Human Novelty Response to Emotional Animal Vocalizations: Effects of Phylogeny and Familiarity

Abstract Mehr et al. propose a theory of the evolution music that can potentially account for most animal vocalizations as precursors to human music. Therein lies its appeal but also its Achilles' heel, for the wider the range of animal vocalizations treated as premusical expressions, the wider the gap to human music. Here, I offer a few critical observations and constructive suggestions that I hope will help the authors strengthen their case.

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Across-species differences in pitch perception are consistent with differences in cochlear filtering

eLife ◽

10.7554/elife.41626 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Kerry MM Walker ◽

Ray Gonzalez ◽

Joe Z Kang ◽

Josh H McDermott ◽

Andrew J King

Keyword(s):

Fundamental Frequency ◽

Species Differences ◽

Pitch Perception ◽

Species Variation ◽

Opposite Pattern ◽

Auditory Periphery ◽

Cochlear Tuning ◽

Animal Vocalizations ◽

Species Specific ◽

Relative Salience

Pitch perception is critical for recognizing speech, music and animal vocalizations, but its neurobiological basis remains unsettled, in part because of divergent results across species. We investigated whether species-specific differences exist in the cues used to perceive pitch and whether these can be accounted for by differences in the auditory periphery. Ferrets accurately generalized pitch discriminations to untrained stimuli whenever temporal envelope cues were robust in the probe sounds, but not when resolved harmonics were the main available cue. By contrast, human listeners exhibited the opposite pattern of results on an analogous task, consistent with previous studies. Simulated cochlear responses in the two species suggest that differences in the relative salience of the two pitch cues can be attributed to differences in cochlear filter bandwidths. The results support the view that cross-species variation in pitch perception reflects the constraints of estimating a sound’s fundamental frequency given species-specific cochlear tuning.

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Role of stress system disturbance and enhanced novelty response in spatial learning of NCAM-deficient mice

Stress ◽

10.3109/10253890.2013.840773 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 16 (6) ◽

pp. 638-646 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Joerg Brandewiede ◽

Mira Jakovcevski ◽

Oliver Stork ◽

Melitta Schachner

Keyword(s):

Spatial Learning ◽

Stress System ◽

Novelty Response ◽

Deficient Mice

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Rabbits use both spectral and temporal cues to discriminate the fundamental frequency of harmonic complexes with missing fundamentals

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00366.2021 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Joseph D Wagner ◽

Alice Gelman ◽

Kenneth E. Hancock ◽

Yoojin Chung ◽

Bertrand Delgutte

Keyword(s):

Fundamental Frequency ◽

Human Performance ◽

Spectral Composition ◽

Pitch Perception ◽

Wide Frequency Range ◽

Spatial Gradient ◽

Harmonic Complex ◽

Complex Tones ◽

Behavioral Paradigm ◽

Animal Vocalizations

The pitch of harmonic complex tones (HCT) common in speech, music and animal vocalizations plays a key role in the perceptual organization of sound. Unraveling the neural mechanisms of pitch perception requires animal models but little is known about complex pitch perception by animals, and some species appear to use different pitch mechanisms than humans. Here, we tested rabbits' ability to discriminate the fundamental frequency (F0) of HCTs with missing fundamentals using a behavioral paradigm inspired by foraging behavior in which rabbits learned to harness a spatial gradient in F0 to find the location of a virtual target within a room for a food reward. Rabbits were initially trained to discriminate HCTs with F0s in the range 400-800 Hz and with harmonics covering a wide frequency range (800-16,000 Hz), and then tested with stimuli differing either in spectral composition to test the role of harmonic resolvability (Experiment 1), or in F0 range (Experiment 2), or both F0 and spectral content (Experiment 3). Together, these experiments show that rabbits can discriminate HCTs over a wide F0 range (200-1600 Hz) encompassing the range of conspecific vocalizations, and can use either the spectral pattern of harmonics resolved by the cochlea for higher F0s or temporal envelope cues resulting from interaction between unresolved harmonics for lower F0s. The qualitative similarity of these results to human performance supports using rabbits as an animal model for studies of pitch mechanisms providing species differences in cochlear frequency selectivity and F0 range of vocalizations are taken into account.

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Behavioral evidence for post-pause reduced responsiveness in the electrosensory system ofGymnotus carapo

Journal of Experimental Biology ◽

10.1242/jeb.205.16.2525 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 205 (16) ◽

pp. 2525-2533 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Stefan Schuster

Keyword(s):

High Frequency ◽

Sampling Rate ◽

Sensory System ◽

Low Frequency ◽

Electric Organ ◽

Weakly Electric Fish ◽

Sensory Stimuli ◽

Novelty Response ◽

Electric Organ Discharges ◽

Electrical Stimuli

SUMMARYGymnotiform weakly electric fish find their way in the dark using a continuously operating active sensory system. An electric organ generates a continuous train of discharges (electric organ discharges, EODs), and tuberous high-frequency electroreceptors monitor the pattern of transcutaneous current flow associated with each EOD. Here, I report that a prior interruption to the continuous train of EODs dramatically affects a response shown by many pulse-type gymnotids. In this so-called novelty response, fish normally raise their electrosensory sampling rate in response to novel sensory stimuli. The gymnotid Gymnotus carapo was induced to pause its EODs briefly, and the novelty response to sensory stimuli given post-pause was analyzed. Mechanosensory stimuli given as early as 20 EODs after a pause elicited clear novelty responses, but strong high-frequency electrical stimuli were ineffective at this time. Moreover, high-frequency electrical stimuli remained less efficient in eliciting normal-sized responses until approximately 2000 EODs, or 40s, after a pause. The post-pause inefficiency of high-frequency stimuli was not due to an inappropriate choice of intensity or their temporal patterning and did not result from the stimulation that caused the pausing. Low-frequency stimuli that also recruited ampullary electroreceptors were more efficient than high-frequency stimuli in eliciting post-pause responses. These findings show that continuous activity is required either to maintain sensitivity to high-frequency electrical stimuli or to ensure that such stimuli are able to modulate efficiently the pacemaker that sets the discharge frequency.

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Delayed Inhibition in Cortical Receptive Fields and the Discrimination of Complex Stimuli

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00144.2005 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 94 (4) ◽

pp. 2970-2975 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Rajiv Narayan ◽

Ayla Ergün ◽

Kamal Sen

Keyword(s):

Auditory Cortex ◽

Temporal Structure ◽

Receptive Fields ◽

Primary Auditory Cortex ◽

Natural Sounds ◽

Functional Roles ◽

Complex Stimuli ◽

Animal Vocalizations ◽

Field L ◽

Cortical Receptive Fields

Although auditory cortex is thought to play an important role in processing complex natural sounds such as speech and animal vocalizations, the specific functional roles of cortical receptive fields (RFs) remain unclear. Here, we study the relationship between a behaviorally important function: the discrimination of natural sounds and the structure of cortical RFs. We examine this problem in the model system of songbirds, using a computational approach. First, we constructed model neurons based on the spectral temporal RF (STRF), a widely used description of auditory cortical RFs. We focused on delayed inhibitory STRFs, a class of STRFs experimentally observed in primary auditory cortex (ACx) and its analog in songbirds (field L), which consist of an excitatory subregion and a delayed inhibitory subregion cotuned to a characteristic frequency. We quantified the discrimination of birdsongs by model neurons, examining both the dynamics and temporal resolution of discrimination, using a recently proposed spike distance metric (SDM). We found that single model neurons with delayed inhibitory STRFs can discriminate accurately between songs. Discrimination improves dramatically when the temporal structure of the neural response at fine timescales is considered. When we compared discrimination by model neurons with and without the inhibitory subregion, we found that the presence of the inhibitory subregion can improve discrimination. Finally, we modeled a cortical microcircuit with delayed synaptic inhibition, a candidate mechanism underlying delayed inhibitory STRFs, and showed that blocking inhibition in this model circuit degrades discrimination.

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Birdsong and Sound Transmission: The Benefits of Reverberations

The Condor ◽

10.1093/condor/104.3.564 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 104 (3) ◽

pp. 564-573 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Hans Slabbekoorn ◽

Jacintha Ellers ◽

Thomas B. Smith

Keyword(s):

Bird Species ◽

Sound Transmission ◽

Acoustic Properties ◽

Signal Design ◽

Signal Attenuation ◽

Long Distance ◽

Animal Vocalizations ◽

Distance Communication ◽

The Relationship ◽

Insight Into

Abstract Animal vocalizations used for long-distance communication are shaped by acoustic properties of the environment. Studies of the relationship between signal design and sound transmission typically focus on habitat-induced limitations due to signal attenuation and degradation. However, signal design may not entirely be explained by habitat limitations, but rather by beneficial consequences of reverberations. Narrow-frequency bandwidth notes (NFB notes) are pure notes that change little in frequency, and are typical for many bird species living in dense tropical forests. In contrast to frequency-modulated notes, we show that reverberations lead to a longer and louder signal after transmission for NFB notes. Furthermore, playback experiments to territorial males of an African passerine indicated that longer notes led to a stronger behavioral response. These results suggest that reverberations may benefit signal efficiency depending on the signal design, and add new insight into the selection pressures imposed on acoustic signals by the environment. Canto de Aves y Transmisión de Sonido: Beneficios de las Reverberaciones Resumen. Las vocalizaciones utilizadas por animales para la comunicación a larga distancia están condicionadas por las propiedades acústicas del entorno. Los estudios sobre la relación entre el diseño de las señales y la transmisión del sonido suelen centrarse en los límites impuestos por el hábitat debido a la atenuación y degradación de la señal. Sin embargo, es posible que el diseño de la señal no esté regido exclusivamente por las limitaciones del habitat, sino por las consecuencias beneficiosas de las reverberaciones. Las notas de frecuencia de banda estrecha (notas NFB) son notas puras que cambian poco de frecuencia y son típicas de varias especies que habitan bosques tropicales densos. Al contrario que en las notas de frecuencia modulada, mostramos que las reverberaciones alargan y aumentan la señal de las notas NFB. Asimismo, experimentos de playback con machos territoriales de un paseriforme africano indican que las notas más largas provocan una mayor respuesta. Estos resultados sugieren que las reverberaciones pueden mejorar la eficiencia de la señal, dependiendo del diseño de la misma, y añaden un nuevo componente a nuestro conocimiento sobre las presiones selectivas impuestas por el entorno sobre las señales acústicas.

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Principles of structure building in music, language and animal song

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2014.0097 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 370 (1664) ◽

pp. 20140097 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Martin Rohrmeier ◽

Willem Zuidema ◽

Geraint A. Wiggins ◽

Constance Scharff

Keyword(s):

Formal Language ◽

Animal Communication ◽

Structural Complexity ◽

Language Theory ◽

Human Language ◽

Chomsky Hierarchy ◽

Structure Building ◽

Animal Vocalizations ◽

Communicative Success ◽

Parallel Feature

Human language, music and a variety of animal vocalizations constitute ways of sonic communication that exhibit remarkable structural complexity. While the complexities of language and possible parallels in animal communication have been discussed intensively, reflections on the complexity of music and animal song, and their comparisons, are underrepresented. In some ways, music and animal songs are more comparable to each other than to language as propositional semantics cannot be used as indicator of communicative success or wellformedness, and notions of grammaticality are less easily defined. This review brings together accounts of the principles of structure building in music and animal song. It relates them to corresponding models in formal language theory, the extended Chomsky hierarchy (CH), and their probabilistic counterparts. We further discuss common misunderstandings and shortcomings concerning the CH and suggest ways to move beyond. We discuss language, music and animal song in the context of their function and motivation and further integrate problems and issues that are less commonly addressed in the context of language, including continuous event spaces, features of sound and timbre, representation of temporality and interactions of multiple parallel feature streams. We discuss these aspects in the light of recent theoretical, cognitive, neuroscientific and modelling research in the domains of music, language and animal song.

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Functional brain asymmetry in adult novelty response: On fluidity of neonatal novelty exposure effects

Behavioural Brain Research ◽

10.1016/j.bbr.2011.02.047 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 221 (1) ◽

pp. 91-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Akaysha C. Tang ◽

Bethany Reeb-Sutherland ◽

Zhen Yang

Keyword(s):

Brain Asymmetry ◽

Functional Brain ◽

Novelty Response

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