| 1. |
- Anikin, Andrey, et al.
(author)
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Static and dynamic formant scaling conveys body size and aggression
- 2022
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In: Royal Society Open Science. - : The Royal Society. - 2054-5703. ; 9:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- When producing intimidating aggressive vocalizations, humans and other animals often extend their vocal tracts to lower their voice resonance frequencies (formants) and thus sound big. Is acoustic size exaggeration more effective when the vocal tract is extended before, or during, the vocalization, and how do listeners interpret within-call changes in apparent vocal tract length? We compared perceptual effects of static and dynamic formant scaling in aggressive human speech and nonverbal vocalizations. Acoustic manipulations corresponded to elongating or shortening the vocal tract either around (Experiment 1) or from (Experiment 2) its resting position. Gradual formant scaling that preserved average frequencies conveyed the impression of smaller size and greater aggression, regardless of the direction of change. Vocal tract shortening from the original length conveyed smaller size and less aggression, whereas vocal tract elongation conveyed larger size and more aggression, and these effects were stronger for static than for dynamic scaling. Listeners familiarized with the speaker's natural voice were less often ‘fooled’ by formant manipulations when judging speaker size, but paid more attention to formants when judging aggressive intent. Thus, within-call vocal tract scaling conveys emotion, but a better way to sound large and intimidating is to keep the vocal tract consistently extended.
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| 2. |
- Massenet, Mathilde, et al.
(author)
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Nonlinear vocal phenomena affect human perceptions of distress, size and dominance in puppy whines
- 2022
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In: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 1471-2954 .- 0962-8452. ; 289:1973, s. 1-9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- While nonlinear phenomena (NLP) are widely reported in animal vocalizations, often causing perceptual harshness and roughness, their communicative function remains debated. Several hypotheses have been put forward: attention-grabbing, communication of distress, exaggeration of body size and dominance. Here, we use state-of-the-art sound synthesis to investigate how NLP affect the perception of puppy whines by human listeners. Listeners assessed the distress, size or dominance conveyed by synthetic puppy whines with manipulated NLP, including frequency jumps and varying proportions of subharmonics, sidebands and deterministic chaos. We found that the presence of chaos increased the puppy's perceived level of distress and that this effect held across a range of representative fundamental frequency (fo) levels. Adding sidebands and subharmonics also increased perceived distress among listeners who have extensive caregiving experience with pre-weaned puppies (e.g. breeders, veterinarians). Finally, we found that whines with added chaos, subharmonics or sidebands were associated with larger and more dominant puppies, although these biases were attenuated in experienced caregivers. Together, our results show that nonlinear phenomena in puppy whines can convey rich information to human listeners and therefore may be crucial for offspring survival during breeding of a domesticated species.
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| 3. |
- Pisanski, Katarzyna, et al.
(author)
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Form follows function in human nonverbal vocalisations
- 2022
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In: Ethology Ecology and Evolution. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0394-9370 .- 1828-7131. ; 34:3, s. 303-321
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Until recently, human nonverbal vocalisations such as cries, laughs, screams, moans, and groans have received relatively little attention in the human behavioural sciences. Yet these vocal signals are ubiquitous in human social interactions across diverse cultures and may represent a missing link between relatively fixed nonhuman animal vocalisations and highly flexible human speech. Here, we review converging empirical evidence that the acoustic structure (“forms”) of these affective vocal sounds in humans reflect their evolved biological and social “functions”. Human nonverbal vocalisations thus largely parallel the form-function mapping found in the affective calls of other animals, such as play vocalisations, distress cries, and aggressive roars, pointing to a homologous nonverbal vocal communication system shared across mammals, including humans. We aim to illustrate how this form-function approach can provide a solid framework for making predictions, including about cross-species and cross-cultural universals or variations in the production and perception of nonverbal vocalisations. Despite preliminary evidence that key features of human vocalisations may indeed be universal and develop reliably across distinct cultures, including small-scale societies, we emphasise the important role of vocal control in their production among humans. Unlike most other terrestrial mammals including nonhuman primates, people can flexibly manipulate vocalisations, from conversational laughter and fake pleasure moans to exaggerated roar-like threat displays. We discuss how human vocalisations may thus represent the cradle of vocal control, a precursor of human speech articulation, providing important insight into the origins of speech. Finally, we describe how ground-breaking parametric synthesis technologies are now allowing researchers to create highly naturalistic, yet fully experimentally controlled vocal stimuli to directly test hypotheses about form and function in nonverbal vocalisations, opening the way for a new era of voice sciences.
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