From hubeyh at mail.montclair.edu Fri Dec 28 14:11:57 2001 From: hubeyh at mail.montclair.edu (H.M. Hubey) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 09:11:57 -0500 Subject: [language] [Fwd: [evol-psych] It's squeak and mutter for mice and men] Message-ID: <><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [evol-psych] It's squeak and mutter for mice and men Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 09:31:59 +0000 From: Ian Pitchford Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Organization: http://human-nature.com/ To: evolutionary-psychology at yahoogroups.com It's squeak and mutter for mice and men Humans chat and mice squeak - but both follow some of the same basic rules of sound recognition to communicate, scientists say. Researchers made the discovery by analysing the way hungry infant mice call to their mothers. It was already known that suckling mouse pups and human babies make similar sounds. The new study by a team of German scientists shows that mice and humans are sensitive to the same structural elements in these sounds. These low frequency "formants", which determine spectral shape and timbre, are critical to vowel recognition in humans. The researchers, led by Gunter Ehret at the University of Ulm, prepared recordings of natural mouse pup sounds and artificial calls and played them back to a mother mouse nursing her babies. They found that particular "wriggling calls" triggered maternal behaviour, such as licking offspring, changing suckling position, and nest building. When these calls were analysed, the scientists discovered that for a mother mouse to understand her pubs she has to hear at least three low frequency "formants". Similar sound components are necessary for humans to perceive speech vowels, the researchers reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery indicates that human verbal communication is based on fundamental rules which evolved long ago. Story filed: 22:18 Tuesday 25th December 2001 http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_481118.html?menu=news.scienceanddiscovery ____ To view archive/subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day http://human-nature.com/nibbs Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ---<><><><><><><><><><><><>----Language----<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Copyrights/"Fair Use": http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. You are currently subscribed to language as: language at listserv.linguistlist.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-language-4283Y at csam-lists.montclair.edu