Vocal tract dynamics shape the formant structure of conditioned vocalizations in a harbor seal.
Phoca vitulina
articulation
formants
source‐filter theory
vocal communication
vocal tract
Journal
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
ISSN: 1749-6632
Titre abrégé: Ann N Y Acad Sci
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 7506858
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
01 Aug 2024
01 Aug 2024
Historique:
medline:
2
8
2024
pubmed:
2
8
2024
entrez:
2
8
2024
Statut:
aheadofprint
Résumé
Formants, or resonance frequencies of the upper vocal tract, are an essential part of 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 formant frequencies. Here, we report a case study with an adult male harbor seal trained to produce an arbitrary vocalization composed of multiple repetitions of the sound wa. We analyzed jaw movements frame-by-frame and matched them to the tracked formant modulation in the corresponding vocalizations. We found that the jaw opening angle was strongly correlated with the first (F1) and, to a lesser degree, with the second formant (F2). F2 variation was better explained by the jaw angle opening when the seal was lying on his back rather than on the belly, which might derive from soft tissue displacement due to gravity. These results show that harbor seals share some common articulatory traits with humans, where the F1 depends more on the jaw position than F2. We propose further in vivo investigations of seals to further test the role of the tongue on formant modulation in mammalian sound production.
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Subventions
Organisme : European Research Council
ID : Advanced Grant SOMACCA
Pays : International
Organisme : Austrian Science Foundation Grant
ID : (#W1262-B29)
Organisme : Danmarks Grundforskningsfond
ID : DNRF117
Organisme : Office of Naval Research
ID : N00014-04-1-0284
Organisme : Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
ID : Independent Max Planck Research Group Leader funding
Informations de copyright
© 2024 The Author(s). Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The New York Academy of Sciences.
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