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Brain mechanisms of acoustic communication in humans and nonhuman primates: An evolutionary perspective. Behav Brain Sci 2014; 37:529-46. [DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x13003099] [Citation(s) in RCA: 147] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
AbstractAny account of “what is special about the human brain” (Passingham 2008) must specify the neural basis of our unique ability to produce speech and delineate how these remarkable motor capabilities could have emerged in our hominin ancestors. Clinical data suggest that the basal ganglia provide a platform for the integration of primate-general mechanisms of acoustic communication with the faculty of articulate speech in humans. Furthermore, neurobiological and paleoanthropological data point at a two-stage model of the phylogenetic evolution of this crucial prerequisite of spoken language: (i) monosynaptic refinement of the projections of motor cortex to the brainstem nuclei that steer laryngeal muscles, presumably, as part of a “phylogenetic trend” associated with increasing brain size during hominin evolution; (ii) subsequent vocal-laryngeal elaboration of cortico-basal ganglia circuitries, driven by human-specificFOXP2mutations.;>This concept implies vocal continuity of spoken language evolution at the motor level, elucidating the deep entrenchment of articulate speech into a “nonverbal matrix” (Ingold 1994), which is not accounted for by gestural-origin theories. Moreover, it provides a solution to the question for the adaptive value of the “first word” (Bickerton 2009) since even the earliest and most simple verbal utterances must have increased the versatility of vocal displays afforded by the preceding elaboration of monosynaptic corticobulbar tracts, giving rise to enhanced social cooperation and prestige. At the ontogenetic level, the proposed model assumes age-dependent interactions between the basal ganglia and their cortical targets, similar to vocal learning in some songbirds. In this view, the emergence of articulate speech builds on the “renaissance” of an ancient organizational principle and, hence, may represent an example of “evolutionary tinkering” (Jacob 1977).
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Joly O, Ramus F, Pressnitzer D, Vanduffel W, Orban GA. Interhemispheric Differences in Auditory Processing Revealed by fMRI in Awake Rhesus Monkeys. Cereb Cortex 2011; 22:838-53. [DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhr150] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
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Simões CS, Vianney PVR, de Moura MM, Freire MAM, Mello LE, Sameshima K, Araújo JF, Nicolelis MAL, Mello CV, Ribeiro S. Activation of frontal neocortical areas by vocal production in marmosets. Front Integr Neurosci 2010; 4:123. [PMID: 20953246 PMCID: PMC2955454 DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2010.00123] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2010] [Accepted: 09/06/2010] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Primates often rely on vocal communication to mediate social interactions. Although much is known about the acoustic structure of primate vocalizations and the social context in which they are usually uttered, our knowledge about the neocortical control of audio-vocal interactions in primates is still incipient, being mostly derived from lesion studies in squirrel monkeys and macaques. To map the neocortical areas related to vocal control in a New World primate species, the common marmoset, we employed a method previously used with success in other vertebrate species: Analysis of the expression of the immediate early gene Egr-1 in freely behaving animals. The neocortical distribution of Egr-1 immunoreactive cells in three marmosets that were exposed to the playback of conspecific vocalizations and vocalized spontaneously (H/V group) was compared to data from three other marmosets that also heard the playback but did not vocalize (H/n group). The anterior cingulate cortex, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex presented a higher number of Egr-1 immunoreactive cells in the H/V group than in H/n animals. Our results provide direct evidence that the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, the region that comprises Broca's area in humans and has been associated with auditory processing of species-specific vocalizations and orofacial control in macaques, is engaged during vocal output in marmosets. Altogether, our results support the notion that the network of neocortical areas related to vocal communication in marmosets is quite similar to that of Old world primates. The vocal production role played by these areas and their importance for the evolution of speech in primates are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cristiano S. Simões
- Edmond and Lily Safra - International Institute of Neuroscience of NatalNatal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
- Department of Physiology, Federal University of Rio Grande do NorteNatal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
| | - Paulo V. R. Vianney
- Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health and Science UniversityPortland, OR, USA
| | - Marco Marcondes de Moura
- Department of Physiology, University of Brasília, BrasíliaDistrito Federal, Brazil
- Laboratory of Brain Studies, Juquery Hospital, Franco da RochaSão Paulo, Brazil
| | - Marco A. M. Freire
- Edmond and Lily Safra - International Institute of Neuroscience of NatalNatal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
| | - Luiz E. Mello
- Department of Physiology, Federal University of São PauloSão Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Koichi Sameshima
- Cesar Timo-Iaria Laboratory, Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa, Hospital Sírio-LibanêsSão Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
- Department of Radiology, University of São PauloSão Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - John F. Araújo
- Department of Physiology, Federal University of Rio Grande do NorteNatal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
| | - Miguel A. L. Nicolelis
- Edmond and Lily Safra - International Institute of Neuroscience of NatalNatal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
- Cesar Timo-Iaria Laboratory, Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa, Hospital Sírio-LibanêsSão Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
- Center for Neuroengineering, Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical CenterDurham, NC, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke UniversityDurham, NC, USA
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Duke UniversityDurham, NC, USA
| | - Claudio V. Mello
- Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health and Science UniversityPortland, OR, USA
| | - Sidarta Ribeiro
- Edmond and Lily Safra - International Institute of Neuroscience of NatalNatal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
- Department of Physiology, Federal University of Rio Grande do NorteNatal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
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Monkey drumming reveals common networks for perceiving vocal and nonvocal communication sounds. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2009; 106:18010-5. [PMID: 19805199 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0909756106] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Salient sounds such as those created by drumming can serve as means of nonvocal acoustic communication in addition to vocal sounds. Despite the ubiquity of drumming across human cultures, its origins and the brain regions specialized in processing such signals remain unexplored. Here, we report that an important animal model for vocal communication, the macaque monkey, also displays drumming behavior, and we exploit this finding to show that vocal and nonvocal communication sounds are represented by overlapping networks in the brain's temporal lobe. Observing social macaque groups, we found that these animals use artificial objects to produce salient periodic sounds, similar to acoustic gestures. Behavioral tests confirmed that these drumming sounds attract the attention of listening monkeys similarly as conspecific vocalizations. Furthermore, in a preferential looking experiment, drumming sounds influenced the way monkeys viewed their conspecifics, suggesting that drumming serves as a multimodal signal of social dominance. Finally, by using high-resolution functional imaging we identified those brain regions preferentially activated by drumming sounds or by vocalizations and found that the representations of both these communication sounds overlap in caudal auditory cortex and the amygdala. The similar behavioral responses to drumming and vocal sounds, and their shared neural representation, suggest a common origin of primate vocal and nonvocal communication systems and support the notion of a gestural origin of speech and music.
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Vatakis A, Spence C. Investigating the effects of inversion on configural processing with an audiovisual temporal-order judgment task. Perception 2008; 37:143-60. [PMID: 18399253 DOI: 10.1068/p5648] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
Research has shown that inversion is more detrimental to the perception of faces than to the perception of other types of visual stimuli. Inverting a face results in an impairment of configural information processing that leads to slowed early face processing and reduced accuracy when performance is tested in face recognition tasks. We investigated the effects of inverting speech and non-speech stimuli on audiovisual temporal perception. Upright and inverted audiovisual video clips of a person uttering syllables (experiments 1 and 2), playing musical notes on a piano (experiment 3), or a rhesus monkey producing vocalisations (experiment 4) were presented. Participants made unspeeded temporal-order judgments regarding which modality stream (auditory or visual) appeared to have been presented first. Inverting the visual stream did not have any effect on the sensitivity of temporal discrimination responses in any of the four experiments, thus implying that audiovisual temporal integration is resilient to the effects of orientation in the picture plane. By contrast, the point of subjective simultaneity differed significantly as a function of orientation only for the audiovisual speech stimuli but not for the non-speech stimuli or monkey calls. That is, smaller auditory leads were required for the inverted than for the upright-visual speech stimuli. These results are consistent with the longer processing latencies reported previously when human faces are inverted and demonstrates that the temporal perception of dynamic audiovisual speech can be modulated by changes in the physical properties of the visual speech (ie by changes in orientation).
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Affiliation(s)
- Argiro Vatakis
- Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, 9 South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK.
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Taglialatela JP, Russell JL, Schaeffer JA, Hopkins WD. Communicative signaling activates 'Broca's' homolog in chimpanzees. Curr Biol 2008; 18:343-8. [PMID: 18308569 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.01.049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 108] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2007] [Revised: 01/22/2008] [Accepted: 01/23/2008] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Broca's area, a cerebral cortical area located in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) of the human brain, has been identified as one of several critical regions associated with the motor planning and execution of language. Anatomically, Broca's area is most often larger in the left hemisphere, and functional imaging studies in humans indicate significant left-lateralized patterns of activation during language-related tasks. If, and to what extent, nonhuman primates, particularly chimpanzees, possess a homologous region that is involved in the production of their own communicative signals remains unknown. Here, we show that portions of the IFG as well as other cortical and subcortical regions in chimpanzees are active during the production of communicative signals. These findings are the first to provide direct evidence of the neuroanatomical structures associated with the production of communicative behaviors in chimpanzees. Significant activation in the left IFG in conjunction with other cortical and subcortical brain areas during the production of communicative signals in chimpanzees suggests that the neurological substrates underlying language production in the human brain may have been present in the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jared P Taglialatela
- Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, Georgia 30329; Department of Natural Sciences, Clayton State University, Morrow, Georgia 30260, USA
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A voice region in the monkey brain. Nat Neurosci 2008; 11:367-74. [PMID: 18264095 DOI: 10.1038/nn2043] [Citation(s) in RCA: 245] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2007] [Accepted: 12/31/2007] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
For vocal animals, recognizing species-specific vocalizations is important for survival and social interactions. In humans, a voice region has been identified that is sensitive to human voices and vocalizations. As this region also strongly responds to speech, it is unclear whether it is tightly associated with linguistic processing and is thus unique to humans. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging of macaque monkeys (Old World primates, Macaca mulatta) we discovered a high-level auditory region that prefers species-specific vocalizations over other vocalizations and sounds. This region not only showed sensitivity to the 'voice' of the species, but also to the vocal identify of conspecific individuals. The monkey voice region is located on the superior-temporal plane and belongs to an anterior auditory 'what' pathway. These results establish functional relationships with the human voice region and support the notion that, for different primate species, the anterior temporal regions of the brain are adapted for recognizing communication signals from conspecifics.
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Marslen-Wilson WD, Tyler LK. Morphology, language and the brain: the decompositional substrate for language comprehension. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2007; 362:823-36. [PMID: 17395577 PMCID: PMC2430000 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2007.2091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 114] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
This paper outlines a neurocognitive approach to human language, focusing on inflectional morphology and grammatical function in English. Taking as a starting point the selective deficits for regular inflectional morphology of a group of non-fluent patients with left hemisphere damage, we argue for a core decompositional network linking left inferior frontal cortex with superior and middle temporal cortex, connected via the arcuate fasciculus. This network handles the processing of regularly inflected words (such as joined or treats), which are argued not to be stored as whole forms and which require morpho-phonological parsing in order to segment complex forms into stems and inflectional affixes. This parsing process operates early and automatically upon all potential inflected forms and is triggered by their surface phonological properties. The predictions of this model were confirmed in a further neuroimaging study, using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), on unimpaired young adults. The salience of grammatical morphemes for the language system is highlighted by new research showing that similarly early and blind segmentation also operates for derivationally complex forms (such as darkness or rider). These findings are interpreted as evidence for a hidden decompositional substrate to human language processing and related to a functional architecture derived from non-human primate models.
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