Temporal modulation in speech, music, and animal vocal communication: evidence of conserved function

Abstract

Speech is a distinctive feature of our species. It is the default channel for language and constitutes our primary mode of social communication. Determining the evolutionary origins of speech is a challenging prospect, in large part because it appears to be unique in the animal kingdom. However, direct comparisons between speech and other forms of acoustic communication, both in humans (music) and animals (vocalization), suggest that important components of speech are shared across domains and species. In this review, we focus on a single aspect of speech—temporal patterning—examining similarities and differences across speech, music, and animal vocalization. Additional structure is provided by focusing on three specific functions of temporal patterning across domains: (1) emotional expression, (2) social interaction, and (3) unit identification. We hypothesize an evolutionary trajectory wherein the ability to identify units within a continuous stream of vocal sounds derives from social vocal interaction, which, in turn, derives from vocal emotional communication. This hypothesis implies that unit identification has parallels in music and precursors in animal vocal communication. Accordingly, we demonstrate the potential of comparisons between fundamental domains of biological acoustic communication to provide insight into the evolution of language.

Vocal production in postpartum dairy cows: Temporal organization and association with maternal and stress behaviors

“…To investigate these temporally based contextual differences, we also describe call sequence structure. Due to the anatomical and physiological similarities across mammalian taxa, we predicted that changes to the temporal vocal parameters in cows would be similar to those reported in other mammals, including humans (Briefer, 2012;Filippi et al, 2019). More specifically, we expected that 828 with increasing situation urgency, as in calf separation, cows would vocalize at a higher rate and with shorter intervals between calls.…”

“…However, it is important to measure vocalizations in the production environment, as replicating stressors under controlled experimental conditions may not yield commercially applicable welfare-related results. Across mammalian taxa, emotional and contextual information is communicated not only in the spectrographic properties of vocalizations but also through their temporal organization (Taylor et al, 2009;Engesser et al, 2017;Filippi et al, 2019), which may be less influenced by recording conditions. Despite increasing bioacoustics research into the emotional encoding in individual vocal units in goats (Briefer et al, 2015b), horses (Briefer et al, 2015a;Maigrot et al, 2017), and pigs (Briefer et al, 2019), the detailed temporal organization of livestock vocalizations is yet to be systematically analyzed.…”

Cockatiels sing human music in synchrony with a playback of the melody

“…White-browed sparrow weavers also sing in unison [25]. Lastly, male and female plain-tailed wrens sing duets antiphonally, but occasionally males and females sing songs in unison with near perfect synchrony [26][27][28]. In mammals, recently, a study reported that two male dolphins occasionally produced isochronous pop sound sequences in synchrony [29], which is likely the only academic report of nonhuman mammals vocalizing in unison thus far.…”

The ecological significance of time sense in animals

“…(2) Timing of temporal elements and patterns When communicating with conspecifics, animals modulate the temporal patterns and structures of their communication signals (Pollack, 2000;Filippi et al, 2019;Ravignani et al, 2019). In some instances, the duration of the signal can provide meaningful information for the receiver.…”