Self-Perception
Conditions
Keywords
acoustic analysis, physiological responses, psycho-acoustic tests
Brief summary
Like many other animals, humans produce nonverbal vocal signals including screams, grunts, roars, cries and laughter across a variety of contexts. 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.Our studies aim to improve our understanding of the nature and function of non-verbal signals.
Detailed description
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.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALProduction of vocal sounds
Participants will be asked to produce vocal sounds of different nature according to the non-verbal parameters of interest for the given study. For example, they can read a script containing vowels ('a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u'), short sentences ('hello, how are you'), longer passages of standardised reading texts, and can also be asked to speak freely about any topic ('freedom of speech'). They can be asked to play a role or to imitate a particular emotional state. For example, "imagine that you have just been told that you have won a million euros in the lottery. Produce a vocalisation to express your excitement" or "talk to your dog your dog by imagining that he has done a negative action and then do the same thing by imagining that this time imagining that the action was positive".
Sponsors
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne
University of Lyon
Study design
Observational model
OTHER
Time perspective
PROSPECTIVE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 80 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
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)
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Vocal analysis | During the vocal production | Participants will receive instructions on what to say or what type of non-verbal vocalisation to produce during the manipulation. The vocalisations thus produced by the participants will be systematically recorded and analysed using software adapted to acoustic analysis Measurement of acoustic variables such as fundamental frequency (pitch), vocal tract resonances (formants) and vocal disturbances (jitter, shimmer), the nonlinearities and chaotic/noise properties of vocalisations |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Heart rate (bpm) | During the vocal production | — |
| Skin conductance (Siemens) | During the vocal production | — |
| Skin temperature (°C) | During the vocal production | — |
| Nociception Level Index (NOL) | During the vocal production | A non-invasive finger probe, containing four sensors, will be placed on the on the index finger of the participants. |
| Pupillary diameter (millimeter) | During the vocal production | Using a high resolution binocular for automated pupil diameter measurement with an infrared camera |
Countries
France
Contacts
CONTACTROLAND PEYRON, MDPhD
CONTACTNicolas MATHEVON, PhD
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORROLAND PEYRON, MDPHD
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne
STUDY_DIRECTORNicolas MATHEVON, PhD
University of Saint-Etienne, France
Outcome results
None listed