Lévêque Y, Giovanni A, Schön D. Pitch-matching in poor singers: human model advantage.
J Voice 2011;
26:293-8. [PMID:
21816572 DOI:
10.1016/j.jvoice.2011.04.001]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2011] [Accepted: 04/04/2011] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
UNLABELLED
Previous studies on action imitation have shown an advantage for biological stimuli compared with nonbiological stimuli, possibly because of the role played by the mirror system. By contrast, little is known on whether such an advantage also takes place in the auditory domain, related to voice imitation.
OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS
In this study, we wanted to test the hypothesis that auditory stimuli could be more accurately reproduced when the timbre is human than when the timbre is synthetic.
METHODS
Eighteen participants judged as poor singers and 14 controls were presented with vocal and synthetic singing models and had to reproduce them.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
Results showed that poor singers were significantly helped by the human model. This effect of the human model on production might be linked to the preactivation of motor representations (auditory mirror system) during voice perception, which may in turn facilitate the imitative vocal gesture.
Collapse