Sounds like a fight: Listeners map spontaneous nonverbal vocalizations to behavioral contexts

When we hear another person laugh or scream, can we tell the kind of situation they are in – whether they are playing or fighting? If nonverbal expressions vary systematically across behavioral contexts, perceivers might be sensitive to these mappings and consequently be able to tell the contexts from others’ vocalizations. Here, we test the prediction that listeners can infer production contexts from vocalizations by examining listeners’ ability to match spontaneous nonverbal vocalizations to the behavioral contexts in which they were produced. In a preregistered experiment, listeners (N = 3120) matched 200 nonverbal vocalizations to one of 10 contexts using yes/no response options. Using signal detection analysis, we show that listeners were accurate at matching vocalizations to nine of the behavioral contexts. We also found that listeners’ performance was more accurate for vocalizations produced in negative as compared to positive contexts. These results indicate that perceivers can accurately infer contextual information from nonverbal vocalizations, demonstrating that listeners are sensitive to systematic associations between vocalizations and behavioral contexts.