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- Moore, Roger K., et al.
(author)
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Vocal interactivity in-and-between humans, animals and robots
- 2016
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In: Frontiers in Robotics and AI. - : Frontiers Research Foundation. - 2296-9144. ; 3
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Almost all animals exploit vocal signals for a range of ecologically-motivated purposes: detecting predators/prey and marking territory, expressing emotions, establishing social relations and sharing information. Whether it is a bird raising an alarm, a whale calling to potential partners, a dog responding to human commands, a parent reading a story with a child, or a business-person accessing stock prices using \emph{Siri}, vocalisation provides a valuable communication channel through which behaviour may be coordinated and controlled, and information may be distributed and acquired. Indeed, the ubiquity of vocal interaction has led to research across an extremely diverse array of fields, from assessing animal welfare, to understanding the precursors of human language, to developing voice-based human-machine interaction. Opportunities for cross-fertilisation between these fields abound; for example, using artificial cognitive agents to investigate contemporary theories of language grounding, using machine learning to analyse different habitats or adding vocal expressivity to the next generation of language-enabled autonomous social agents. However, much of the research is conducted within well-defined disciplinary boundaries, and many fundamental issues remain. This paper attempts to redress the balance by presenting a comparative review of vocal interaction within-and-between humans, animals and artificial agents (such as robots), and it identifies a rich set of open research questions that may benefit from an inter-disciplinary analysis.
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| 3. |
- Schötz, Susanne, et al.
(author)
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Melody matters: An acoustic study of domestic cat meows in six contexts and four mental states
- 2019
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In: Proc. 2nd Intl. Workshop on Vocal interactivity in-and-between Humans, Animals and Robots (VIHAR). - 9782956202912 ; , s. 29-34
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study investigates domestic cat vocalisations in different contexts and mental states. Measures of fundamental frequency (f0) and duration as well as f0 contours of 780 meows from 40 cats were analysed. We found significant effects of recording context and of mental state on f0 and duration. Additionally, contours in positive (affiliative) contexts and mental states were predominantly rising, while those produced in negative contexts and mental states were predominantly falling. Our results suggest that cats use paralinguistic information and biological codes to signal mental state.
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| 4. |
- Schötz, Susanne, et al.
(author)
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Phonetic Characteristics of Domestic Cat Vocalisations
- 2017
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In: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Vocal Interactivity in-and-between Humans, Animals and Robots, VIHAR 2017. - 9782956202905 ; , s. 5-6
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The cat (Felis catus, Linneaus 1758) has lived around or with humans for at least 10,000 years, and is now one of the most popular pets of the world with more than 600 millionindividuals. Domestic cats have developed a more extensive, variable and complex vocal repertoire than most other members of the Carnivora, which may be explained by their social organisation, their nocturnal activity and the long period of association between mother and young. Still, we know surprisingly little about the phonetic characteristics of these sounds, and about the interaction between cats and humans.Members of the research project Melody in human–cat communication (Meowsic) investigate the prosodic characteristics of cat vocalisations as well as the communication between human and cat. The first step includes a categorisation of cat vocalisations. In the next step it will be investigated how humans perceive the vocal signals of domestic cats. This paper presents an outline of the project which has only recently started.
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