A unified coding strategy for processing faces and voices

Both faces and voices are rich in socially-relevant information, which humans are remarkably adept at extracting, including a person's identity, age, gender, affective state, personality, etc. Here, we review accumulating evidence from behavioral, neuropsychological, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging studies which suggest that the cognitive and neural processing mechanisms engaged by perceiving faces or voices are highly similar, despite the very different nature of their sensory input. The similarity between the two mechanisms likely facilitates the multi-modal integration of facial and vocal information during everyday social interactions. These findings emphasize a parsimonious principle of cerebral organization, where similar computational problems in different modalities are solved using similar solutions

When Melody and Words Come Together

UIDB/00693/2020 UIDP/00693/2020For the past decades, the study of the binomial music and language has been of interest in several branches of cognitive sciences, including psychology, linguistics, anthropology, musicology, cognitive neuroscience, and education. Undoubtedly, songs are the perfect medium to study the relationship between both domains. This article will explore some contributions from neurosciences that could be deemed interesting to the field of music education, focusing on the relationship between melody and words in songs. The influence of these components on song perception and production is an ongoing matter of debate both in neurosciences and music education. The background for this discussion will be set by first mentioning the evolutionary commonalities between music and language, and a discussion on the shared leaning mechanisms for music and language. Since pitch and rhythm are important songs’ components, the comparative research of these elements across music and language will also be approached. In the intertwining of both fields, a special focus will be given to Music Learning Theory, a framework proposed by Edwin Gordon, who advocates the use of songs presented both with text and neutral syllable since infancy. Considering that songs are one of the most used resources in music education, it is questioned if the scientific advances in the neurosciences can inform musical pedagogy, thus new paths of investigation are suggested at the intersection of the two disciplines.publishersversionpublishe

Promoting Increased Pitch Variation in Oral Presentations with Transient Visual Feedback

This paper investigates learner response to a novel kind of intonation feedback generated from speech analysis. Instead of displays of pitch curves, the feedback our system produces is flashing lights of different colors, which show how much pitch variation the speaker has produced rather than an absolute measure of frequency. The variable used to generate the feedback is the standard deviation of fundamental frequency (as measured in semitones) over the previous ten seconds of speech. Flat or monotone speech causes the system to show yellow lights, while more expressive speech that has used pitch to give focus to any part of an utterance generates green lights. The system is designed to be used with free, rather than modeled, speech. Participants in the study were 14 Chinese-native students of English at intermediate and advanced levels. A group that received feedback was compared with a group that received no feedback other than the ability to listen to recordings of their speech, with the hypothesis that the feedback would stimulate the development of a speaking style that used more pitch variation. Pitch variation was measured at four stages of our study: in a baseline oral presentation; for the first and second halves of roughly three hours of training; and finally in the production of a new oral presentation. Both groups increased their pitch variation with training, and the effect lasted after the training had ended. The test group showed a significantly higher increase than the control group, indicating that the feedback is effective. These positive results imply that the feedback could be beneficially used in a system for practicing oral presentations

Commentary on "The Perception and Cognition of Time in Balinese Music" by Andrew Clay McGraw

We review the paper by Andrew Clay McGraw, noting that it represents an interesting and valuable contribution to the study of music in cognition in its informed exploration of non-western musical perceptions. We raise a number of concerns about the methods used, and make suggestions as to how the issues that were empirically addressed in the paper might have been tackled in ways that would have enhanced the interpretability of its findings

Temporal Parameters of Spontaneous Speech in Forensic Speaker Identification in Case of Language Mismatch: Serbian as L1 and English as L2

Celem badania jest analiza możliwości identyfikacji mówcy kryminalistycznego i sądowego podczas zadawania pytań w różnych językach, z wykorzystaniem parametrów temporalnych. (wskaźnik artykulcji, wskaźnik mowy, stopień niezdecydowania, odsetek pauz, średnia czas trwania pauzy). Korpus obejmuje 10 mówców kobiet z Serbii, które znają język angielksi na poziomie zaawwansowanym. Patrametry są badane z wykorzystaniem beayesowskiego wzoru wskaźnika prawdopodobieństwa w 40 parach tcyh samych mówców i w 230 parach różnych mówców, z uwzględnieniem szacunku wskaźnika błędu, równiego wskaźnika błędu i Całościowego Wskaźnika Prawdopodobieństwa. badanie ma charakter pionierski w zakresie językoznawstwa sądowego i kryminalistycznego por1) ónawczego w parze jezyka serbskiego i angielskiego, podobnie, jak analiza parametrów temporalnych mówców bilingwalnych. Dalsze badania inny skoncentrować się na porównaniu języków z rytmem akcentowym i z rytmem sylabicznym. The purpose of the research is to examine the possibility of forensic speaker identification if question and suspect sample are in different languages using temporal parameters (articulation rate, speaking rate, degree of hesitancy, percentage of pauses, average pause duration). The corpus includes 10 female native speakers of Serbian who are proficient in English. The parameters are tested using Bayesian likelihood ratio formula in 40 same-speaker and 360 different-speaker pairs, including estimation of error rates, equal error rates and Overall Likelihood Ratio. One-way ANOVA is performed to determine whether inter-speaker variability is higher than intra- speaker variability across languages. The most successful discriminant is degree of hesitancy with ER of 42.5%/28%, (EER: 33%), followed by average pause duration with ER 35%/45.56%, (EER: 40%). Although the research features a closed-set comparison, which is not very common in forensic reality, the results are still relevant for forensic phoneticians working on criminal cases or as expert witnesses. This study pioneers in forensically comparing Serbian and English as well as in forensically testing temporal parameters on bilingual speakers. Further research should focus on comparing two stress-timed or two syllable-timed languages to test whether they will be more comparable in terms of temporal aspects of speech.

Identyfikacja parametrów czasowych mowy spontanicznej mówców kryminalistycznych w przypadku niedopasowania językowego: język serbski jako L1 i język angielski jako L2

The purpose of the research is to examine the possibility of forensic speaker identification if question and suspect sample are in different languages using temporal parameters (articulation rate, speaking rate, degree of hesitancy, percentage of pauses, average pause duration). The corpus includes 10 female native speakers of Serbian who are proficient in English. The parameters are tested using Bayesian likelihood ratio formula in 40 same-speaker and 360 different-speaker pairs, including estimation of error rates, equal error rates and Overall Likelihood Ratio. One-way ANOVA is performed to determine whether inter-speaker variability is higher than intra- speaker variability across languages. The most successful discriminant is degree of hesitancy with ER of 42.5%/28%, (EER: 33%), followed by average pause duration with ER 35%/45.56%, (EER: 40%). Although the research features a closed-set comparison, which is not very common in forensic reality, the results are still relevant for forensic phoneticians working on criminal cases or as expert witnesses. This study pioneers in forensically comparing Serbian and English as well as in forensically testing temporal parameters on bilingual speakers. Further research should focus on comparing two stress-timed or two syllable-timed languages to test whether they will be more comparable in terms of temporal aspects of speech. Celem badania jest analiza możliwości identyfikacji mówcy kryminalistycznego i sądowego podczas zadawania pytań w różnych językach, z wykorzystaniem parametrów temporalnych. (wskaźnik artykulcji, wskaźnik mowy, stopień niezdecydowania, odsetek pauz, średnia czas trwania pauzy). Korpus obejmuje 10 mówców kobiet z Serbii, które znają język angielksi na poziomie zaawwansowanym. Patrametry są badane z wykorzystaniem beayesowskiego wzoru wskaźnika prawdopodobieństwa w 40 parach tcyh samych mówców i w 230 parach różnych mówców, z uwzględnieniem szacunku wskaźnika błędu, równiego wskaźnika błędu i Całościowego Wskaźnika Prawdopodobieństwa. badanie ma charakter pionierski w zakresie językoznawstwa sądowego i kryminalistycznego por1) ónawczego w parze jezyka serbskiego i angielskiego, podobnie, jak analiza parametrów temporalnych mówców bilingwalnych. Dalsze badania inny skoncentrować się na porównaniu języków z rytmem akcentowym i z rytmem sylabicznym.

Parallelism and the Composition of Oral Narratives in Banda Eli

While parallelism is easily recognizable as the source for various literary tropes, it is also important as a resource for the speakers' dialogic engagement with the patterns of interaction and experience: they embody part of their linguistic habitus. This article explores the forms of parallelism found in a variety of speech and narrative genres in Bandanese, an Eastern Indonesian minority language with about 5,000 speakers. Bandanese abounds with parallel expressions in which speakers use part-whole relations based on social and cultural classifications to construct totalizing cognitive and value statements. At the same time, Bandanese poetics is more than just evidence of an integrated cultural world. The article analyzes interactions between tropes based on repetition and parallelism to suggest that speakers and narrators use them to create a resonance between immediate rhetorical effects and larger recognized aesthetic positions in their folk categories. A prominent example of such resonance is the use of parallelism in eloquent, public speech. When speakers use the lexical contrast between Bandanese and the regional or national majority language as a source of parallel expressions, they draw from an aesthetic in which powerful speech resonates with past and future dialogue with outsiders. Recent scholarship on parallelism and repetition encourages us to recognize that they produce potential dialogic relations on a larger scale than that of single utterances. This approach can produce valuable insights into possibilities for innovation in and revitalization of Bandanese and other minority languages threatened by demographic change and loss of use in their former domains.Abstract from website.Timo Kaartinen received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2001. He is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Helsinki and has a done ethnographic research at several Indonesian sites since 1992. His ongoing fieldwork focuses on the revitalization of minority languages in the Eastern Indonesian province of Maluku

Parallelism and the Composition of Oral Narratives in Banda Eli

While parallelism is easily recognizable as the source for various literary tropes, it is also important as a resource for the speakers’ dialogic engagement with the patterns of interaction and experience they embody as part of their linguistic habitus. This article explores the forms of parallelism found in a variety of speech and narrative genres in Bandanese, an Eastern Indonesian minority language with about 5,000 speakers. Bandanese abounds with parallel expressions in which speakers use part-whole relations based on social and cultural classifications to construct totalizing cognitive and value statements. At the same time, Bandanese poetics is more than just evidence of an integrated cultural world. The article analyzes interactions between tropes based on repetition and parallelism to suggest that speakers and narrators use them to create a resonance between immediate rhetorical effects and larger aesthetic positions recognized in their folk categories. A prominent example of such resonance is the use of parallelism in eloquent, public speech. When speakers use the lexical contrast between Bandanese and the regional or national majority language as a source of parallel expressions, they draw from an aesthetic in which powerful speech resonates with past and future dialogue with outsiders. Recent scholarship of parallelism and repetition encourages us to recognize that they produce potential dialogic relations on a larger scale than that of single utterances. This approach can produce valuable insights into the possibilities for innovation in and revitalization of Bandanese and other minority languages threatened by demographic change and by losing their former domains of use.Peer reviewe

Transformative influence of Afro-Brazilian syncopation on European compound melodies in Brazilian Choro music melorhythmical re-organization of interleaved melodic structures in progressive Afro-Brazilian music from the late-19th century

During the second half of the 19th century, Rio de Janeiro’s public life became the setting for spontaneous gatherings by a varied assortment of amateur musicians. After attracting professional musicians from Rio’s popular entertainment circuit, these meetings evolved into creative musical hubs during which songs of the day were instrumentally re-styled. Commonly known as ‘Choro’ or ‘Chorinho’ (Port. ‘cry’), these music practices were infused with melodic elements from classical chamber music as well as stylistic influence from popular dance music. One significant development was the introduction of compound melodies, single-note structures that elicit the impression of being multi-melodic. Influenced by Afro-Brazilian accompanists, compound melodies became infused with syncopated phrasing elements and evolved into one of Choro’s most emblematic traits. This thesis focuses on factors and processes that created Choro’s syncopated compound melodies, identifying and explaining their organizational transformation during Choro’s stylistic hybridization processes