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In Spanish coda segments are resyllabified as the onset of a following onsetless syllable across a word boundary. Thus, buscabas ocio (‘you were looking for entertainment’) has been traditionally syllabified in the same way as buscaba socio (‘s/he was looking for an associate’), and both are considered homophones. In this study nineteen speakers were recorded producing sentences that included such two-word minimal pairs, making up a total of 1424 utterances. The acoustic analyses performed on both prosodic structures, i.e. /V#CV/ vs. /V#CV/, provide measures of amplitude, spectral characteristics, and coarticulation for /s/, /n/, and /l/, as well as for their flanking vowels. Our results show differences for each condition and suggest an ambisyllabic nature of resyllabified consonants, which is interpreted within the framework of Articulatory Phonology.

Introduction: The perception of phonemes is guided by both low-level acoustic cues and high-level linguistic context. However, differentiating between these two types of processing can be challenging. In this study, we explore the utility of pupillometry as a tool to investigate both low- and high-level processing of phonological stimuli, with a particular focus on its ability to capture novelty detection and cognitive processing during speech perception. Methods: Pupillometric traces were recorded from a sample of 22 Danishspeaking adults, with self-reported normal hearing, while performing two phonological-contrast perception tasks: a nonword discrimination task, which included minimal-pair combinations specific to the Danish language, and a nonword detection task involving the detection of phonologically modified words within sentences. The study explored the perception of contrasts in both unprocessed speech and degraded speech input, processed with a vocoder. Results: No difference in peak pupil dilation was observed when the contrast occurred between two isolated nonwords in the nonword discrimination task. For unprocessed speech, higher peak pupil dilations were measured when phonologically modified words were detected within a sentence compared to sentences without the nonwords. For vocoded speech, higher peak pupil dilation was observed for sentence stimuli, but not for the isolated nonwords, although performance decreased similarly for both tasks. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate the complexity of pupil dynamics in the presence of acoustic and phonological manipulation. Pupil responses seemed to reflect higher-level cognitive and lexical processing related to phonological perception rather than low-level perception of acoustic cues. However, the incorporation of multiple talkers in the stimuli, coupled with the relatively low task complexity, may have affected the pupil dilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimodal communication cannot be properly understood without analyzing the natural interweaving of speech and gestures as it typically occurs in everyday spoken language, thus moving beyond studies that elicit gestures in the laboratory, most of which are also conducted for English. Therefore, this study addresses the effect of both visual and acoustic cues in the perception of prominence in Castilian Spanish using spontaneous speech from a TV talent-show. Four between-subjects experiments in each modality—audio-only and audiovisual—were conducted online, each including a different combination of manipulated cues: Exp1 (flat F0), Exp2 (flat intensity), and Exp3 (flat F0 + flat intensity), while all cues remained intact in the control experiment Exp0. Additionally, the capability of the different gesture phases to convey prominence was analyzed in their interaction with the acoustic cues. The results showed that, when prominence was perceived in manipulated stimuli, the effect of the visual information depended on the acoustic cues available in the signal and was also reduced when compared to non-manipulated stimuli, pointing to a strong integration of both modalities in prominence perception. In non-manipulated stimuli, all acoustic cues—except for spectral balance—played a role in the perception of prominence; however, when the visual information was added, it reduced the perceptual effect of the acoustic cues, and the main role played by duration was combined with that of the stroke phase of gestures.

IntroductionThe perception of phonemes is guided by both low-level acoustic cues and high-level linguistic context. However, differentiating between these two types of processing can be challenging. In this study, we explore the utility of pupillometry as a tool to investigate both low- and high-level processing of phonological stimuli, with a particular focus on its ability to capture novelty detection and cognitive processing during speech perception.MethodsPupillometric traces were recorded from a sample of 22 Danish-speaking adults, with self-reported normal hearing, while performing two phonological-contrast perception tasks: a nonword discrimination task, which included minimal-pair combinations specific to the Danish language, and a nonword detection task involving the detection of phonologically modified words within sentences. The study explored the perception of contrasts in both unprocessed speech and degraded speech input, processed with a vocoder.ResultsNo difference in peak pupil dilation was observed when the contrast occurred between two isolated nonwords in the nonword discrimination task. For unprocessed speech, higher peak pupil dilations were measured when phonologically modified words were detected within a sentence compared to sentences without the nonwords. For vocoded speech, higher peak pupil dilation was observed for sentence stimuli, but not for the isolated nonwords, although performance decreased similarly for both tasks.ConclusionOur findings demonstrate the complexity of pupil dynamics in the presence of acoustic and phonological manipulation. Pupil responses seemed to reflect higher-level cognitive and lexical processing related to phonological perception rather than low-level perception of acoustic cues. However, the incorporation of multiple talkers in the stimuli, coupled with the relatively low task complexity, may have affected the pupil dilation.

Research on human posture and balance control has grown in recent years, leading to continued advances in their understanding. The ability to maintain balance is attributed to the interplay of the visual, vestibular, and somatosensory systems, although an important role is also played by the auditory system. The lack or deficit in any of these systems leads to a reduced stability that may be counterbalanced by the integration of all the remaining sensory information. Auditory and vibratory stimulation have been found to be useful to enhance balance alongside daily activities either in healthy or pathological subjects; nevertheless, while widely investigated, the literature relating to these approaches is still fragmented. This review aims at addressing this by collecting, organising, and discussing all the literature to date on the effects of the various acoustic and vibratory stimulation techniques available on static upright posture in healthy subjects. In addition, this review intends to provide a solid and comprehensive starting point for all the researchers interested in these research areas. A systematic search of the literature was performed and a total of 33 articles (24 on vibratory stimulation and 9 on acoustic stimulation) were included in our analysis. For all articles, several elements were highlighted including: the study sample, the characteristics of the stimulations, the recording instruments, the experimental protocols, and outcomes. Overall, both stimulations analysed were found to have a positive effect on balance but more research is needed to align those alternative approaches to the traditional ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human-wildlife interactions continue to increase due to anthropogenic disturbances, with some interactions resulting in conflict. Leveraging a taxa’s bias for a particular sensory cue is a promising management avenue for reducing the potential and realized negative consequences of human-wildlife conflict. For instance, many avian species heavily depend on acoustic communication, and acoustic cues can provide opportunities to reduce conflict with various avian species. The monk parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus) is a gregarious parrot native to South America that has established populations worldwide and is considered an urban and agricultural pest in parts of its native and introduced ranges. We conducted playback experiments with a captive population of monk parakeets to evaluate auditory cues that may be useful for designing management protocols. Our experiment evaluated the efficacy of two stimuli: predator vocalizations as potential repulsion and conspecific vocalizations as potential attraction stimuli for parakeets. We measured two responses: (1) categorical group-level behavioral responses and (2) time to cease vigilance and return to behavior prior to playback. In the repulsion playbacks, monk parakeets were repelled by predator vocalizations in 80% of trials and took longer to cease vigilance and return to baseline behavior compared to attraction playbacks. In the attraction playbacks, monk parakeets exhibited vigilant behavior and weak or no attraction to the stimulus, with attraction only being observed in 10% of trials. Our results demonstrate that predator playbacks may be particularly useful for completing management objectives, such as temporary removal from a location.

Simple Summary: Large mammals' behavioral responses to humans as predators may be impacted by hunting intensity. Using a playback experiment, we found that two wild ungulates exhibited reactive (flee) rather than proactive responses (decrease habitat use) to human vocalizations at a hunting-prohibited site in North China. The wild ungulates had equal or even higher flight probabilities upon hearing vocalizations of humans than the native extant large carnivore (leopard). We also found habituation-type responses featured as progressively decreased responses to the vocalizations in both ungulates. Large mammals can perceive humans as predators and therefore adjust their behavior to achieve coexistence with humans. However, lack of research at sites with low hunting intensity limits our understanding of how behavioral responses of animals adapt to different predation risks by humans. At Heshun County in North China, where hunting has been banned for over three decades and only low-intensity poaching exists, we exposed two large ungulates (Siberian roe deer Capreolus pygarus and wild boar Sus scrofa) to the sounds of humans, an extant predator (leopard Panthera pardus) and a control (wind), and examined their flight responses and detection probabilities when hearing different type of sounds. Both species showed higher flight probabilities when hearing human vocalization than wind, and wild boar were even more likely to flee upon hearing human vocalization than leopard roar, suggesting the behavioral response to humans can equal or exceed that of large carnivores in these two ungulates even in an area without hunting practices. Recorded sounds had no effect on detection probability of both ungulates. Additionally, with repeated exposure to sounds, regardless of treatment, roe deer were less likely to flee and wild boars were more likely to be detected, indicating a habituation-type response to sound stimuli. We speculate that the immediate flight behavior rather than shifts in habitat use of the two species reflect the low hunting/poaching pressure at our study site and suggest further examination of physiological status and demographic dynamics of the study species to understand human influence on their long-term persistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acoustic cues (e.g., vocalizations or ‘calls’ in wildlife) may effectively change social behavioral patterns in certain species. There are very few published papers on how to create a device at a low cost that can automatically reproduce acoustic cues to carry on wildlife playback experiments or management. We developed the Automated Call Box (ACB) based on an open-source Arduino-compatible microcontroller that attaches to a speaker system and costs less than the most common game caller used by researchers. The unit helps test the influence of social information on habitat choices and has other management applications. We field-tested the ACB to assess the effect of conspecific vocalizations cues on the habitat settlement and to increase the detectability of songbird species. We describe in detail the costs of the materials to build this type of system as a reference for further research. Our ACB allows researchers to conduct experiments on wildlife in inclement weather and complex environments, even in remote locations, with minimum or no necessity for the researcher to be present to reset the equipment.

This study investigates the relationship between signal-based factors and discourse context in the production and perception of prominence, extending prior work on prominence in American English by examining speech from complete TED Talks as examples of a public speech style. First, we conduct a production study. The TED Talk speech samples are analyzed for relationships between (1) phonological pitch accent, (2) acoustic prosodic features, and (3) information structure, modeled here in terms of referential and lexical givenness as well as focus related to semantic alternatives. Second, we conduct a perception study. Word-level prominence ratings obtained from untrained listeners are analyzed for the effects of these (1) phonological, (2) acoustic, and (3) information structural factors. The aim of this study is to evaluate the interaction of the three kinds of factors on prominence ratings with speech that is fully contextualized, allowing for information about the speaker, the situational context, and the discourse context to interact with and possibly mediate signal-based cues to prominence. Results from the production analysis show a weak probabilistic relation between pitch accent assignment and information structure for these TED Talk speakers, but only in the presence versus absence of pitch accent with differences between lexical and referential information status. No systematic relationship is found between a word’s phonological pitch accent type and information structure category, though we do find some evidence of the expected gradient variation in the acoustic expression of prominence: Words that are more informative tend to have higher pitch and a wider pitch range. Despite the weak association between signal-based prominence and information structure in production, listeners perceive and rate prominence in a manner that is, to varying degrees, in accordance with the Accentual Prominence and Givenness hierarchies. In sum, the findings contribute new evidence of the mediating effects of contextual factors relating to the phonological status of pitch accents, information structure, and speech style on the interpretation of acoustic cues to prominence.

Adults commonly struggle with perceiving and recognizing the sounds and words of a second language (L2), especially when the L2 sounds do not have a counterpart in the learner's first language (L1). We examined how L1 Mandarin L2 English speakers learned pseudo English words within a cross-situational word learning (CSWL) task previously presented to monolingual English and bilingual Mandarin-English speakers. CSWL is ambiguous because participants are not provided with direct mappings of words and object referents. Rather, learners discern word-object correspondences through tracking multiple co-occurrences across learning trials. The monolinguals and bilinguals tested in previous studies showed lower performance for pseudo words that formed vowel minimal pairs (e.g., /dit/-/dɪt/) than pseudo word which formed consonant minimal pairs (e.g., /bɔn/-/pɔn/) or non-minimal pairs which differed in all segments (e.g., /bɔn/-/dit/). In contrast, L1 Mandarin L2 English listeners struggled to learn all word pairs. We explain this seemingly contradicting finding by considering the multiplicity of acoustic cues in the stimuli presented to all participant groups. Stimuli were produced in infant-directed-speech (IDS) in order to compare performance by children and adults and because previous research had shown that IDS enhances L1 and L2 acquisition. We propose that the suprasegmental pitch variation in the vowels typical of IDS stimuli might be perceived as lexical tone distinctions for tonal language speakers who cannot fully inhibit their L1 activation, resulting in high lexical competition and diminished learning during an ambiguous word learning task. Our results are in line with the Second Language Linguistic Perception (L2LP) model which proposes that fine-grained acoustic information from multiple sources and the ability to switch between language modes affects non-native phonetic and lexical development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conversational speech, phones and entire syllables are often missing. This can make "he's" and "he was" homophonous, realized for example as [ɨz]. Similarly, "you're" and "you were" can both be realized as [jɚ], [ɨ], etc. We investigated what types of information native listeners use to perceive such verb tenses. Possible types included acoustic cues in the phrase (e.g., in "he was"), the rate of the surrounding speech, and syntactic and semantic information in the utterance, such as the presence of time adverbs such as "yesterday" or other tensed verbs. We extracted utterances such as "So they're gonna have like a random roommate" and "And he was like, 'What's wrong?!'" from recordings of spontaneous conversations. We presented parts of these utterances to listeners, in either a written or auditory modality, to determine which types of information facilitated listeners' comprehension. Listeners rely primarily on acoustic cues in or near the target words rather than meaning and syntactic information in the context. While that information also improves comprehension in some conditions, the acoustic cues in the target itself are strong enough to reverse the percept that listeners gain from all other information together. Acoustic cues override other information in comprehending reduced productions in conversational speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To avoid risks, organisms must recognize threatening heterospecies from non-threatening ones via acoustic cues from a distance. With land-use change, humans have encroached considerably into natural areas. Therefore, it is beneficial to animals to use acoustic cues to discriminate between different levels of threats posed by humans. Our study aims at testing this discriminatory ability in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), animals that have been for long history subjected to human interaction. We tested whether eighteen semi-captive elephants could discriminate between voices of their own mahouts (i.e., who take care of the elephants exclusively) and of other mahouts (unfamiliar individuals). The results showed that elephants responded successfully to the commands from their own mahouts, with an average response rate as high as 78.8%. The more years the mahouts had been as their caretakers, the more the elephant showed active responses toward the commands. Female elephants responded to the commands more frequently and faster than males. Also younger elephants responded more frequently and faster than older elephants. We argue that Asian elephants can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar humans by acoustic cues alone. Proximity with humans may be a factor, as fundamental as domestication, for animals to develop heterospecies discriminatory ability.

Abstract Background Comparative cognition has historically focused on a few taxa such as primates, birds or rodents. However, a broader perspective is essential to understand how different selective pressures affect cognition in different taxa, as more recently shown in several studies. Here we present the same battery of cognitive tasks to two understudied ungulate species with different socio-ecological characteristics, European bison (Bison bonasus) and forest buffalos (Syncerus caffer nanus), and we compare their performance to previous findings in giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis). We presented subjects with an Object permanence task, Memory tasks with 30 and 60 s delays, two inference tasks based on acoustic cues (i.e. Acoustic inference tasks) and a control task to check for the use of olfactory cues (i.e. Olfactory task). Results Overall, giraffes outperformed bison and buffalos, and bison outperformed buffalos (that performed at chance level). All species performed better in the Object permanence task than in the Memory tasks and one of the Acoustic inference tasks (which they likely solved by relying on stimulus enhancement). Giraffes performed better than buffalos in the Shake full Acoustic inference task, but worse than bison and buffalos in the Shake empty Acoustic inference task. Conclusions In sum, our results are in line with the hypothesis that specific socio-ecological characteristics played a crucial role in the evolution of cognition, and that higher fission-fusion levels and larger dietary breadth are linked to higher cognitive skills. This study shows that ungulates may be an excellent model to test evolutionary hypotheses on the emergence of cognition.

• Musicians and non-musicians process the whistled speech signal differently. • Musical expertise affects whistled vowel perception with advantages for lower vowels. • Inter-whistler variation affects both musicians and non-musicians. • Musical advantages are more marked with a wider whistled production range and stable frequencies. In this paper, we looked at the impact of musical experience on whistled vowel categorization by native French speakers. Whistled speech, a natural, yet modified speech type, augments speech amplitude while transposing the signal to a range of fairly high frequencies, i.e. 1 to 4 kHz. The whistled vowels are simple pitches of different heights depending on the vowel position, and generally represent the most stable part of the signal, just as in modal speech. They are modulated by consonant coarticulation(s), resulting in characteristic pitch movements. This change in speech mode can liken the speech signal to musical notes and their modulations; however, the mechanisms used to categorize whistled phonemes rely on abstract phonological knowledge and representation. Here we explore the impact of musical expertise on such a process by focusing on four whistled vowels (/i, e, a, o/) which have been used in previous experiments with non-musicians. We also included inter-speaker production variations, adding variability to the vowel pitches. Our results showed that all participants categorize whistled vowels well over chance, with musicians showing advantages for the middle whistled vowels (/a/ and /e/) as well as for the lower whistled vowel /o/. The whistler variability also affects musicians more than non-musicians and impacts their advantage, notably for the vowels /e/ and /o/. However, we find no specific training advantage for musicians over the whole experiment, but rather training effects for /a/ and /e/ when taking into account all participants. This suggests that though musical experience may help structure the vowel hierarchy when the whistler has a larger range, this advantage cannot be generalized when listening to another whistler. Thus, the transfer of musical knowledge present in this task only influences certain aspects of speech perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large mammals can perceive humans as predators and therefore adjust their behavior to achieve coexistence with humans. However, lack of research at sites with low hunting intensity limits our understanding of how behavioral responses of animals adapt to different predation risks by humans. At Heshun County in North China, where hunting has been banned for over three decades and only low-intensity poaching exists, we exposed two large ungulates (Siberian roe deer Capreolus pygarus and wild boar Sus scrofa) to the sounds of humans, an extant predator (leopard Panthera pardus) and a control (wind), and examined their flight responses and detection probabilities when hearing different type of sounds. Both species showed higher flight probabilities when hearing human vocalization than wind, and wild boar were even more likely to flee upon hearing human vocalization than leopard roar, suggesting the behavioral response to humans can equal or exceed that of large carnivores in these two ungulates even in an area without hunting practices. Recorded sounds had no effect on detection probability of both ungulates. Additionally, with repeated exposure to sounds, regardless of treatment, roe deer were less likely to flee and wild boars were more likely to be detected, indicating a habituation-type response to sound stimuli. We speculate that the immediate flight behavior rather than shifts in habitat use of the two species reflect the low hunting/poaching pressure at our study site and suggest further examination of physiological status and demographic dynamics of the study species to understand human influence on their long-term persistence.

Camera traps (CTs) are a valuable tool in ecological research, amassing large quantities of information on the behaviour of diverse wildlife communities. CTs are predominantly used as passive data loggers to gather observational data for correlational analyses. Integrating CTs into experimental studies, however, can enable rigorous testing of key hypotheses in animal behaviour and conservation biology that are otherwise difficult or impossible to evaluate.We developed the 'BoomBox', an open‐source Arduino‐compatible board that attaches to commercially available CTs to form an Automated Behavioural Response (ABR) system. The modular unit connects directly to the CT's passive infrared (PIR) motion sensor, playing audio files over external speakers when the sensor is triggered. This creates a remote playback system that captures animal responses to specific cues, combining the benefits of camera trapping (e.g. continuous monitoring in remote locations, lack of human observers, large data volume) with the power of experimental manipulations (e.g. controlled perturbations for strong mechanistic inference).Our system builds on previous ABR designs to provide a cheap (~100USD) and customizable field tool. We provide a practical guide detailing how to build and operate the BoomBox ABR system with suggestions for potential experimental designs that address a variety of questions in wildlife ecology. As proof‐of‐concept, we successfully field tested the BoomBox in two distinct field settings to study species interactions (predator–prey and predator–predator) and wildlife responses to conservation interventions.This new tool allows researchers to conduct a unique suite of manipulative experiments on free‐living species in complex environments, enhancing the ability to identify mechanistic drivers of species' behaviours and interactions in natural systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visually impaired people often find it hard to navigate efficiently in complex environments. Moreover, helping them to navigate intuitively is not a trivial task. In sighted people, cognitive maps derived from visual cues play a pivotal role in navigation. In this paper, we present a sight-to-sound human-machine interface (STS-HMI), a novel machine vision guidance system that enables visually impaired people to navigate with instantaneous and intuitive responses. The proposed STS-HMI system extracts visual context from scenes and converts them into binaural acoustic cues for users to establish cognitive maps. A series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of the STS-HMI system in a complex environment with difficult navigation paths. The experimental results confirm that the STS-HMI system improves visually impaired people's mobility with minimal effort.

Adults commonly struggle with perceiving and recognizing the sounds and words of a second language (L2), especially when the L2 sounds do not have a counterpart in the learner’s first language (L1). We examined how L1 Mandarin L2 English speakers learned pseudo English words within a cross-situational word learning (CSWL) task previously presented to monolingual English and bilingual Mandarin-English speakers. CSWL is ambiguous because participants are not provided with direct mappings of words and object referents. Rather, learners discern word-object correspondences through tracking multiple co-occurrences across learning trials. The monolinguals and bilinguals tested in previous studies showed lower performance for pseudo words that formed vowel minimal pairs (e.g., /dit/-/dɪt/) than pseudo word which formed consonant minimal pairs (e.g., /bɔn/-/pɔn/) or non-minimal pairs which differed in all segments (e.g., /bɔn/-/dit/). In contrast, L1 Mandarin L2 English listeners struggled to learn all word pairs. We explain this seemingly contradicting finding by considering the multiplicity of acoustic cues in the stimuli presented to all participant groups. Stimuli were produced in infant-directed-speech (IDS) in order to compare performance by children and adults and because previous research had shown that IDS enhances L1 and L2 acquisition. We propose that the suprasegmental pitch variation in the vowels typical of IDS stimuli might be perceived as lexical tone distinctions for tonal language speakers who cannot fully inhibit their L1 activation, resulting in high lexical competition and diminished learning during an ambiguous word learning task. Our results are in line with the Second Language Linguistic Perception (L2LP) model which proposes that fine-grained acoustic information from multiple sources and the ability to switch between language modes affects non-native phonetic and lexical development.

Previous research demonstrated that a language-trained chimpanzee recognized familiar English words in sine-wave and noise-vocoded forms (Heimbauer et al. Curr Biol 21:1210–1214, 2011). However, those results did not provide information regarding processing strategies of the specific acoustic cues to which the chimpanzee may have attended. The current experiments tested this chimpanzee and adult humans using sine-wave and noise-vocoded speech manipulated using specific sine-waves and a different number of noise bands, respectively. Similar to humans tested with the same stimuli, the chimpanzee was more successful identifying sine-wave speech when both SW1 and SW2 were present – the components that are modeled on formants F1 and F2 in the natural speech signal. Results with noise-vocoded speech revealed that the chimpanzee and humans performed best with stimuli that included four or five noise bands, as compared to those with three and two. Overall, amplitude and frequency modulation over time were important for identification of sine-wave and noise-vocoded speech, with further evidence that a nonhuman primate is capable of using top-down processes for speech perception when the signal is altered and incomplete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conversational speech, phones and entire syllables are often missing. This can make “he’s” and “he was” homophonous, realized for example as [ɨz]. Similarly, “you’re” and “you were” can both be realized as [jɚ], [ɨ], etc. We investigated what types of information native listeners use to perceive such verb tenses. Possible types included acoustic cues in the phrase (e.g., in “he was”), the rate of the surrounding speech, and syntactic and semantic information in the utterance, such as the presence of time adverbs such as “yesterday” or other tensed verbs. We extracted utterances such as “So they’re gonna have like a random roommate” and “And he was like, ‘What’s wrong?!’” from recordings of spontaneous conversations. We presented parts of these utterances to listeners, in either a written or auditory modality, to determine which types of information facilitated listeners’ comprehension. Listeners rely primarily on acoustic cues in or near the target words rather than meaning and syntactic information in the context. While that information also improves comprehension in some conditions, the acoustic cues in the target itself are strong enough to reverse the percept that listeners gain from all other information together. Acoustic cues override other information in comprehending reduced productions in conversational speech.

Background: Comparative cognition has historically focused on a few taxa such as primates, birds or rodents. However, a broader perspective is essential to understand how different selective pressures affect cognition in different taxa, as more recently shown in several studies. Here we present the same battery of cognitive tasks to two understudied ungulate species with different socio-ecological characteristics, European bison (Bison bonasus) and forest buffalos (Syncerus caffer nanus), and we compare their performance to previous findings in giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis). We presented subjects with an Object permanence task, Memory tasks with 30 and 60 s delays, two inference tasks based on acoustic cues (i.e. Acoustic inference tasks) and a control task to check for the use of olfactory cues (i.e. Olfactory task). Results: Overall, giraffes outperformed bison and buffalos, and bison outperformed buffalos (that performed at chance level). All species performed better in the Object permanence task than in the Memory tasks and one of the Acoustic inference tasks (which they likely solved by relying on stimulus enhancement). Giraffes performed better than buffalos in the Shake full Acoustic inference task, but worse than bison and buffalos in the Shake empty Acoustic inference task. Conclusions: In sum, our results are in line with the hypothesis that specific socio-ecological characteristics played a crucial role in the evolution of cognition, and that higher fission-fusion levels and larger dietary breadth are linked to higher cognitive skills. This study shows that ungulates may be an excellent model to test evolutionary hypotheses on the emergence of cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Listeners rely on vocal features when guessing others' sexual orientation. What is less clear is whether speakers modulate their voice to emphasize or to conceal their sexual orientation. We hypothesized that gay individuals adapt their voices to the social context, either emphasizing or disguising their sexual orientation. In Study 1 (n = 20 speakers, n = 383 Italian listeners and n = 373 British listeners), using a simulated conversation paradigm, we found that gay speakers modulated their voices depending on the interlocutor, sounding more gay when speaking to a person with whom they have had an easy (vs. difficult or no) coming out. Although straight speakers were always clearly perceived as heterosexual, their voice perception also varied depending on the interlocutor. Study 2 (n = 14 speakers and n = 309 listeners), comparing the voices of young YouTubers before and after their public coming out, showed a voice modulation as a function of coming out. The voices of gay YouTubers sounded more gay after coming out, whereas those of age-matched straight control male speakers sounded increasingly heterosexual over time. Combining experimental and archival methods, this research suggests that gay speakers modulate their voices flexibly depending on their relation with the interlocutor and as a consequence of their public coming out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acoustic cues to deception on a picture-naming task were analyzed in three groups of English speakers: monolinguals, bilinguals with English as their first language, and bilinguals with English as a second language. Results revealed that all participants had longer reaction times when generating falsehoods than when producing truths, and that the effect was more robust for English as a second language bilinguals than for the other two groups. Articulation rate was higher for all groups when producing lies. Mean fundamental frequency and intensity cues were not reliable cues to deception, but there was lower variance in both of these parameters when generating false versus true labels for all participants. Results suggest that naming latency was the only cue to deception that differed by language background. These findings broadly support the cognitive-load theory of deception, suggesting that a combination of producing deceptive speech and using a second language puts an extra load on the speaker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that musicians modulate a predictable set of acoustic cues to convey distinct emotions. The current study focuses on singers, testing the validity of cues previously reported for a wide range of instruments. The study also asks: What effect might a musician's mindfulness have on their expressive performance? Two groups of highly skilled vocalists recorded performances of a novel melody with four distinct emotions. Prior to the performance task, an experimental group took part in a guided mindfulness induction, while a control group engaged in a self-selected relaxation activity; state mindfulness was assessed immediately after. Recordings were analyzed for tempo, temporal variation, intensity, mean centroid, vibrato rate, vibrato extent, and attack slope; individual notes with particular scale-degree functions were also compared. Results show that the two groups of participants had similar cue usage, although those in the experimental condition had higher mindfulness scores and attributed improvements in focus and awareness to the induction task. Participants as a whole used cues in the predicted directions, and significant differences were found on all acoustical measures, except vibrato rate, as a function of expressed emotion. Results also indicate that participants modified intonation to distinguish between positive and negative emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether sentence accent detection in a non-native language is dependent on (relative) similarity between prosodic cues to accent between the non-native and the native language, and whether cross-linguistic differences in the use of local and more widely distributed (i.e., non-local) cues to sentence accent detection lead to differential effects of the presence of background noise on sentence accent detection in a non-native language. We compared Dutch, Finnish, and French non-native listeners of English, whose cueing and use of prosodic prominence is gradually further removed from English, and compared their results on a phoneme monitoring task in different levels of noise and a quiet condition to those of native listeners. Overall phoneme detection performance was high for the native and the non-native listeners, but deteriorated to the same extent in the presence of background noise. Crucially, relative similarity between the prosodic cues to sentence accent of one's native language compared to that of a non-native language does not determine the ability to perceive and use sentence accent for speech perception in that non-native language. Moreover, proficiency in the non-native language is not a straightforward predictor of sentence accent perception performance, although high proficiency in a non-native language can seemingly overcome certain differences at the prosodic level between the native and non-native language. Instead, performance is determined by the extent to which listeners rely on local cues (English and Dutch) versus cues that are more distributed (Finnish and French), as more distributed cues survive the presence of background noise better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aggressive interactions are ubiquitous among animals. They are either directed towards heterospecifics, like predators or competitors, or conspecifics. During intraspecific encounters, aggression often serves to establish hierarchies within the social group. Thus, in order to understand the mechanisms mediating social organization, it is important to comprehend the escalation and avoidance of aggressive behaviour.Overt aggressive interactions are costly not only in terms of increased risk of injury or death, but also due to opportunity costs and energy expenditure. In order to reduce these costs, animals are expected to communicate their strength and aggressive motivation prior to fights. For this purpose, they use different means of communication in various sensory modalities, that is visual, acoustic, chemical, mechanosensory and electric cues. These different modalities can convey different or similar information, underlining the importance of understanding the multimodal communication of aggression.Thus far, most studies on signalling during aggressive encounters have focussed on visual or acoustic cues, most likely as these are the two modalities predominantly used by humans. However, depending on the species' ecology, visual or acoustic cues might play a minor role for many species. Especially in aquatic systems, visual communication is often hampered due to high levels of turbidity or limited light conditions. Here, alternative modalities such as chemical, mechanical or electrical cues are expected to play a prominent role.In this review, I provide an overview of different modalities used during aggressive communication in aquatic organisms. I highlight the importance of studying the role of multimodal communication during aggressive encounters in general and discuss the importance of understanding aquatic communication in the light of conservation and animal welfare issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the evolutionary arms race between predators and their prey, prey often evolve to be as cryptic as they can, while predators in turn hone their sensory strategies to detect prey. Examinations of the sensory strategies implemented by predators to detect their prey, as well as the ecological consequences of these interactions, are at the crux of understanding and predicting predator–prey dynamics.We review the sensory strategies used by predators that rely on private information (attending directly to cues and signals generated by their prey) and those that gather social information (attending to the signals and behaviours of others). We focus our enquiry on bats, an ideal group to shed light on these questions given their ecological diversity, varied foraging strategies and wide range of social behaviours.We discuss the costs and benefits of using private and social information for foraging. We investigate diverse strategies of information use and examine the effects different predatory strategies have on predator sensory systems.We provide an overview of the sensory ecology of information use in hunting in bats and, by identifying current gaps in knowledge, highlight fruitful directions for future research. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of perceptual training, administered to Argentinean learners, in the perception and production of word-initial voiceless stops in English. 24 participants were divided into 3 groups: (i) Group 1, which participated in 3 training sessions; (ii) Group 2, which, besides performing the same training tasks, was explicitly informed about the target item; (iii) Group 3 (control). All participants took part in a pre-test, a post-test and a delayed post-test. In all these phases, they participated in a consonant identification task and took part in a reading exercise. Our results show a significant increase of both experimental groups in identification. As for production, Group 2 exhibited a significant increase in /p/ and /t/ after training. These results are indicative of the effectiveness of perceptual training tasks in helping learners focus on Voice Onset Time.

Coordination of actions requires that organisms actively monitor the movements of others. The current study examined acoustic cues within the fee-bee song of chickadees that may provide listening conspecifics with information about the movements of singers. The difference between direct and reverberant acoustic energy present during the second note of the fee-bee song provided clear indications of how far the song had traveled. Preliminary analyses suggest that this distance cue may be robust to variations in the spectra and amplitude of song components, and that the acoustic features of the fee-bee song may facilitate simultaneous comparisons of reverberating fees with directly received bees by listening birds. Comparing coincident reverberation with directly received sounds may be a previously unsuspected way that animals living in reverberant environments can monitor the movements and interactions of conspecifics.

Nest predation is one of the most important drivers of avian life history evolution and population dynamics. Increasing evidence suggests that birds are able to assess nest predation risk and avoid settling in high‐risk areas to increase their reproductive performance. However, the cues used for settlement decisions are poorly known in most species. Population sizes of the migratory wood warbler Phylloscopus sibilatrix are characterized by strong annual fluctuations, which are negatively correlated with the number of forest rodents. Wood warblers might avoid rodent‐rich areas to reduce predation risk arising either from rodents, from rodent‐hunting predators attracted to such areas or from predators not linked to rodents. To evaluate these hypotheses, we conducted a large‐scale field experiment to test whether wood warblers avoided settling in plots with high predation risk simulated by broadcasting vocalizations of rodents or predators. Moreover, we tested whether reproductive performance varied in relation to simulated predation risk. Settlement patterns did not differ between plots with rodent, predator and noise control treatments. Likewise, measures of reproductive performance did not seem to differ across treatments. Thus, the broadcasted vocalizations of rodents and predators did not seem to be perceived as threat by wood warblers. Alternatively, the species might use other cues than those presented here, either other acoustic cues, visual and/or olfactory cues or a combination of cue types during settlement. Further experimental investigations to pin point cues and senses relevant for settlement decisions in wood warblers and birds in general are needed to better understand their life history and population dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this work is to analyze the process of aesthetic-rhetorical construction of the social action performed by discursive genres founded in the heart of song-word multimodal interplay taking jingles as a representative example of this broad category. The system of ideas and stances built by the authors affiliated with the New Rhetoric School (MILLER, 1984) grounds the theoretical framework of the present investigation. The methodology proposed here is in line with the qualitative research approach. Based on the interests of this work, I analyze the jingle Retrato do Velho. The analysis suggests that the paradigmatic choice of some discursive constructions articulated with certain musical structures in this jingle is grounded on an effort to bring about certain social actions intended by the piece's composers and interpreters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a comprehensive description of the phonology and phonetics of Hebrew stress. The distribution of the stress patterns draws a categorial distinction between verbs and nouns, and enhances the typologically uncommon disparity between the most common pattern (final stress) and the default pattern (penultimate stress). As the acoustic studies reveal, the main cue for Hebrew stress is duration, though the duration contrast is eliminated between a phrase final unstressed syllable and the preceding stressed syllable. A second important result of the acoustic studies is that there is no evidence for secondary stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending affective speech communication research in the context of authentic, spontaneous utterances, the present study investigates two signals of affect defined by extreme levels of physiological arousal—Passion and Indifference. Exemplars were mined from podcasts conducted in informal, unstructured contexts to examine communication at extreme levels of perceived hyper- and hypo-arousal. Utterances from twenty native speakers of Canadian/American English were submitted for perceptual validation for judgments of affective meaning (Passion, Indifference, or Neutrality) and level of arousal (“Not At All” to “Very Much”). Arousal ratings, acoustic patterns, and linguistic cues (affect/emotion words and expletives) were analyzed. In comparison to neutral utterances, Passion was communicated with the highest maximum pitch and pitch range, and highest maximum and mean amplitude, while Indifference was communicated via decreases in these measures in comparison to neutral affect. Interestingly, Passion and Neutrality were expressed with comparable absolute ranges of amplitude, while the minimum amplitudes of both Passion and Indifference were greater than those of Neutral expressions. Linguistically, Indifference was marked by significantly greater use of explicit expressions of affect (e.g. I don't care… ), suggesting a linguistic encoding preference in this context. Passion was expressed with greater use of expletives; yet, their presence was not necessary to facilitate perception of a speaker's level of arousal. These findings shed new light upon the paralinguistic and linguistic features of spontaneous expressions at the extremes of the arousal continuum, highlighting key distinctions between Indifference and Neutrality with implications for vocal communication research in healthy and clinical populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phonological features have frequently been singled out as the units of perception, especially for vowels. Evidence of the use of features has been provided for vowel height and vowel position, which have one acoustic correlate only. However, findings on acoustically complex features such as tenseness are less clear. The present study assessed the role of phonological features in perception using the selective adaptation paradigm. Selective adaptation effects on German vowel contrasts differing in vowel height (Experiment 1), position (Experiment 2) and tenseness (Experiment 3) were examined. We tested how the categorization of each vowel contrast was affected by adaptation to words containing vowels that differently resembled or diverged from the vowels in the critical contrast acoustically and in terms of their phonological feature specifications. Results showed that selective adaptation patterns could be predicted by the vowels’ phonological features for the height and position contrasts, but not for the tenseness contrast. However, adaptation patterns for the latter can be explained by the relationship between adaptors and continuum endpoints in each of the relevant acoustic cues to the contrast. This suggests that vowel perception may be dependent on these acoustic cues rather than phonological features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Attractiveness plays a central role in human non-verbal communication and has been broadly examined in diverse subfields of contemporary psychology. Researchers have garnered compelling evidence in support of the evolutionary functions of physical attractiveness and its role in our daily lives, while at the same time, having largely ignored the significant contribution of non-visual modalities and the relationships among them. Acoustic and olfactory cues can, separately or in combination, strongly influence the perceived attractiveness of an individual and therefore attitudes and actions toward that person. Here, we discuss the relative importance of visual, auditory and olfactory traits in judgments of attractiveness, and review neural and behavioral studies that support the highly complex and multimodal nature of person perception. Further, we discuss three alternative evolutionary hypotheses aimed at explaining the function of multiple indices of attractiveness. In this review, we provide several lines of evidence supporting the importance of the voice, body odor, and facial and body appearance in the perception of attractiveness and mate preferences, and therefore the critical need to incorporate cross-modal perception and multisensory integration into future research on human physical attractiveness.

Speech contrasts which are not functionally distinctive in the mother tongue are difficult to differentiate perceptually for non-native listeners. A two-fold experiment was carried out in order to investigate the L2 perception by 26 Spanish listeners of English, with an English group used as a control. In the present paper, listeners were exposed to the English contrast /s/ vs. /z/, which is not phonemic in Spanish, in two synthesized words, Sue and zoo. The results showed that there were listeners who had already acquired the contrast with some language-specific differences in the use of some of the acoustic cues that signalled this contrast. Furthermore there was no correlation between the results obtained and the variables age of L2 learning, length of L2 learning, or listener’s age. Final conclusions will be drawn from this research and the previous work devoted to place of articulation differences.

Cochlear implants (CIs) provide speech perception to adults with severe-to-profound hearing loss, but the acoustic signal remains severely degraded. Limited access to pitch cues is thought to decrease sensitivity to prosody in CI users, but co-occurring changes in intensity and duration may provide redundant cues. The current study investigates how listeners use these cues to infer discourse prominence. CI users and normal-hearing (NH) listeners were presented with sentences varying in prosody (accented vs. unaccented words) while their eye-movements were measured to referents varying in discourse status (given vs. new categories). In Experiment 1, all listeners inferred prominence when prosody on nouns distinguished categories (“ SANDWICH ” → not sandals). In Experiment 2, CI users and NH listeners presented with natural speech inferred prominence when prosody on adjectives implied contrast across both categories and properties (“ PINK horse ” → not the orange horse). In contrast, NH listeners presented with simulated CI (vocoded) speech were sensitive to acoustic differences in prosody, but did not use these cues to infer discourse status. Together, this suggests that exploiting redundant cues for comprehension varies with the demands of language processing and prior experience with the degraded signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]