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Crespo-Bojorque P, Cauvet E, Pallier C, Toro JM. Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and rats. Anim Cogn 2024; 27:17. [PMID: 38429431 PMCID: PMC10907461 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01848-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2023] [Revised: 10/27/2023] [Accepted: 11/08/2023] [Indexed: 03/03/2024]
Abstract
A central feature in music is the hierarchical organization of its components. Musical pieces are not a simple concatenation of chords, but are characterized by rhythmic and harmonic structures. Here, we explore if sensitivity to music structure might emerge in the absence of any experience with musical stimuli. For this, we tested if rats detect the difference between structured and unstructured musical excerpts and compared their performance with that of humans. Structured melodies were excerpts of Mozart's sonatas. Unstructured melodies were created by the recombination of fragments of different sonatas. We trained listeners (both human participants and Long-Evans rats) with a set of structured and unstructured excerpts, and tested them with completely novel excerpts they had not heard before. After hundreds of training trials, rats were able to tell apart novel structured from unstructured melodies. Human listeners required only a few trials to reach better performance than rats. Interestingly, such performance was increased in humans when tonality changes were included, while it decreased to chance in rats. Our results suggest that, with enough training, rats might learn to discriminate acoustic differences differentiating hierarchical music structures from unstructured excerpts. More importantly, the results point toward species-specific adaptations on how tonality is processed.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Elodie Cauvet
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, INSERM, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin Center, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France
- DIS Study Abroad in Scandinavia, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Christophe Pallier
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, INSERM, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin Center, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France
| | - Juan M Toro
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C. Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, CP. 08005, Barcelona, Spain.
- Institució Catalana de Recerca I Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain.
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2
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Crespo-Bojorque P, Celma-Miralles A, Toro JM. Detecting surface changes in a familiar tune: exploring pitch, tempo and timbre. Anim Cogn 2022; 25:951-960. [PMID: 35138480 PMCID: PMC9334415 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01604-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2021] [Revised: 01/12/2022] [Accepted: 01/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Humans recognize a melody independently of whether it is played on a piano or a violin, faster or slower, or at higher or lower frequencies. Much of the way in which we engage with music relies in our ability to normalize across these surface changes. Despite the uniqueness of our music faculty, there is the possibility that key aspects in music processing emerge from general sensitivities already present in other species. Here we explore whether other animals react to surface changes in a tune. We familiarized the animals (Long–Evans rats) with the “Happy Birthday” tune on a piano. We then presented novel test items that included changes in pitch (higher and lower octave transpositions), tempo (double and half the speed) and timbre (violin and piccolo). While the rats responded differently to the familiar and the novel version of the tune when it was played on novel instruments, they did not respond differently to the original song and its novel versions that included octave transpositions and changes in tempo.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Alexandre Celma-Miralles
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C. Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, 08005, Barcelona, Spain.,Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus/Aalborg, Aarhus University, Universitetsbyen, 3, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Juan M Toro
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C. Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, 08005, Barcelona, Spain. .,Institució Catalana de Recerca I Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Pg. Lluís Companys, 23, 08019, Barcelona, Spain.
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3
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Beyond the Language Module: Musicality as a Stepping Stone Towards Language Acquisition. EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-76000-7_12] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
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4
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Toro JM, Crespo-Bojorque P. Arc-shaped pitch contours facilitate item recognition in non-human animals. Cognition 2021; 213:104614. [PMID: 33558018 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104614] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2020] [Revised: 01/11/2021] [Accepted: 01/26/2021] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
Acoustic changes linked to natural prosody are a key source of information about the organization of language. Both human infants and adults readily take advantage of such changes to discover and memorize linguistic patterns. Do they so because our brain is efficiently wired to specifically process linguistic stimuli? Or are we co-opting for language acquisition purposes more general principles that might be inherited from our animal ancestors? Here, we address this question by exploring if other species profit from prosody to better process acoustic sequences. More specifically, we test whether arc-shaped pitch contours defining natural prosody might facilitate item recognition and memorization in rats. In two experiments, we presented to the rats nonsense words with flat, natural, inverted and random prosodic contours. We observed that the animals correctly recognized the familiarization words only when arc-shaped pitch contours were implemented over them. Our results suggest that other species might also benefit from prosody for the memorization of items in a sequence. Such capacity seems to be rooted in general principles of how biological sounds are produced and processed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juan M Toro
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Pg. Lluis Companys, 23, 08019 Barcelona, Spain; Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C. Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, 08005 Barcelona, Spain.
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5
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Inda M, Hotta K, Oka K. High responsiveness of auditory neurons to specific combination of acoustic features in female songbirds. Eur J Neurosci 2020; 53:1412-1427. [PMID: 33205482 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/11/2020] [Revised: 11/11/2020] [Accepted: 11/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) is a songbird species in which males sing their unique songs to attract females who then select their preferred male. Acoustic features in the songs of individual males are important features for female auditory perception. While the male of this species is a classic model of vocal production, it has been little known about auditory processing in female. In the higher auditory brain regions, the caudomedial mesopallium (CMM) and nidopallium (NCM) contribute to female's sound recognition, we, therefore, extracted acoustic features that induce neural activities with high detection power on both regions in female finches. A multiple linear regression analysis revealed that neurons were sensitive to mean frequency and Wiener entropy. In addition, we performed an experiment with modified artificial songs and harmonic songs to directly investigate neural responsiveness for deriving further evidence for the contribution of these two acoustic features. Finally, we illustrated a specific ratio combining these two acoustic features that showed highest sensitivity to neural responsiveness, and we found that properties of sensitivity are different between CMM and NCM. Our results indicate that the mixture of the two acoustic features with the specific ratio is important in the higher auditory regions of female songbirds, and these two regions have differences in encoding for sensitivity to these acoustic features.
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Affiliation(s)
- Masahiro Inda
- Department of Biosciences and Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan
| | - Kohji Hotta
- Department of Biosciences and Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan
| | - Kotaro Oka
- Department of Biosciences and Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan.,Graduate Institute of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.,Waseda Research Institute for Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
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6
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Trotter AS, Monaghan P, Beckers GJL, Christiansen MH. Exploring Variation Between Artificial Grammar Learning Experiments: Outlining a Meta-Analysis Approach. Top Cogn Sci 2020; 12:875-893. [PMID: 31495072 PMCID: PMC7496870 DOI: 10.1111/tops.12454] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2018] [Revised: 07/14/2019] [Accepted: 07/25/2019] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Artificial grammar learning (AGL) has become an important tool used to understand aspects of human language learning and whether the abilities underlying learning may be unique to humans or found in other species. Successful learning is typically assumed when human or animal participants are able to distinguish stimuli generated by the grammar from those that are not at a level better than chance. However, the question remains as to what subjects actually learn in these experiments. Previous studies of AGL have frequently introduced multiple potential contributors to performance in the training and testing stimuli, but meta-analysis techniques now enable us to consider these multiple information sources for their contribution to learning-enabling intended and unintended structures to be assessed simultaneously. We present a blueprint for meta-analysis approaches to appraise the effect of learning in human and other animal studies for a series of artificial grammar learning experiments, focusing on studies that examine auditory and visual modalities. We identify a series of variables that differ across these studies, focusing on both structural and surface properties of the grammar, and characteristics of training and test regimes, and provide a first step in assessing the relative contribution of these design features of artificial grammars as well as species-specific effects for learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antony S. Trotter
- Department of Speech, Hearing & Phonetic SciencesUniversity College London
| | - Padraic Monaghan
- Department of PsychologyLancaster University
- Department of EnglishUniversity of Amsterdam
| | - Gabriël J. L. Beckers
- Department of Psychology, Cognitive Neurobiology and Helmholtz InstituteUtrecht University
| | - Morten H. Christiansen
- Department of PsychologyCornell University
- Interacting Minds Centre and School of Communication and CultureAarhus University
- Haskins Laboratories
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8
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Ravignani A, Dalla Bella S, Falk S, Kello CT, Noriega F, Kotz SA. Rhythm in speech and animal vocalizations: a cross-species perspective. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2019; 1453:79-98. [PMID: 31237365 PMCID: PMC6851814 DOI: 10.1111/nyas.14166] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2019] [Revised: 05/14/2019] [Accepted: 05/24/2019] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
Why does human speech have rhythm? As we cannot travel back in time to witness how speech developed its rhythmic properties and why humans have the cognitive skills to process them, we rely on alternative methods to find out. One powerful tool is the comparative approach: studying the presence or absence of cognitive/behavioral traits in other species to determine which traits are shared between species and which are recent human inventions. Vocalizations of many species exhibit temporal structure, but little is known about how these rhythmic structures evolved, are perceived and produced, their biological and developmental bases, and communicative functions. We review the literature on rhythm in speech and animal vocalizations as a first step toward understanding similarities and differences across species. We extend this review to quantitative techniques that are useful for computing rhythmic structure in acoustic sequences and hence facilitate cross-species research. We report links between vocal perception and motor coordination and the differentiation of rhythm based on hierarchical temporal structure. While still far from a complete cross-species perspective of speech rhythm, our review puts some pieces of the puzzle together.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Ravignani
- Artificial Intelligence LaboratoryVrije Universiteit BrusselBrusselsBelgium
- Institute for Advanced StudyUniversity of AmsterdamAmsterdamthe Netherlands
| | - Simone Dalla Bella
- International Laboratory for BrainMusic and Sound Research (BRAMS)MontréalQuebecCanada
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of MontrealMontréalQuebecCanada
- Department of Cognitive PsychologyWarsawPoland
| | - Simone Falk
- International Laboratory for BrainMusic and Sound Research (BRAMS)MontréalQuebecCanada
- Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie, UMR 7018, CNRS/Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris‐3Institut de Linguistique et Phonétique générales et appliquéesParisFrance
| | | | - Florencia Noriega
- Chair for Network DynamicsCenter for Advancing Electronics Dresden (CFAED), TU DresdenDresdenGermany
- CODE University of Applied SciencesBerlinGermany
| | - Sonja A. Kotz
- International Laboratory for BrainMusic and Sound Research (BRAMS)MontréalQuebecCanada
- Basic and Applied NeuroDynamics Laboratory, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Department of Neuropsychology and PsychopharmacologyMaastricht UniversityMaastrichtthe Netherlands
- Department of NeuropsychologyMax‐Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain SciencesLeipzigGermany
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9
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10
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Kotz S, Ravignani A, Fitch W. The Evolution of Rhythm Processing. Trends Cogn Sci 2018; 22:896-910. [DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2018.08.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 68] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2018] [Revised: 07/25/2018] [Accepted: 08/02/2018] [Indexed: 01/14/2023]
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11
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Mueller JL, Cate CT, Toro JM. A Comparative Perspective on the Role of Acoustic Cues in Detecting Language Structure. Top Cogn Sci 2018; 12:859-874. [PMID: 30033636 DOI: 10.1111/tops.12373] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2018] [Revised: 05/20/2018] [Accepted: 06/20/2018] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
Most human language learners acquire language primarily via the auditory modality. This is one reason why auditory artificial grammars play a prominent role in the investigation of the development and evolutionary roots of human syntax. The present position paper brings together findings from human and non-human research on the impact of auditory cues on learning about linguistic structures with a special focus on how different types of cues and biases in auditory cognition may contribute to success and failure in artificial grammar learning (AGL). The basis of our argument is the link between auditory cues and syntactic structure across languages and development. Cross-species comparison suggests that many aspects of auditory cognition that are relevant for language are not human specific and are present even in rather distantly related species. Furthermore, auditory cues and biases impact on learning, which we will discuss in the example of auditory perception and AGL studies. This observation, together with the significant role of auditory cues in language processing, supports the idea that auditory cues served as a bootstrap to syntax during language evolution. Yet this also means that potentially human-specific syntactic abilities are not due to basic auditory differences between humans and non-human animals but are based upon more advanced cognitive processes.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Carel Ten Cate
- Institute of Biology, Leiden University.,Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition
| | - Juan M Toro
- ICREA (Institució Catalana de Recerca I Estudis Avançats).,Center for Brain and Cognition, University Pompeu Fabra
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12
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James LS, Sakata JT. Learning Biases Underlie "Universals" in Avian Vocal Sequencing. Curr Biol 2017; 27:3676-3682.e4. [PMID: 29174890 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.10.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2017] [Revised: 09/11/2017] [Accepted: 10/06/2017] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
Biological predispositions in vocal learning have been proposed to underlie commonalities in vocal sequences, including for speech and birdsong, but cultural propagation could also account for such commonalities [1-4]. Songbirds such as the zebra finch learn the sequencing of their acoustic elements ("syllables") during development [5-8]. Zebra finches are not constrained to learn a specific sequence of syllables, but significant consistencies in the positioning and sequencing of syllables have been observed between individuals within populations and between populations [8-10]. To reveal biological predispositions in vocal sequence learning, we individually tutored juvenile zebra finches with randomized and unbiased sequences of syllables and analyzed the extent to which birds produced common sequences. In support of biological predispositions, birds tutored with randomized sequences produced songs with striking similarities. Birds preferentially started and ended their song sequence with particular syllables, consistently positioned shorter and higher frequency syllables in the middle of their song, and sequenced their syllables such that pitch alternated across adjacent syllables. These patterns are reminiscent of those observed in normally tutored birds, suggesting that birds "creolize" aberrant sequence inputs to produce normal sequence outputs. Similar patterns were also observed for syllables that were not used for tutoring (i.e., unlearned syllables), suggesting that motor biases could contribute to sequence learning biases. Furthermore, zebra finches spontaneously produced acoustic patterns that are commonly observed in speech and music, suggesting that sensorimotor processes that are shared across a wide range of vertebrates could underlie these patterns in humans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Logan S James
- Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 1B1, Canada.
| | - Jon T Sakata
- Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 1B1, Canada; Centre for Research on Brain, Language, and Music, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3G 2A8, Canada.
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13
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Ravignani A, Honing H, Kotz SA. Editorial: The Evolution of Rhythm Cognition: Timing in Music and Speech. Front Hum Neurosci 2017; 11:303. [PMID: 28659775 PMCID: PMC5468413 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00303] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2017] [Accepted: 05/26/2017] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Ravignani
- Veterinary and Research Department, Sealcentre PieterburenPieterburen, Netherlands.,Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for PsycholinguisticsNijmegen, Netherlands.,Artificial Intelligence Lab, Vrije Universiteit BrusselBrussels, Belgium
| | - Henkjan Honing
- Music Cognition Group, Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation, University of AmsterdamAmsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Sonja A Kotz
- Basic and Applied NeuroDynamics Lab, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, Maastricht UniversityMaastricht, Netherlands.,Department of Neuropsychology, Max-Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain SciencesLeipzig, Germany
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14
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Abstract
Pitch is a percept of sound that is based in part on fundamental frequency. Although pitch can be defined in a way that is clearly separable from other aspects of musical sounds, such as timbre, the perception of pitch is not a simple topic. Despite this, studying pitch separately from other aspects of sound has led to some interesting conclusions about how humans and other animals process acoustic signals. It turns out that pitch perception in humans is based on an assessment of pitch height, pitch chroma, relative pitch, and grouping principles. How pitch is broken down depends largely on the context. Most, if not all, of these principles appear to also be used by other species, but when and how accurately they are used varies across species and context. Studying how other animals compare to humans in their pitch abilities is partially a reevaluation of what we know about humans by considering ourselves in a biological context.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marisa Hoeschele
- Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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