and enable emotional coordination of the interacting pair. This larger view of motherese supports Falk's claim that the social-emotional elements of language are primary and suggests that language and music have common evolutionary foundations.