Andics, Attila

Faragó, Tamás

Gácsi, Márta

Kis, Anna

Miklósi, Ádám

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VOCALIZATION-SELECTIVE SUPERIOR TEMPORAL REGIONS ARE NOT CONSPECIFIC-SPECIFIC IN HUMANS Attila Andics1,2, Márta Gácsi1, Tamás Faragó1, Anna Kis1,3, Ádám Miklósi1    attila.andics@gmail.com 1MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences - Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary  2MR Research Center, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary 3Comparative Behavioural Research Group, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary   INTRODUCTION  Temporal voice regions responding selectively to conspecific vocalizations have been found in both humans (Belin et al. 2000) and macaques (Petkov et al. 2008).  Are voice-selective regions specialized for conspecifics?  Is species-specific selectivity driven by emotions / acoustics?  Are there human brain regions specialized for animal vocalizations?  METHODS  Participants. 22 human listeners (11 female; 12 dog owners)  Stimuli. 96 human vocalizations (nonlinguistic, emotional)     96 dog vocalizations (various contexts, emotional)   96 nonvocal sounds (familiar environmental)   Human and dog stimuli rated for perceived emotional valence and intensity                       Design. 8-s-long blocks of 4 stimuli (all < 2 s) with similar perceived emotional valence    24 blocks per condition (human, dog, nonvocal and silence)   3 runs of 6 mins (35 volumes each), passive listening   Philips Achieva 3T,  TR=10 s (2 s acquisition + 8 s silent gap)      Analysis. Standard preprocessing in SPM8.    Group-level whole-volume random effects analyses.    Parametric modulation analyses to factor out emotions and acoustics.   1. Superior temporal sulcus (STS) RESULTS 2. Temporal pole (TP) 3. Fusiform gyrus (FG) human > nonvocal   dog > nonvocal p < .05 (FWE-corrected)  dog > human p < .05 (FWE-corrected)   Average regional activity  per sound type vs silence (beta)  Regions: spheres with a 10 mm radius around local maxima of human vs nonvocal  Paired t-tests within region:  **: p < .001. *: p < .05.  ns: not significant  Error bars: S.E. of mean Left STS [-66 -22 -6] Right  STS [56 -28 -6]  Left TP [-38 8 -36] Right TP [40 6 -36] Left FG [-32 -36 -26] Right FG [28 -36 -26] human > dog p < .05 (FWE-corrected) REFERENCES Belin P, Zatorre RJ, Lafaille P, Ahad P, Pike B (2000). Voice-selective areas in human auditory cortex. Nature 403:309-312. Petkov CI, Kayser C, Steudel T, Whittingstall K, Augath M, Logothetis NK (2008). A voice region in the monkey brain. Nature Neuroscience 11:367-374. CONCLUSIONS  • Voice regions along the STS are not conspecific-specific: STS is sensitive to both human and dog vocalizations in humans (also in non-dog owners)  • TP regions are specialized for human voices; species-specific selectivity is not driven by stimuli’s perceived emotional content or acoustics • No brain regions are specialized for dog vocalizations; stronger response to dogs in FG regions is caused by deactivation for human vocalizations   z = -35 z = -20 

Vocalization-selective superior temporal regions are not conspecific-specific in humans

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