The neuroethology of primate vocal communication: substrates for the evolution of speech

Neural Representation of Vocalizations in the Primate Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex

“…and a third cluster was AG calls and SB. Comparison of this vocalization analysis with previously published data on the acoustic features of rhesus calls (Ghazanfar and Hauser 1999;Hauser 1996;Owren and Rendall 2001) indicates some common findings. For example, AG calls (barks, pant threats) and SB are classified acoustically as noisy FIG. 9.…”

“…The behavioral and social context under which these calls were produced, as well as their acoustical features, have been well characterized (Ghazanfar and Hauser 1999;Gouzoules et al 1984;Hauser 1998;Owren and Rendall 2001). We asked whether vlPFC cells would respond to these communication sounds from unfamiliar callers and what type of selectivity prefrontal auditory neurons have with regard to communication relevant sounds typical of the rhesus macaque repertoire.…”

A comparative neurological approach to emotional expressions in primate vocalizations

“…In the auditory cortex, three areas in the superior temporal plane process the signal: neurons located in the core respond to particular frequencies, while neurons present in the belt and parabelt react to more complex sounds composed of several frequencies or to one that varies over time (Kaas et al, 1999), including neurons that are more sensitive to particular frequencies (rate coding) and others that encode the temporal features of the sound (temporal coding, Brosch and Scheich, 2003). Most neurons in the belt and parabelt respond to more than one frequency and to more than one call type (Ghazanfar and Hauser, 1999). A more temporal pathway appears to be responsible for the identification of the sounds' patterns, while a more parietal pathway is thought to process spatial information, that is where the sounds originate from (Rauschecker and Tian, 2000).…”

Language Discrimination by Human Newborns and by Cotton-Top Tamarin Monkeys

“…Theoretical arguments have been used to argue that language acquisition must be based on an innately specified language faculty (1,2), but the precise nature and extent of this "language organ" is mainly an empirical matter, which notably requires studies of human newborns as well as non-human animals (3)(4)(5). With respect to studies of humans, we already know that newborns as young as four days old have the capacity to discriminate phonemes categorically (6) and perceive well-formed syllables as units (7)(8)(9); they are sensitive to the rhythm of speech, as shown in experiments where newborns distinguish sentences from languages that have different rhythmic properties, but not from languages that share the same rhythmic structure (10,11); however newborns don't discriminate languages when speech is played backwards (10), and neurophysiological studies suggest that both infants and adults process natural speech differently from backwards speech (12,13).…”