Rhythm and synchrony in animal movement and communication

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Bella

Falk

et al. 2019

Self Cite

Why does human speech have rhythm? As we cannot travel back in time to witness how speech developed its rhythmic properties and why humans have the cognitive skills to process them, we rely on alternative methods to find out. One powerful tool is the comparative approach: studying the presence or absence of cognitive/behavioral traits in other species to determine which traits are shared between species and which are recent human inventions. Vocalizations of many species exhibit temporal structure, but little is known about how these rhythmic structures evolved, are perceived and produced, their biological and developmental bases, and communicative functions. We review the literature on rhythm in speech and animal vocalizations as a first step toward understanding similarities and differences across species. We extend this review to quantitative techniques that are useful for computing rhythmic structure in acoustic sequences and hence facilitate cross‐species research. We report links between vocal perception and motor coordination and the differentiation of rhythm based on hierarchical temporal structure. While still far from a complete cross‐species perspective of speech rhythm, our review puts some pieces of the puzzle together.

Section: General Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Human and Nonhuman Studies Of Vocal Rhythmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rhythm in speech and animal vocalizations: a cross‐species perspective

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Bella

Falk

et al. 2019

Self Cite

“…An experimental design similar to these studies could be used to show how domain-general biases are amplified by cultural transmission resulting in rhythmic patterns of speech. Tools and methodologies from genetics can be used to map the population genotypes to behavioral variability in rhythmic traits 13,170 . Initial work has been undertaken in special populations (e.g.…”

Section: General Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of speech rhythm: a cross-species perspective

Bella

Falk

et al. 2019

Preprint

Self Cite

Cognition and communication, at the core of human speech rhythm, do not leave a fossil record. However, if the purpose is to understand the origin and evolution of speech rhythm, alternative methods are available. A powerful tool is comparative approach: studying the presence or absence of cognitive/behavioral traits in other species, drawing conclusions on which traits are shared between species, and which are recent human inventions. Here we apply this approach to traits related to human speech rhythm. Many species exhibit temporal structure in their vocalizations but little is known about the range of rhythmic structures perceived and produced, their biological and developmental bases, and communicative functions. We review the literatures on human and non-human studies of rhythm in speech and animal vocalizations to survey similarities and differences. We report important links between vocal perception and motor coordination, and the differentiation of rhythm based on hierarchical temporal structure. We extend this review to quantitative techniques useful for computing rhythmic structure in acoustic sequences and hence facilitating cross-species research. While still far from a full comparative cross-species perspective of speech rhythm, we are closer to fitting missing pieces of the puzzle.

“…31,59,60,65 Although with extreme caution, we believe it is important to start developing computer simulations for turn-taking behaviour and compare them with a century of results from animal chorusing. 66,67 Below, we present the simplest possible model to simulate the rhythm of turn-taking, namely, a delay between speakers, calibrated using empirical findings from world languages. In our simple formulation, the delay of the turn-taking model equals 61…”

Section: Rhythmic Models In Humans: Turn-taking In Speechmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling Animal Interactive Rhythms in Communication

Reus

2019

Evol Bioinform Online

Self Cite

Time is one crucial dimension conveying information in animal communication. Evolution has shaped animals’ nervous systems to produce signals with temporal properties fitting their socio-ecological niches. Many quantitative models of mechanisms underlying rhythmic behaviour exist, spanning insects, crustaceans, birds, amphibians, and mammals. However, these computational and mathematical models are often presented in isolation. Here, we provide an overview of the main mathematical models employed in the study of animal rhythmic communication among conspecifics. After presenting basic definitions and mathematical formalisms, we discuss each individual model. These computational models are then compared using simulated data to uncover similarities and key differences in the underlying mechanisms found across species. Our review of the empirical literature is admittedly limited. We stress the need of using comparative computer simulations – both before and after animal experiments – to better understand animal timing in interaction. We hope this article will serve as a potential first step towards a common computational framework to describe temporal interactions in animals, including humans.