Article
Biology
Katarzyna Pisanski, Andrey Anikin, David Reby
Summary: Vocal tract elongation, which lowers vocal tract resonances in animal vocalizations, is a means for vocalizers to exaggerate their body size. This study proposes that smaller speech-like articulatory movements that alter individual formants can also serve this size-exaggerating function. Experimental results show that uneven formant spacing can alter the perceived body size of vocalizers.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Biology
Livio Favaro, Anna Zanoli, Katrin Ludynia, Albert Snyman, Filippo Carugati, Olivier Friard, Frine Eleonora Scaglione, Luca Manassero, Alberto Valazza, Nicolas Mathevon, Marco Gamba, David Reby
Summary: This study investigates the morphological correlates of formant production in the vocal apparatus of African penguins. The results demonstrate that variations in length and cross-sectional area of vocal tracts strongly affect the formant pattern, while the skeletal size of penguins has little effect on formants. These findings enhance our understanding of the role of formant frequencies in bird vocal communication.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Sabrina Bettoni, Angela Stoeger, Camilo Rodriguez, W. Tecumseh Fitch
Summary: The study acoustically described vocalizations of the neotropical otter for the first time, revealing a rich vocal repertoire and sex differences in call usage. It suggests that despite differences in sociality and ecology, neotropical otters possess homologous vocalizations compared to other otters, offering an interesting group to explore the evolution of communication systems.
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Andrey Anikin, Daria Valente, Katarzyna Pisanski, Clement Cornec, Gregory A. Bryant, David Reby
Summary: Vocal communication plays an important role in conveying formidability across different species. Low voice frequencies have traditionally been considered as the main means of projecting large size and aggression. However, recent research has shown that vocal loudness is prioritized for displaying strength and aggression. Loudness and low frequencies pose a physiological trade-off, as a loud voice is achieved by elevating pitch and opening the mouth wide into vowel-like shapes. This research adds a new dimension to the widely accepted frequency code and requires a fundamental rethinking of the evolutionary forces shaping the form of acoustic signals.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL
(2023)
Article
Biology
Andrey Anikin, Katarzyna Pisanski, Mathilde Massenet, David Reby
Summary: The study found that nonlinear vocalizations in humans can effectively communicate formidability and intention to attack by lowering voice pitch, increasing darkness and roughness, and making vocalizers sound larger, more formidable, and more aggressive.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Acoustics
Oriol Guasch, Marc Arnela, Arnau Pont
Summary: The analysis discusses adjusting the geometry and physical parameters of ducts to move resonances to target values, and utilizing a 1D model and sensitivity functions to achieve vowel resonance effects.
JOURNAL OF SOUND AND VIBRATION
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Katarzyna Pisanski, David Reby
Summary: While size exaggeration is common in the animal kingdom, Pisanski & Reby show that human listeners can detect deceptive vocal signals of people trying to sound bigger or smaller, and recalibrate their estimates accordingly, especially men judging the heights of other men, with implications for the evolution of vocal communication.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Adam R. Fishbein, Nora H. Prior, Jane A. Brown, Gregory F. Ball, Robert J. Dooling
Summary: Studies of acoustic communication often focus on vocalization categories and units, but there is also subtle variation in how signals are uttered. This study on zebra finches demonstrates their ability to easily discriminate between different renditions of vocal signals, suggesting that sensitivity to fine acoustic details may be a primary channel of information in their song, as well as a shared property across species' vocal communication systems.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Emma Holmes, Ingrid S. Johnsrude
Summary: Speech is more intelligible when spoken by familiar voices, possibly due to more accurate representation of key voice characteristics. However, discrimination thresholds for familiar voices are not smaller. The results support cognitive accounts of speech perception.
Article
Acoustics
Peter Birkholz, Susanne Drechsel
Summary: The study found that three new features intended to enhance the realism of synthesized speech actually decreased perceived naturalness. Analysis revealed that these features emphasized low frequencies over high frequencies, resulting in slightly more muffled speech.
SPEECH COMMUNICATION
(2021)
Article
Acoustics
Thomas Koelewijn, Etienne Gaudrain, Terrin Tamati, Deniz Baskent
Summary: Perceptual differences in voice cues can facilitate speech understanding in challenging conditions, while lexical content has a positive effect on vocal tract length perception. The presence of vocoders can impact voice perception.
JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Acoustics
Virender Kadyan, Syed Shanawazuddin, Amitoj Singh
Summary: The study focuses on developing a Punjabi children's ASR system, facing challenges such as data scarcity and acoustic mismatch due to differences in acoustic attributes between adults' and children's speech. Effective methods such as VTLN, explicit pitch, and duration modification are used to reduce the acoustic mismatch, while prosody-modification-based out-of-domain data augmentation significantly reduces error rates.
Article
Zoology
Lukasz Piotr Pawelec, Katarzyna Graja, Anna Lipowicz, Jagoda Marchewczyk
Summary: Voice is a significant biological cue that reveals information about an individual, especially in males for male competition and sexual selection. This study examines the link between male voice characteristics and women's assessments of their physical features, finding that women's assessments were not accurate.
BIOACOUSTICS-THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ANIMAL SOUND AND ITS RECORDING
(2023)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Emma Chereskin, Richard C. Connor, Whitney R. Friedman, Frants H. Jensen, Simon J. Allen, Pernille M. Sorensen, Michael Kruetzen, Stephanie L. King
Summary: Vocal interactions are important for social bonding and can serve as a replacement for physical bonding activities, especially for individuals who have less physical contact and spend less time together.
Review
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Shitao Chen, Chengyang Han, Shuai Wang, Xuanwen Liu, Bin Wang, Ran Wei, Xue Lei
Summary: Research has shown associations between sexually dimorphic vocal traits and sex hormones, body size, and physique. There are associations between sex-specific hormones and vocal traits, formant frequencies and body size, voice and physique, and pitch and aggressive intent, although some associations are still controversial. Future research should consider various factors to more accurately assess the relationship between voice and physiology.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Katarzyna Pisanski, Gregory A. Bryant, Clement Cornec, Andrey Anikin, David Reby
Summary: Until recently, human nonverbal vocalisations have received little attention in the behavioral sciences. However, these vocal signals are ubiquitous in human social interactions and may bridge the gap between nonhuman animal vocalisations and human speech. Converging empirical evidence suggests that the forms of these vocal sounds in humans reflect their evolved functions. Human nonverbal vocalisations parallel the form-function mapping found in other animals, indicating a shared nonverbal vocal communication system. A form-function approach can help predict cross-species and cross-cultural universals or variations in nonverbal vocalisations. Vocal control plays an important role in human vocal production, allowing for flexible manipulation of vocalisations. Human vocalisations may pave the way for understanding the origins of speech. Parametric synthesis technologies enable researchers to create controlled vocal stimuli, advancing the field of voice sciences.
ETHOLOGY ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
(2022)
Article
Biology
Katarzyna Pisanski, Andrey Anikin, David Reby
Summary: Vocal tract elongation, which lowers vocal tract resonances in animal vocalizations, is a means for vocalizers to exaggerate their body size. This study proposes that smaller speech-like articulatory movements that alter individual formants can also serve this size-exaggerating function. Experimental results show that uneven formant spacing can alter the perceived body size of vocalizers.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
A. T. Korzeniowska, J. Simner, H. Root-Gutteridge, D. Reby
Summary: Research has found that, similar to humans, domestic dogs also exhibit abstract pitch-size associations. This suggests that crossmodal correspondences may not be unique to humans, but rather a sensory processing feature shared by other species.
ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Zoology
Andrey Anikin, David Reby
Summary: The study found that ingressive phonation is commonly present in nonverbal vocalizations of humans and typically conveys intense emotions, presumably because listeners associate heavy breathing, imperfect vocal control, and continuous egressive-ingressive vocalizing with the physiological state of high arousal.
BIOACOUSTICS-THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ANIMAL SOUND AND ITS RECORDING
(2022)
Article
Biology
Mathilde Massenet, Andrey Anikin, Katarzyna Pisanski, Karine Reynaud, Nicolas Mathevon, David Reby
Summary: This study investigates the effects of nonlinear phenomena in puppy whines on human perception using state-of-the-art sound synthesis. The results show that nonlinear phenomena can convey rich information and may be crucial for offspring survival during breeding of a domesticated species.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Agata Groyecka-Bernard, Katarzyna Pisanski, Tomasz Frackowiak, Aleksander Kobylarek, Piotr Kupczyk, Anna Oleszkiewicz, Agnieszka Sabiniewicz, Monika Wrobel, Piotr Sorokowski
Summary: This study investigates how the type of voice stimulus affects listeners' judgments of speaker traits such as attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, likability, health, masculinity, and femininity. The results show that overall ratings of these traits increase as speech duration increases. However, individual differences in perceived speaker traits are largely preserved across different voice stimuli. This suggests that socially relevant perceptions of speakers are moderated by the length of their speech.
JOURNAL OF SPEECH LANGUAGE AND HEARING RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Katarzyna Pisanski, Maydel Fernandez-Alonso, Nadir Diaz-Simon, Anna Oleszkiewicz, Adrian Sardinas, Robert Pellegrino, Nancy Estevez, Emanuel C. Mora, Curtis R. Luckett, David R. Feinberg
Summary: Height preferences in mate selection differ between genders, with men generally preferring taller female partners. Additionally, men exhibit stronger assortative preferences for height in short-term relationships compared to long-term relationships.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Andrey Anikin, Nikolay Aseyev, Niklas Erben Johansson
Summary: The study found that people have a strong preference for familiar languages, there are cross-cultural differences in which languages are perceived as more beautiful, and there is a preference for breathy female voices.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Andrey Anikin
Summary: This study found that a brief episode of intense physical effort causes significant vocal changes, some of which are difficult to control. Listeners are able to judge the level of effort based on the sound, whether to assess the condition of their opponent in a fight or to monitor a partner's investment in cooperative physical activities.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Andrey Anikin, Valentina Canessa-Pollard, Katarzyna Pisanski, Mathilde Massenet, David Reby
Summary: Humans have evolved the ability to consciously control their vocal production for speech and singing, while retaining the older system of spontaneous nonverbal vocalizations. An analysis of a broad, cross-cultural corpus shows that speech is relatively low-pitched and tonal, while singing and nonverbal vocalizations display large variations in pitch and often sound harsh and irregular. The articulatory spectro-temporal modulation plays a critical role in speech, but has minimal constraint on laryngeal source modulation. In contrast, nonverbal vocalizations have minimal articulation and rapid temporal modulation in the roughness range.
Article
Communication
Jemma Forman, Louise Brown, Holly Root-Gutteridge, Graham Hole, Raffaela Lesch, Katarzyna Pisanski, David Reby
Summary: Research found that the larger the eyes of dogs, the more exaggerated and higher the pitch range and variability of human speech towards them. This phenomenon may be due to the perception that dogs with larger eyes are cuter, rather than because their eyes are larger. These results preliminarily demonstrate that eye size can elicit pet-directed speech and suggest a relationship with perceived juvenility rather than cuteness. We discuss these findings in the context of inter-species vocal communication.
INTERACTION STUDIES
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Andrey Anikin, Daria Valente, Katarzyna Pisanski, Clement Cornec, Gregory A. Bryant, David Reby
Summary: Vocal communication plays an important role in conveying formidability across different species. Low voice frequencies have traditionally been considered as the main means of projecting large size and aggression. However, recent research has shown that vocal loudness is prioritized for displaying strength and aggression. Loudness and low frequencies pose a physiological trade-off, as a loud voice is achieved by elevating pitch and opening the mouth wide into vowel-like shapes. This research adds a new dimension to the widely accepted frequency code and requires a fundamental rethinking of the evolutionary forces shaping the form of acoustic signals.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL
(2023)