A5079185900- Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
- Marine animal studies overview
- Music and Audio Processing
- Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Speech Recognition and Synthesis
- Underwater Acoustics Research
- Bat Biology and Ecology Studies
- Phonetics and Phonology Research
- Computational Physics and Python Applications
- Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamics
- Music Technology and Sound Studies
- Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Speech and Audio Processing
- Speech and dialogue systems
- Language and cultural evolution
- Ship Hydrodynamics and Maneuverability
- Diverse Musicological Studies
- Human Motion and Animation
- Receptor Mechanisms and Signaling
- Underwater Vehicles and Communication Systems
- Plant and animal studies
- Linguistic Variation and Morphology
- Natural Language Processing Techniques
- Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Action Observation and Synchronization
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
2016-2025
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
2021-2025
Sapienza University of Rome
2024-2025
Bioengineering Center
2016-2018
University of Antwerp
2018
Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities differences between song, speech, instrumental on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two datasets: (i) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; (ii) 418 previously published adult-directed song speech 209 individuals 16 languages. Of six...
Rhythm is ubiquitous in human culture and nature, but hard to capture all its complexity. A key dimension of rhythm, integer ratio categories occur when the relationship between temporal intervals can be expressed as small-integer ratios. Recent work has found most musical cultures some animal species' vocalizations or behavioral displays. But biological systems are noisy, empirically measured rarely form an exact ratio. Here, we mathematically assess whether leading analysis method makes...
Temporal regularities in speech, such as interdependencies the timing of speech events, are thought to scaffold early acquisition building blocks speech. By providing on-line clues location and duration upcoming syllables, temporal structure may aid segmentation clustering continuous into separable units. This hypothesis tacitly assumes that learners exploit predictability Existing measures tend focus on first-order among adjacent units, overly sensitive idiosyncrasies data they describe....
The evolution of music, speech, and sociality have been debated since before Darwin. social bonding hypothesis proposes that these phenomena may be interlinked: musicality facilitated the beyond possibilities spoken language. Although dozens experimental studies argued synchronised rhythms can promote bonding, methodological issues including publication bias, sample experimenter effects, appropriateness controls make it unclear whether synchronous singing reliably generally enhances relative...
Rhythm is fundamental in many physical and biological systems. relevant to a broad range of phenomena across different fields, including animal bioacoustics, speech sciences, music cognition. As result, the interest developing consistent quantitative measures for cross-disciplinary rhythmic analysis growing. Two that can be directly applied any temporal structure are normalized pairwise variability index (nPVI) rhythm ratios (rk). The nPVI summarizes overall isochrony sequence, i.e., how...
Many species produce rhythmic sound sequences. Some purportedly speed up their vocalizations throughout a display, reminiscent of - but not necessarily equivalent to "accelerando" in human music. This phenomenon has been frequently reported rarely quantified, which limits our ability understand its mechanism, function, and evolution. Here, we use suite rhythm analyses quantify temporal acoustic features the display songs male African penguins (Spheniscus demersus). We show that get faster...
The evolution of music, speech, and sociality have been debated since before Darwin. social bonding hypothesis proposes that these phenomena may be interlinked: musicality facilitated the beyond possibilities spoken language. Although dozens experimental studies argued synchronised rhythms can promote bonding, methodological issues including publication bias, sample experimenter effects, appropriateness controls make it unclear whether synchronous singing reliably generally enhances relative...
Animal acoustic communication contains many structural features. Among these, temporal structure, or rhythmicity, is increasingly tested empirically and modelled quantitatively. Accelerando a rhythmic structure which consists of intervals increasing in rate over sequence. Why this particular vocal behaviour widespread different animal lineages, how it evolved, so far unknown. Here, we use evolutionary game theory computer simulations to link two aspects communication, synchronization...
Abstract Formants, or resonance frequencies of the upper vocal tract, are an essential part acoustic communication. Articulatory gestures—such as jaw, tongue, lip, and soft palate movements—shape formant structure in human vocalizations, but little is known about how nonhuman mammals use those gestures to modify frequencies. Here, we report a case study with adult male harbor seal trained produce arbitrary vocalization composed multiple repetitions sound wa . We analyzed jaw movements...
Vocal plasticity can occur in response to environmental and biological factors, including conspecifics' vocalizations noise. Pinnipeds are one of the few mammalian groups capable vocal learning, therefore relevant understanding evolution humans other animals. Here, we investigate harbour seals (Phoca vitulina), a species with learning abilities observed adulthood but not puppyhood. To evaluate early development, tested 1-3 weeks-old seal pups. We tailored noise playbacks this age induce pups...
Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities differences between song, speech, instrumental on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two datasets: 1) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; 2) 418 previously published adult-directed song speech 209 individuals 16 languages. Of six...
Bioacoustics increasingly relies on large datasets and computational methods. The need to batch-process amounts of data the increased focus algorithmic processing require software tools. To optimally assist in a bioacoustician's workflow, tools be as simple effective possible. Five years ago, Python package Parselmouth was released provide easy intuitive access all functionality Praat software. Whereas is principally designed for phonetics speech processing, plenty bioacoustics studies have...
Researchers in animal cognition, psychophysics, and experimental psychology need to randomise the presentation order of trials sessions. In many paradigms, for each trial, one two responses can be correct, ordered such that participant's are a fair assessment their performance. Specifically, some cases, especially low numbers trials, randomised trial orders excluded if they contain simple patterns which participant could accidentally match so succeed at task without learning.We present...
ABSTRACT Vocal plasticity can occur in response to environmental and biological factors, including conspecifics’ vocalisations noise. Pinnipeds are one of the few mammalian groups capable vocal learning, therefore relevant understanding evolution humans other animals. Here, we investigate harbour seals ( Phoca vitulina ), a species with learning abilities attested adulthood but not puppyhood. To zoom into early development, tested 1-3 weeks old seal pups. We tailored noise playbacks this age...
thebeat is a Python package for working with temporal sequences and rhythms in the behavioral cognitive sciences, as well bioacoustics. It provides functionality creating experimental stimuli, visualizing analyzing data. Sequences, sounds, trials can be generated using single lines of code. contains functions calculating common rhythmic measures, such interval ratios, producing plots, circular histograms. saves researchers time when experiments, first steps collecting widely accepted methods...
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Abstract Research on language evolution is an established subject area yet permeated by terminological controversies about which topics should be considered pertinent to the field and not. By consequence, scholars focusing struggle in providing precise demarcations of discipline, where even very central notions are elusive. We aimed at a data-driven characterisation as research relying quantitative analysis data drawn from 697 reviews 255 submissions Joint Conference Language Evolution 2022...
The evolution of music, speech, and sociality have been debated since before Darwin. social bonding hypothesis proposes that these phenomena may be interlinked: musicality facilitated the beyond possibilities spoken language. Although dozens experimental studies argued synchronised rhythms can promote bonding, methodological issues including publication bias, sample experimenter effects, appropriateness controls make it unclear whether synchronous singing reliably generally enhances relative...