Review
Biology
Juan David Leongomez, Jan Havlicek, S. Craig Roberts
Summary: Studies show that specific vocal modulations, similar to infant-directed speech and music, play a role in communicating intentions and mental states during human social interaction. The proposed model suggests that complex social environments and strong social bonds contribute to the development of musicality-related abilities. This model can be further tested by comparing levels of sociality and complexity of vocal communication in other species. The integration of multiple theories presents a new perspective on musicality, emphasizing its role in parent-infant communication and bonding.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Mathematics, Applied
Tuncay Aktosun, Paul Sacks, Xiao-Chuan Xu
Summary: This study discusses the inverse problem of determining the cross-sectional area of a human vocal tract during the utterance of a vowel, and solves the problem using the Gel'fand-Levitan method with analysis of frequency-dependent boundary conditions at the lips and various input data sets.
JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Elizabeth Phillips, Steven Brown
Summary: In this study, a large-scale computational analysis of vocal pitch-class properties was conducted on 418 field recordings from 10 principal musical-style regions worldwide. The results revealed a universal vocal imprecision of approximately 1.5 semitones, primarily derived from physiological limitations. This vocal imprecision fundamentally constrains the formation of musical scale structure.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Robert Lemanis, Igor Zlotnikov
Summary: Fractal-like, intricate morphologies exhibit beneficial mechanical behavior. The evolution of fractal-like, internal walls of ammonoid cephalopod shells shows clear correlation with structural stability. The increased complexity of septal geometry leads to substantial increase in mechanical stability, suggesting it as a driving force for the evolution of higher complexity in ammonoid septa for structural support and protection against predation. Resolving the adaptational value of this trait is vital for understanding evolutionary trends, ecological shifts, and mass extinctions.
Article
Psychology, Mathematical
Hannah Wilt, Yuchunzi Wu, Antony Trotter, Patti Adank
Summary: Observing someone perform an action automatically activates neural substrates associated with executing that action. This covert response, or automatic imitation, can be measured using the stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) task. Past research suggests that human-generated manual actions show enhanced automatic imitation effects compared to computer-generated actions. However, a recent online study found that both human-generated and computer-generated speech stimuli evoked similar automatic imitation effects.
PSYCHONOMIC BULLETIN & REVIEW
(2023)
Review
Ecology
Jianzhi Zhang
Summary: Pleiotropy refers to one gene or mutation affecting multiple phenotypic traits. Functional genomics has enabled us to gain insights into the extent of pleiotropy in a genome. Most genes have low pleiotropy, and the current understanding of the molecular basis of pleiotropy is reviewed.
ANNUAL REVIEW OF ECOLOGY EVOLUTION AND SYSTEMATICS
(2023)
Article
Biology
Yohay Carmel
Summary: This study examines the evolution of human society, suggesting that it is functioning as a higher hierarchical level within which individuals integrate as lower level units. The size, inseparability, and specialization of human societies have increased over time. Based on the findings, it is hypothesized that human society is undergoing an evolutionary transition driven by socio-cultural and technological processes.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ahana A. Fernandez, Lara S. Burchardt, Martina Nagy, Mirjam Knoernschild
Summary: The study found that babbling behavior in bat pups shares similar features with babbling in human infants, such as reduplication and rhythmicity. This suggests future possibilities for comparing cognitive, neuromolecular mechanisms, and adaptive functions of babbling in bats and humans.
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Simon Schreibelmayr, Martina Mara
Summary: This study investigates people's preferences for the level of human realism in synthetic voices and their evaluations in different application domains. The results indicate that voices with higher human realism are more preferred and accepted by users. The study also finds that openness to experience moderates the relationship between voice type and user acceptance.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Review
Neurosciences
Gregg A. Castellucci, Frank H. Guenther, Michael A. Long
Summary: This article reviews the literature and identifies the cognitive operations involved in generating communicative action. It presents a framework for investigating the cognitive and neural computations underlying vocal communication across species.
ANNUAL REVIEW OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Jiri Dolezal, Andrea Kucerova, Veronika Jandova, Adam Klimes, Pavel Riha, Lubomir Adamec, Fritz Hans Schweingruber
Summary: Research indicates that plants adjust their internal structures to withstand adverse conditions and evolve similar morphological structures under thermal and hydrological gradients.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND EXPERIMENTAL BOTANY
(2021)
Article
Evolutionary Biology
Marina Escalera-Zamudio, Sergei L. Kosakovsky Pond, Natalia Martinez de la Vina, Bernardo Gutierrez, Rhys P. D. Inward, Julien Theze, Lucy van Dorp, Hugo G. Castelan-Sanchez, Thomas A. Bowden, Oliver G. Pybus, Ruben J. G. Hulswit
Summary: Comparing the evolution of distantly related viruses can provide insights into common adaptive processes related to shared ecological niches. Phylogenetic approaches, coupled with other molecular evolution tools, can help identify mutations informative on adaptation, although the structural contextualization of these to functional sites of proteins may help gain insight into their biological properties.
GENOME BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Mitchell Steinschneider
Summary: In this paper published in Neuron, Oganian et al. conducted intracranial recordings on the human auditory cortex to elucidate the brain's encoding of vowels. They demonstrated the organization of vowel encoding through formant-based tuning curves and emphasized the importance of population codes and speaker normalization.
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Xiaoxiao Xiang, Xiaojuan Zhang, Haozhe Chen
Summary: A 9.75-GHz microwave Doppler radar is used for remote voice acquisition, but noise sources including background noise and shock noise affect the quality of the captured speech. A multi-stage enhancement method involving dictionary learning, position mask generation, and noise removal is proposed to improve the quality of the radar-captured voice signals.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Patrik Nosil, Victor Soria-Carrasco, Romain Villoutreix, Marisol De-la-Mora, Clarissa F. de Carvalho, Thomas Parchman, Jeffrey L. Feder, Zachariah Gompert
Summary: In this study, genomics, experiments, and evolutionary modeling were used to investigate the processes maintaining an inversion polymorphism in Timema stick insects associated with the use of a challenging host plant (Redwood trees). The results show that the inversion is maintained by a combination of life-history trade-offs, heterozygote advantage, local adaptation, and gene flow. Models demonstrate that these multi-layered regimes provide resilience and maintain genetic variation for future evolution. The study also suggests that the inversion polymorphism has persisted for millions of years and is not a result of recent introgression. Therefore, the complex interplay of evolutionary processes plays a crucial role in the long-term maintenance of genetic variation.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2023)
Article
Anatomy & Morphology
Naoto Toyoda, Tsuyoshi Ito, Tamaki Sato, Takeshi Nishimura
Summary: Mandibular morphology in macaques is influenced by ontogenetic allometric trajectories, with Japanese macaques showing adaptations for processing tough food in winter. These evolutionary modifications occur in different ontogenetic bases and can result in uniquely adaptive variations in size and shape.
ANATOMICAL RECORD-ADVANCES IN INTEGRATIVE ANATOMY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Ornithology
Helen Roessler, Maureen Lynch, Sara Torres Ortiz, Ole Naesbye Larsen, Michael Beaulieu
Summary: When suitable nesting habitat is rare, birds may have to share it with heterospecific individuals with similar nesting requirements. This species mosaic can affect how breeding birds communicate vocally with each other. A study on Gentoo Penguins found that their ecstatic display calls had lower frequencies and energy distribution when they bred in mixed colonies with Adelie Penguins, but were unaffected by the presence of Chinstrap Penguins.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Florian Grziwotz, Chun -Wei Chang, Vasilis Dakos, Egbert H. van Nes, Markus Schwarzlaender, Oliver Kamps, Martin Hessler, Isao T. Tokuda, Arndt Telschow, Chih-hao Hsieh
Summary: Critical transitions occur in various real-world systems and forecasting their occurrence is of great interest. This study introduces a powerful early warning signal called dynamical eigenvalue (DEV) that estimates the dominant eigenvalue of a system using bifurcation theory. The efficacy of the DEV approach is demonstrated in model systems with known bifurcation types and tested on various critical transitions in real-world systems.
Article
Zoology
Miki Miwa, Yusuke Hamazaki, Hiroki Koda, Katsuki Nakamura
Summary: Common marmosets typically give birth to twins and form social groups with a breeding couple and same-aged siblings. This study investigated twin-fights (TFs) during adolescence in captive colonies over 12 years to understand the causes behind them. The researchers found that TFs were triggered by a combination of internal events, like the onset of puberty, and external events, such as the birth of younger siblings and changes in group behavior. They also observed that TF rates were higher between same-sex twins, which aligns with previous studies on callitrichines.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Biology
Rintaro Miyazaki, Tomoki Yoshitani, Mayuka Kanaya, Shigehiro Miyachi, Akihisa Kaneko, Yuki Kinoshita, Kanta Nakamura, Takeshi Nishimura, Isao T. Tokuda
Summary: We conducted ex vivo and in vivo experiments to study the role of the ventricular folds in sound production in macaques. Our results show that the ventricular folds co-oscillate with the vocal folds and significantly lower the fundamental frequency. A mathematical model suggests that this is due to the low oscillation frequency of the ventricular folds entraining the vocal folds. The findings suggest that macaques may use the ventricular folds more frequently than humans in vocalization.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Zoology
Aru Toyoda, Tamaki Maruhashi, Suchinda Malaivijitnond, Kazunari Matsudaira, Zin Arai, Ikki Matsuda, Hiroki Koda
Summary: The study focused on inferring the social structure of stump-tailed macaque group based on the analysis of single-file movements. It identified four community clusters through social network analysis, which reflected the spatial positions of adult males and their social relationships with females.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Alan Zigler, Stephanie Straw, Isao Tokuda, Ellen Bronson, Tobias Riede
Summary: The Panamanian golden frog, a critically endangered species, only survives and reproduces in human care. Their vocal behavior and patterns were studied to better understand their behavior and improve breeding efforts. The results showed individual and population specificity in male advertisement calls, as well as circadian and circannual periodicity in vocal activities. The findings have important implications for improving breeding success and care of the Panamanian golden frog.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Naoki Morimoto, Mikaze Kawada, Yuma Tomizawa, Akihisa Kaneko, Takeshi Nishimura
Summary: Human pelvic morphology shows sexual dimorphism that is most pronounced during peak fertility and becomes less marked during menopause. This study investigates pelvic development in Japanese macaques and finds that their pelvic morphology changes throughout adulthood, potentially adjusting to the higher obstetrical risks at advanced ages.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2023)
Article
Physics, Fluids & Plasmas
Kota Shiozawa, Taisuke Uemura, Isao T. Tokuda
Summary: A method is proposed to detect the dynamical instability of complex time series by studying the evolution of the partitioned entropy of an initially localized region of the attractor. The growth rate of the partitioned entropy is found to correspond to the first Lyapunov exponent. A criterion is introduced to distinguish chaos from limit cycles or tori to avoid spurious detection. Numerical experiments and analysis of experimental data demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the method.
Article
Acoustics
Mayuka Kanaya, Takuma Matsumoto, Taisuke Uemura, Rei Kawabata, Takeshi Nishimura, Isao T. Tokuda
Summary: The vocal membrane, an extended part of the vocal fold, has been observed in various species and is predicted to enhance efficiency of vocalizations by lowering the phonation threshold pressure. A synthetic model of the vocal membrane was developed and experiments showed that it indeed lowered the phonation threshold pressure and resulted in chaotic oscillations.
JASA EXPRESS LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications
Kota Shiozawa, Takaya Miyano, Isao T. Tokuda
Summary: This paper introduces a modified version of the Kuramoto model as a new method for data synchronization, which can solve clustering problems by setting the natural frequencies of the oscillators. The proposed method outperforms existing data-clustering algorithms in handling datasets with non-convex shaped clusters, as demonstrated through three case studies.
IEICE NONLINEAR THEORY AND ITS APPLICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Anthropology
Takashi Morita, Tsuyoshi Ito, Hiroki Koda, Hikaru Wakamori, Takeshi Nishimura
Summary: A deep learning-based analysis of three-dimensional morphological data was proposed in this study, which does not require strict alignment or implausible sample sizes. The model learned from a small number of specimens and successfully generalized the learned classification to unseen specimens.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
(2022)