Institute of Zoology, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Bünteweg 17, Hannover D-30559, Germany.
Front Zool. 2012 Dec 21;9(1):36. doi: 10.1186/1742-9994-9-36.
Human speech does not only communicate linguistic information but also paralinguistic features, e.g. information about the identity and the arousal state of the sender. Comparable morphological and physiological constraints on vocal production in mammals suggest the existence of commonalities encoding sender-identity and the arousal state of a sender across mammals. To explore this hypothesis and to investigate whether specific acoustic parameters encode for sender-identity while others encode for arousal, we studied infants of the domestic cat (Felis silvestris catus). Kittens are an excellent model for analysing vocal correlates of sender-identity and arousal. They strongly depend on the care of their mother. Thus, the acoustical conveyance of sender-identity and arousal may be important for their survival.
We recorded calls of 18 kittens in an experimentally-induced separation paradigm, where kittens were spatially separated from their mother and siblings. In the Low arousal condition, infants were just separated without any manipulation. In the High arousal condition infants were handled by the experimenter. Multi-parametric sound analyses revealed that kitten isolation calls are individually distinct and differ between the Low and High arousal conditions. Our results suggested that source- and filter-related parameters are important for encoding sender-identity, whereas time-, source- and tonality-related parameters are important for encoding arousal.
Comparable findings in other mammalian lineages provide evidence for commonalities in non-verbal cues encoding sender-identity and arousal across mammals comparable to paralinguistic cues in humans. This favours the establishment of general concepts for voice recognition and emotions in humans and animals.
人类的言语不仅传达语言信息，还传达非语言特征，例如发送者的身份和唤醒状态信息。哺乳动物在发声生产方面存在相似的形态和生理限制，这表明在哺乳动物中存在着共同的特征来编码发送者的身份和唤醒状态。为了探索这一假设，并研究是否特定的声学参数编码发送者的身份，而其他参数编码唤醒状态，我们研究了家猫（Felis silvestris catus）的幼崽。小猫是分析发送者身份和唤醒的声学相关物的绝佳模型。它们强烈依赖于母亲的照顾。因此，发送者身份和唤醒的声学传达可能对它们的生存很重要。
我们在一个实验诱发的分离范式中记录了 18 只小猫的叫声，在这个范式中，小猫与它们的母亲和兄弟姐妹在空间上分开。在低唤醒条件下，小猫只是被分开，没有任何操作。在高唤醒条件下，小猫会被实验者处理。多参数声音分析表明，小猫隔离叫声具有个体差异，并且在低唤醒和高唤醒条件下有所不同。我们的结果表明，源和滤波器相关参数对于编码发送者身份很重要，而时间、源和音高相关参数对于编码唤醒状态很重要。
在其他哺乳动物谱系中类似的发现为非语言线索编码发送者身份和唤醒状态在哺乳动物中具有共同性提供了证据，这与人类的非语言线索相似。这有利于在人类和动物中建立关于声音识别和情绪的通用概念。
