Production of Nonverbal Acoustic Signals and Resulting Physiological Responses

Like many other animals, humans produce nonverbal vocal signals including screams, grunts, roars, cries and laughter across a variety of contexts. Many of these signals (such as cries) are already produced at birth and likely serve a number of important biological and social functions. In addition, human speech is characterised by nonlinguistic acoustic parameters (such as pitch, formant frequencies, and nonlinear phenomena) that are known to correlate with biologically important traits of the vocalizer.

However, despite their importance in the human vocal repertoire, the mechanisms and functions of non-verbal signals remain little studied and poorly understood in humans.

Theses studies aim to improve the understanding of the nature and function of non-verbal signals. Thus, this study is part of a long-term research project in which investigators are trying to clarify the information contained in the acoustic structure of human non-verbal signals, and to investigate the factors influencing their production.

Inclusion criteria

• Participant should be affiliated or entitled to a social security scheme

Exclusion criteria

• Pregnant women
• Voice production disorders
• Hearing impairment, speech production disorders or major health problems.
• Chronic smoker (more than 10 cigarettes per day)