Neandertal vocal tract

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-429
Author(s):  
Louis-Jean Boë ◽  
Jean-Louis Heim ◽  
Christian Abry ◽  
Pierre Badin
Keyword(s):  
Oral Cavity ◽  
Vocal Tract ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
Definitive Answer ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
Vocally Handicapped

Potential speech abilities constitute a key component in the description of the Neandertals and their relations with modern Homo Sapiens. Since Lieberman & Crelin postulated in 1971 the theory that “Neanderthal man did not have the anatomical prerequisites for producing the full range of human speech” their speech capability has been a subject of hot debate for over 30 years, and remains a controversial question. In this study, we first question the methodology adopted by Lieberman and Crelin, and we point out articulatory and acoustic flaws in the data and the modeling. Then we propose a general articulatory-acoustic framework for testing the acoustic consequences of the trade-off between oral and pharyngeal cavities. Specifically, following Honda & Tiede (1998), we characterize this trade-off by a Laryngeal Height Index (LHI) corresponding to the length ratio of the pharyngeal cavity to the oral cavity. Using an anthropomorphic articulatory model controlled by lips, jaw, tongue and larynx parameters, we can generate the Maximal Vowel Space (MVS), which is a triangle in the F1 / F2 plane, the three point vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/ being located at its three extremities. We sample the evolution of the position of the larynx from birth to adulthood with four different LHI values, and we show that the associated MVS are very similar. Therefore, the MVS of a given vocal tract does not depend on the LHI: gestures of the tongue body, lips and jaw allow compensations for differences in the ratio between the dimensions of the oral cavity and pharynx. We then infer that the vowel space of Neandertals (with high or low larynx) was potentially no smaller than that of a modern human and that Neandertals could produce all the vowels of the world’s languages. Neandertals were no more vocally handicapped than children at birth are. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the lowering of the larynx and a concomitant increase in pharynx size are necessary evolutionary pre-adaptations for speech. However, since our study is strictly limited to the morphological and acoustic aspects of the vocal tract, we cannot offer any definitive answer to the question of whether Neandertals could produce human speech or not.

Neandertal man was not morphologically handicapped for speech

1999 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis-Jean Boë ◽  
Shinji Maeda ◽  
Jean-Louis Heim
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Tract ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Female Adult ◽  
Biometric Data ◽  
Male Adult ◽  
Definitive Answer ◽  
Morphological Aspects ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
Articulatory Model

Since Lieberman and Crelin (1971) postulated a theory that Neandertals were speechless species, the speech capability of Neandertals has been a subject of hot debate for over 30 years and remains as a controversial question. These authors claimed that the acquisition of a low laryngeal position during evolution is a necessary condition for having a vowel space large enough to realize the necessary vocalic contrasts for speech. Moreover, Neandertals didn't posses this anatomical base and therefore could not speak, presumably causing their extinction. In this study, we refute Lieberman and Crelin's theory by showing, first with the analysis of biometric data, that the estimated laryngeal position for two Neandertals is relatively high, but not as high as claimed by the two authors. In fact, the length ratio of the pharyngeal cavity to the oral cavity, i.e., an acoustically important parameter, of the Neandertals corresponds to that of a modern female adult or of a child. Second, using an anthropomorphic articulatory model, the potentially maximum vowel space estimated by varying the model morphology from a newborn, a child, a female adult and to a male adult didn't show any relevant variation. We infer then that a Neandertal could have a vowel space no smaller than that of a modern human. Our study is strictly limited to the morphological aspects of the vocal tract. We, therefore, cannot offer any definitive answer to the question whether Neandertals actually spoke or not. But we feel safe saying that Neandertals were not morphologically handicapped for speech.

Newborn Infant Cry and Nonhuman Primate Vocalization

1971 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 718-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Lieberman ◽  
Katherine S. Harris ◽  
Peter Wolff ◽  
Lorraine H. Russell
Keyword(s):  
Nonhuman Primate ◽  
Vocal Tract ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Newborn Infants ◽  
Open Boundary ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Infant Cry ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
Vocal Apparatus ◽  
Uniform Cross Section

Cries were recorded from 20 normal newborn infants from birth to the fourth day of life. Sound spectrograms showed that these cries were similar to the vocalizations of nonhuman primates insofar as the infants seemed to produce sounds by means of a uniform cross-section, schwalike, vocal tract configuration. Under certain conditions the laryngeal excitation was breathy and formant frequencies corresponding to an open boundary condition at the glottis were generated. The infants did not produce the range of sounds typical of adult human speech. This inability appears to reflect, in part, limitations imposed by the neonatal vocal apparatus, which, like the nonhuman primate vocal tract, appears to be inherently incapable of producing the full range of human speech. The initial restrictions on the sound-making repertoire of human infants are also evident in previous perceptually based transcriptions of the utterances of infants as well as in spectrographic and cineradiographic studies.

scholarly journals Anisotropic, Wrinkled, and Crack-Bridging Structure for Ultrasensitive, Highly Selective Multidirectional Strain Sensors

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heng Zhang ◽  
Dan Liu ◽  
Jeng-Hun Lee ◽  
Haomin Chen ◽  
Eunyoung Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rational Design ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Human Motion ◽  
Strain Sensors ◽  
Gauge Factor ◽  
Wearable Electronics ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Human Motion Detection ◽  
Sensing Applications ◽  
Anisotropic Structures

AbstractFlexible multidirectional strain sensors are crucial to accurately determining the complex strain states involved in emerging sensing applications. Although considerable efforts have been made to construct anisotropic structures for improved selective sensing capabilities, existing anisotropic sensors suffer from a trade-off between high sensitivity and high stretchability with acceptable linearity. Here, an ultrasensitive, highly selective multidirectional sensor is developed by rational design of functionally different anisotropic layers. The bilayer sensor consists of an aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) array assembled on top of a periodically wrinkled and cracked CNT–graphene oxide film. The transversely aligned CNT layer bridge the underlying longitudinal microcracks to effectively discourage their propagation even when highly stretched, leading to superior sensitivity with a gauge factor of 287.6 across a broad linear working range of up to 100% strain. The wrinkles generated through a pre-straining/releasing routine in the direction transverse to CNT alignment is responsible for exceptional selectivity of 6.3, to the benefit of accurate detection of loading directions by the multidirectional sensor. This work proposes a unique approach to leveraging the inherent merits of two cross-influential anisotropic structures to resolve the trade-off among sensitivity, selectivity, and stretchability, demonstrating promising applications in full-range, multi-axis human motion detection for wearable electronics and smart robotics.

Language and life history: A new perspective on the development and evolution of human language

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Locke ◽  
Barry Bogin
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Adult Development ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Juvenile Period ◽  
Development Of Language ◽  
New Perspective

It has long been claimed that Homo sapiens is the only species that has language, but only recently has it been recognized that humans also have an unusual pattern of growth and development. Social mammals have two stages of pre-adult development: infancy and juvenility. Humans have two additional prolonged and pronounced life history stages: childhood, an interval of four years extending between infancy and the juvenile period that follows, and adolescence, a stage of about eight years that stretches from juvenility to adulthood. We begin by reviewing the primary biological and linguistic changes occurring in each of the four pre-adult ontogenetic stages in human life history. Then we attempt to trace the evolution of childhood and juvenility in our hominin ancestors. We propose that several different forms of selection applied in infancy and childhood; and that, in adolescence, elaborated vocal behaviors played a role in courtship and intrasexual competition, enhancing fitness and ultimately integrating performative and pragmatic skills with linguistic knowledge in a broad faculty of language. A theoretical consequence of our proposal is that fossil evidence of the uniquely human stages may be used, with other findings, to date the emergence of language. If important aspects of language cannot appear until sexual maturity, as we propose, then a second consequence is that the development of language requires the whole of modern human ontogeny. Our life history model thus offers new ways of investigating, and thinking about, the evolution, development, and ultimately the nature of human language.

scholarly journals Recent origin of low trabecular bone density in modern humans

2014 ◽  
Vol 112 (2) ◽  
pp. 366-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Habiba Chirchir ◽  
Tracy L. Kivell ◽  
Christopher B. Ruff ◽  
Jean-Jacques Hublin ◽  
Kristian J. Carlson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Trabecular Bone ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Lower Limbs ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Human Skeleton ◽  
Trabecular Density ◽  
Fossil Hominins

Humans are unique, compared with our closest living relatives (chimpanzees) and early fossil hominins, in having an enlarged body size and lower limb joint surfaces in combination with a relatively gracile skeleton (i.e., lower bone mass for our body size). Some analyses have observed that in at least a few anatomical regions modern humans today appear to have relatively low trabecular density, but little is known about how that density varies throughout the human skeleton and across species or how and when the present trabecular patterns emerged over the course of human evolution. Here, we test the hypotheses that (i) recent modern humans have low trabecular density throughout the upper and lower limbs compared with other primate taxa and (ii) the reduction in trabecular density first occurred in early Homo erectus, consistent with the shift toward a modern human locomotor anatomy, or more recently in concert with diaphyseal gracilization in Holocene humans. We used peripheral quantitative CT and microtomography to measure trabecular bone of limb epiphyses (long bone articular ends) in modern humans and chimpanzees and in fossil hominins attributed to Australopithecus africanus, Paranthropus robustus/early Homo from Swartkrans, Homo neanderthalensis, and early Homo sapiens. Results show that only recent modern humans have low trabecular density throughout the limb joints. Extinct hominins, including pre-Holocene Homo sapiens, retain the high levels seen in nonhuman primates. Thus, the low trabecular density of the recent modern human skeleton evolved late in our evolutionary history, potentially resulting from increased sedentism and reliance on technological and cultural innovations.

Formant Frequencies of Stuttered and Fluent Vowels

1987 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Prosek ◽  
Allen A. Montgomery ◽  
Brian E. Walden ◽  
David B. Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Tract ◽  
Formant Frequencies ◽  
Vowel Space

The formant frequencies of 15 adult stutterers' fluent and disfluent vowels and the formant frequencies of stutterers' and nonstutterers' fluent vowels were compared in an F1-F2 vowel space and in a normalized F1-F2 vowel space. The results indicated that differences in formant frequencies observed between the stutterers' and nonstutterers' vowels can be accounted for by differences among the vocal tract dimensions of the talkers. In addition, no differences were found between the formant frequencies of the fluent and disfluent vowels produced by the stutterers. The overall pattern of these results indicates that, contrary to recent reports (Klich & May, 1982), stutterers do not exhibit significantly greater vowel centralization than nonstutterers.

Effects of Long-Term Tracheostomy on Spectral Characteristics of Vowel Production

1991 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 1057-1065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Saletsky Kamen ◽  
Ben C. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Tract ◽  
Spectral Characteristics ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Vowel Production ◽  
Formant Frequency ◽  
Motor Patterns ◽  
Spectral Parameters ◽  
Oral Motor ◽  
Vowel Space

This study investigated the effects of long-term tracheostomy on the development of speech. Eight children who underwent tracheotomy during the prelingual period were compared to matched controls on selected spectral parameters of the speech acoustic signal and standard measures of oral-motor, phonologic, and articulatory proficiency. Analysis of formant frequency values revealed significant between-group differences. Children with histories of long-term tracheostomy showed reduced acoustic vowel space, as defined by group formant frequency values. This suggests that these children were limited in their ability to produce extreme vocal tract configurations for vowels /a,i,u/ postdecannulation. Oral motor patterns were less mature, and sound substitutions were not only more variable for this group, but also reflected a persistent overlay of maladaptive compensations developed during cannulation.

Aterian

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena A.A. Garcea
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Plasticity ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
North African ◽  
Behavioral Experiments ◽  
Wide Range

The Aterian is a North African late Middle Stone Age techno-complex. It is spread from the Atlantic coast in Morocco to the Middle Nile Valley in Sudan and from the Mediterranean hinterland to the Southern Sahara. Chronologically, it covers the period between c. 145,000 years bp and 29,000 bp, spanning across discontinuous, alternating dry (end of MIS 6 and MIS 4) and humid (MIS 5 and MIS 3) climatic phases. Few, but significant human remains indicate that the makers of the Aterian complex belong to early Homo sapiens. Their osteological features show affinities with the early anatomically modern human record in the Levant (Skhul and Qafzeh), suggesting that Aterian groups may have taken part in the initial dispersals out of Africa by Homo sapiens. Toolkits consist of a variety of implements not only made of stone but also of bone (points, spatulas, knives, and retouchers). They include tools that were lacking in earlier or other North African contemporary contexts, namely bifacial foliates, blades, perforators, burins, endscrapers, and particularly tanged pieces. Overemphasis on tanged tools often obscured the complexity of the Aterian, which instead displays a wide range of cultural and behavioral innovations. New mobility patterns and intra-site organization, as well as early symbolism with the use of Nassariidae shells and ochre, corroborate early fully complex behavior by these populations. Given the broad geographic and chronological extension of the Aterian, differences are evident at both local and regional scales. They suggest the development of a flexible and variable techno-complex mirroring considerable adaptive cognitive and behavioral plasticity derived from nonlinear processes. Such diversified behavioral experiments result from multiple and noncumulative trajectories due to different internal and external stimuli but are still part of a single cultural entity.

Seven Steps in the Evolution of the Human Imagination

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEVEN MITHEN
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Clear Picture ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Creative Imagination ◽  
African Apes ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

The modern human is a product of six million years of evolution wherein it is assumed that the ancestor of man resembles that of a chimpanzee. This assumption is based on the similarities of the ape-like brain size and post-cranial characteristics of the earliest hominid species to chimpanzees. Whilst it is unclear whether chimpanzees share the same foresight and contemplation of alternatives as with humans, it is nevertheless clear that chimpanzees lack creative imagination — an aspect of modern human imagination that sets humanity apart from its hominid ancestors. Creative imagination pertains to the ability to combine different forms of knowledge and ways of thinking to form creative and novel ideas. This chapter discusses seven critical steps in the evolution of the human imagination. These steps provide a clear picture of the gradual emergence of creative imagination in humans from their primitive origins as Homo sapiens some 200,000 years ago. This chronological evolution of the imaginative mind of humans involves both biological and cultural change that began soon after the divergence of the two lineages that led to modern humans and African apes.

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