Cracking the social code of speech prosody using reverse correlation

Human listeners excel at forming high-level social representations about each other, even from the briefest of utterances. In particular, pitch is widely recognized as the auditory dimension that conveys most of the information about a speaker's traits, emotional states, and attitudes. While past research has primarily looked at the influence of mean pitch, almost nothing is known about how intonation patterns, i.e., finely tuned pitch trajectories around the mean, may determine social judgments in speech. Here, we introduce an experimental paradigm that combines state-of-the-art voice transformation algorithms with psychophysical reverse correlation and show that two of the most important dimensions of social judgments, a speaker's perceived dominance and trustworthiness, are driven by robust and distinguishing pitch trajectories in short utterances like the word "Hello," which remained remarkably stable whether male or female listeners judged male or female speakers. These findings reveal a unique communicative adaptation that enables listeners to infer social traits regardless of speakers' physical characteristics, such as sex and mean pitch. By characterizing how any given individual's mental representations may differ from this generic code, the method introduced here opens avenues to explore dysprosody and social-cognitive deficits in disorders like autism spectrum and schizophrenia. In addition, once derived experimentally, these prototypes can be applied to novel utterances, thus providing a principled way to modulate personality impressions in arbitrary speech signals

Uncovering mental representations of smiled speech using reverse correlation

International audienc

Appeal No. 0777: Mike Johnson v. Division of Mineral Resources Management

Chief\u27s Order 2006-13

Sound context modulates perceived vocal emotion

International audienceMany animal vocalizations contain nonlinear acoustic phenomena as a consequence of physiological arousal. In humans, nonlinear features are processed early in the auditory system, and are used to efficiently detect alarm calls and other urgent signals. Yet, high-level emotional and semantic contextual factors likely guide the perception and evaluation of roughness features in vocal sounds. Here we examined the relationship between perceived vocal arousal and auditory context. We presented listeners with nonverbal vocalizations (yells of a single vowel) at varying levels of portrayed vocal arousal, in two musical contexts (clean guitar, distorted guitar) and one non-musical context (modulated noise). As predicted, vocalizations with higher levels of portrayed vocal arousal were judged as more negative and more emotionally aroused than the same voices produced with low vocal arousal. Moreover, both the perceived valence and emotional arousal of vocalizations were significantly affected by both musical and non-musical contexts. These results show the importance of auditory context in judging emotional arousal and valence in voices and music, and suggest that nonlinear features in music are processed similarly to communicative vocal signals

Exhaustive analysis of BH4 and dopamine biosynthesis genes in patients with Dopa-responsive dystonia

Dopa-responsive dystonia is a childhood-onset dystonic disorder, characterized by a dramatic response to low dose of l-Dopa. Dopa-responsive dystonia is mostly caused by autosomal dominant mutations in the GCH1 gene (GTP cyclohydrolase1) and more rarely by autosomal recessive mutations in the TH (tyrosine hydroxylase) or SPR (sepiapterin reductase) genes. In addition, mutations in the PARK2 gene (parkin) which causes autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism may present as Dopa-responsive dystonia. In order to evaluate the relative frequency of the mutations in these genes, but also in the genes involved in the biosynthesis and recycling of BH4, and to evaluate the associated clinical spectrum, we have studied a large series of index patients (n = 64) with Dopa-responsive dystonia, in whom dystonia improved by at least 50% after l-Dopa treatment. Fifty seven of these patients were classified as pure Dopa-responsive dystonia and seven as Dopa-responsive dystonia-plus syndromes. All patients were screened for point mutations and large rearrangements in the GCH1 gene, followed by sequencing of the TH and SPR genes, then PTS (pyruvoyl tetrahydropterin synthase), PCBD (pterin-4a-carbinolamine dehydratase), QDPR (dihydropteridin reductase) and PARK2 (parkin) genes. We identified 34 different heterozygous point mutations in 40 patients, and six different large deletions in seven patients in the GCH1 gene. Except for one patient with mental retardation and a large deletion of 2.3 Mb encompassing 10 genes, all patients had stereotyped clinical features, characterized by pure Dopa-responsive dystonia with onset in the lower limbs and an excellent response to low doses of l-Dopa. Dystonia started in the first decade of life in 40 patients (85%) and before the age of 1 year in one patient (2.2%). Three of the 17 negative GCH1 patients had mutations in the TH gene, two in the SPR gene and one in the PARK2 gene. No mutations in the three genes involved in the biosynthesis and recycling of BH4 were identified. The clinical presentations of patients with mutations in TH and SPR genes were strikingly more complex, characterized by mental retardation, oculogyric crises and parkinsonism and they were all classified as Dopa-responsive dystonia-plus syndromes. Patient with mutation in the PARK2 gene had Dopa-responsive dystonia with a good improvement with l-Dopa, similar to Dopa-responsive dystonia secondary to GCH1 mutations. Although the yield of mutations exceeds 80% in pure Dopa-responsive dystonia and Dopa-responsive dystonia-plus syndromes groups, the genes involved are clearly different: GCH1 in the former and TH and SPR in the late

Notas sobre a Carta de Veneza

This paper presents a critical reading of the Venice Charter, an Icomos key document, fruit of a conference held in 1964. The Charter is often quoted in Brazil but is not always properly understood. The conservation and restoration charters - especially those produced by international institutions - are documents that have an indicatory or, at the most, prescriptive character. They constitute the deontological foundation of many professionals involved in preservation, but they are not recipes for immediate use. In order to elaborate a well-founded reading of the document, its ideas must be understood in connection to the theoretical postulates of the time they were engendered and to the developments of the field. Thus this paper will examine these subjects, commenting and enlightening the Charter's articles and pointing out the origins of specific ideas. It also discusses how the Charter relates to previous documents and their theoretical foundations. This approach, based in a critical analysis, is necessary in order to reach a fuller interpretation of the Charter's indications so that they can be used in the present

Codage de la sonie globale de sons variant au cours du temps: Le cas des sons crescendo et decrecendo

The global loudness evaluation of a time-varying sound is based on the transformation of our momentary loudness sensations into a single scalar value that reflects our overall impression a posteriori. The aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of this dynamical process in the case of specific stimuli that rise or fall in level over a few seconds. Starting from the observation that rising tones are perceived louder than falling tones while both contain the same energy over the same duration, this thesis is structured around four experimental chapters that scrutinize the origins of this perceptual asymmetry from various perspectives. Chapter 1 explores the extent to which this asymmetry relies on contextual or methodological factors. Various measurement procedures and contexts of presentation yielding comparable results, evidence is provided that a steady and robust mechanism is at the basis of this perceptual asymmetry. In Chapter 2, the influence of the sound spectral structure is examined and it is shown that asymmetries are significantly diminished when broadband noises rather than tonal stimuli are used. Chapter 3 examines the effects of the temporal profile characteristics of the stimuli (slope, duration, dynamics) on their global loudness judgments. Results indicate that listeners’ judgments rely on a temporal integration of the loudest portion but that other mechanisms are involved; asymmetries whose magnitude depends on the profile characteristics and the level of the sounds in a complex and nonlinear manner are found. In Chapter 4, the global loudness evaluation process is examined locally in a loudness discrimination task. The respective contributions of the different temporal portions of rising and falling-intensity stimuli as well as their interactions are derived from reverse-correlation analyses. First-order analyses show that listeners exclusively focus on the loudest portions of these sounds and that similar temporal weighting patterns apply to rising and falling profiles; second-order analyses indicate the presence of nonlinear components in the integration process that have never been reported so far. Current loud- ness models cannot directly account for the effects highlighted throughout these studies, which supports the idea that the mechanism(s) under study might take place in high auditory or decisional stages not considered in these models. From the use of very basic stimuli, this work brings to light key temporal mechanisms in global loudness processing that might be shared with other sensory attributes. This research offers new perspectives to investigate the coding and the processing of time-varying stimuli by sensory systems from identified perceptual asymmetries.L’évaluation de la sonie globale d’un son non-stationnaire repose sur la transformation de nos sensations de sonie momentanées en une valeur scalaire unique reflétant notre impression globale a posteriori. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’approfondir la compréhension de ce processus dynamique dans le cas particulier de stimuli présentant des profils d’intensité croissants ou décroissants de quelques secondes. Partant de l’observation que les sons croissants sont perçus plus forts que les sons décroissants alors qu’ils contiennent la même énergie pendant la même durée, cette thèse s’articule autour de quatre chapitres expérimentaux qui abordent la question des origines de cette asymétrie perceptive sous différentes perspectives. Le Chapitre 1 évalue dans quelle mesure cette asymétrie repose sur des facteurs contextuels ou méthodologiques. Différentes méthodes de mesures et différents contextes de présentation conduisant à des résultats similaires, il en ressort qu’un mécanisme stable et robuste est très probablement impliqué dans cette asymétrie perceptive. Dans le Chapitre 2, l’influence de la structure spectrale du son est examinée, faisant apparaître des asymétries significativement réduites lorsque des bruits large bande plutôt que des sons tonaux sont utilisés. Le Chapitre 3 s’intéresse aux effets des paramètres décrivant le profil temporel des stimuli (pente, durée, dynamique) sur leurs jugements de sonie globale. Les résultats indiquent que les jugements des auditeurs se fondent sur une intégration temporelle de la région la plus intense mais que d’autres mécanismes sont impliqués; des asymétries dépendant de façon complexe et non-linéaire des caractéristiques du profil temporel et du niveau des stimuli sont observées. Le Chapitre 4 étudie localement le processus d’évaluation de la sonie globale à partir d’une tâche de discrimination en sonie. Les contributions respectives des différentes portions temporelles des sons croissants et des sons décroissants sont obtenues à partir d’analyses “reverse-correlation”. Au premier ordre, les analyses font apparaître le fait que les auditeurs se basent exclusivement sur les parties les plus intenses des sons et que des pondérations temporelles similaires (symétriques) sont appliquées aux profils croissant et décroissant; les analyses au second ordre mettent en évidence la présence de composantes non-linéaires dans le processus d’intégration qui n’avaient encore jamais été rapportées jusqu’à présent. Les modèles de sonie actuels ne permettent pas directement d’expliquer ces résultats, ce qui soutient l’idée selon laquelle les mécanismes étudiés pourraient provenir de traitements auditifs ou décisionnels “haut-niveau” n’étant pas encore pris en considération dans ces modèles. A partir de stimuli élémentaires, cette étude met en lumière des mécanismes temporels fondamentaux dans le traitement de la sonie globale, possiblement partagés par d’autres attributs sensoriels. De nouvelles perspectives de recherche pour l’étude du codage et du traitement de stimuli non-stationnaires par les systèmes sensoriels à partir d’asymétries perceptives avérées sont ainsi offertes

Un système pour décoder les communications sociales dans la voix : des filtres auditifs cochléaires aux filtres auditifs sociaux

National audienceNous disposons d’une capacité remarquable à nous former instantanément des représentations sociales de nos interlocuteurs au cours d’une interaction sociale, en particulier à travers leur voix. Linguistes et éthologistes ont observé le rôle de la prosodie vocale (les caractéristiques acoustiques, i.e. non verbales, comme l’intonation, la vitesse d’élocution, les accents toniques) dans la communication humaine depuis des décennies, mais les filtres exacts utilisés par notre cerveau pour inférer des traits sociaux à partir de ces caractéristiques prosodiques restaient jusqu’à présent inaccessibles. Je présenterai ici une approche basée sur l’utilisation conjointe d’algorithmes de transformation de la voix et de méthodes psychophysique de « corrélation inverse » permettant d’accéder expérimentalement à ces filtres perceptifs haut-niveau et donc de remonter au prototype auditif mental d’un trait social donné. Je discuterai des résultats d’une première série d’expériences où nous avons caractérisé en particulier les filtres qui décodent l’intonation dans le mot ‘bonjour’ lorsque nous évaluons si un locuteur est ‘digne de confiance’ ou lorsque nous évaluons s’il est ‘socialement dominant’. J’évoquerai enfin des perspectives applicative et fondamentale offertes par la caractérisation de ces filtres auditifs sociaux. Applicative : les utiliser pour « maquiller » socialement, de manière paramétrique, n’importe quelle autre voix. Fondamentale : les mesurer chez des personnes souffrant de déficits spécifiques au traitement de la voix afin d’identifier les composantes des mécanismes haut-niveau altérées (e.g., gain, forme temporelle du filtre) par leur pathologie, ce qui constituerait une première étape vers la rééducation individualisée