Vocal Interactivity in-and-between Humans, Animals, and Robots

Abstract

Almost all animals exploit vocal signals for a range of ecologically motivated purposes: detecting predators/prey and marking territory, expressing emotions, establishing social relations, and sharing information. Whether it is a bird raising an alarm, a whale calling to potential partners, a dog responding to human commands, a parent reading a story with a child, or a business-person accessing stock prices using Siri, vocalization provides a valuable communication channel through which behavior may be coordinated and controlled, and information may be distributed and acquired. Indeed, the ubiquity of vocal interaction has led to research across an extremely diverse array of fields, from assessing animal welfare, to understanding the precursors of human language, to developing voice-based human-machine interaction. Opportunities for cross-fertilization between these fields abound; for example, using artificial cognitive agents to investigate contemporary theories of language grounding, using machine learning to analyze different habitats or adding vocal expressivity to the next generation of language-enabled autonomous social agents. However, much of the research is conducted within well-defined disciplinary boundaries, and many fundamental issues remain. This paper attempts to redress the balance by presenting a comparative review of vocal interaction within-and-between humans, animals, and artificial agents (such as robots), and it identifies a rich set of open research questions that may benefit from an interdisciplinary analysis.

Editorial: The Evolution of Rhythm Cognition: Timing in Music and Speech

“…Common foci are the relationship between synchronization and prosociality (Gebauer et al, 2016; Reddish et al, 2016; Rennung and Göritz, 2016; Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2016; Cirelli et al, 2017), and different forms of rhythmic behaviors in interaction (Large and Gray, 2015; Ravignani, 2015; Yu and Tomonaga, 2015; Ellamil et al, 2016; Gebauer et al, 2016; Greenfield et al, 2016; Moore et al, 2016; Schirmer et al, 2016; Wallot et al, 2016; Murphy and Schul, 2017). …”

“…The relationship between rhythm and sociality has seen a steady increase in research and has probably been the most investigated topic over the last 2 years (Large and Gray, 2015 ; Yu and Tomonaga, 2015 ; Ellamil et al, 2016 ; Gebauer et al, 2016 ; Greenfield et al, 2016 ; Moore et al, 2016 ; Reddish et al, 2016 ; Rennung and Göritz, 2016 ; Schirmer et al, 2016 ; Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2016 ; Wallot et al, 2016 ; Bishop and Goebl, 2017 ; Chang et al, 2017 ; Cirelli et al, 2017 ; Hannon et al, 2017 ; Knight et al, 2017 ; Mogan et al, 2017 ; Murphy and Schul, 2017 ; Rorato et al, 2017 ; Myers et al). Common foci are the relationship between synchronization and prosociality (Gebauer et al, 2016 ; Reddish et al, 2016 ; Rennung and Göritz, 2016 ; Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2016 ; Cirelli et al, 2017 ), and different forms of rhythmic behaviors in interaction (Large and Gray, 2015 ; Ravignani, 2015 ; Yu and Tomonaga, 2015 ; Ellamil et al, 2016 ; Gebauer et al, 2016 ; Greenfield et al, 2016 ; Moore et al, 2016 ; Schirmer et al, 2016 ; Wallot et al, 2016 ; Murphy and Schul, 2017 ).…”

The Evolution of Rhythm Cognition: Timing in Music and Speech

“…The relationship between rhythm and sociality has seen a steady increase in research and has probably been the most investigated topic over the last 2 years (Large and Gray, 2015;Yu and Tomonaga, 2015;Ellamil et al, 2016;Gebauer et al, 2016;Greenfield et al, 2016;Moore et al, 2016;Reddish et al, 2016;Rennung and Göritz, 2016;Schirmer et al, 2016;Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2016;Wallot et al, 2016;Bishop and Goebl, 2017;Chang et al, 2017;Cirelli et al, 2017;Hannon et al, 2017;Knight et al, 2017;Mogan et al, 2017;Murphy and Schul, 2017;Rorato et al, 2017;Myers et al). Common foci are the relationship between synchronization and prosociality (Gebauer et al, 2016;Reddish et al, 2016;Rennung and Göritz, 2016;Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2016;Cirelli et al, 2017), and different forms of rhythmic behaviors in interaction (Large and Gray, 2015;Ravignani, 2015;Yu and Tomonaga, 2015;Ellamil et al, 2016;Gebauer et al, 2016;Greenfield et al, 2016;Moore et al, 2016;Schirmer et al, 2016;Wallot et al, 2016;Murphy and Schul, 2017).…”

“…Common foci are the relationship between synchronization and prosociality (Gebauer et al, 2016;Reddish et al, 2016;Rennung and Göritz, 2016;Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2016;Cirelli et al, 2017), and different forms of rhythmic behaviors in interaction (Large and Gray, 2015;Ravignani, 2015;Yu and Tomonaga, 2015;Ellamil et al, 2016;Gebauer et al, 2016;Greenfield et al, 2016;Moore et al, 2016;Schirmer et al, 2016;Wallot et al, 2016;Murphy and Schul, 2017).…”

Fine-scale song exchange in two neighbouring populations of humpback whales

“…It is still unclear what syntactic rules are unique to certain displays and what are shared between complex communication displays of different species (Pinker and Jackendoff, 2005). Commonalities among syntactic rules in a mammalian vocal learning display will help to identify common vocal learning strategies or evolutionary roots across multiple taxa (Moore et al, 2016).…”