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Michael J. Owren

Bio: Michael J. Owren is an academic researcher from Georgia State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Formant & Laughter. The author has an hindex of 37, co-authored 70 publications receiving 4856 citations. Previous affiliations of Michael J. Owren include Cornell University & Indiana University.
Topics: Formant, Laughter, Vowel, Vocal tract, Alarm signal


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This review examines some difficulties engendered by a linguistically inspired, meaning-based view of primate calls, specifically that vocalizations are arbitrarily structured vehicles for transmitting encoded referential information, and suggests two ways in which acoustic structure may be tied to simple, nonlinguistic functions in primate vocalizations.
Abstract: In this review, we will examine some difficulties engendered by a linguistically inspired, meaning-based view of primate calls, specifically that vocalizations are arbitrarily structured vehicles for transmitting encoded referential information. The fundamental problem is that this characterization, while metaphorical, is often taken literally. While researchers have thus usefully been spurred to demonstrate that primates sometimes do behave as if their vocalizations are referential, this “metaphor-as-explanation” approach has also distracted them from normative biological perspectives and the structure-function relationships that likely exist in the signals. After a brief historical introduction, we consider some of the problems raised by relying on linguistically based constructs, and suggest two ways in which acoustic structure may be tied to simple, nonlinguistic functions in primate vocalizations. We then consider the evolution of these calling strategies in light of the sometimes coincident, but other times divergent interests of senders and receivers.

345 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider some of the ambiguities and limitations inherent in such informational approaches to animal communication as background to advocating alternatives, eschew language-based metaphors and broader informational constructs and focus instead on concrete details of signal design as they reflect and interact with established sensory, physiological and psychological processes that support signalling and responding in listeners.

332 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Recording of naturally produced laugh bouts recorded from 97 young adults as they watched funny video clips revealed evident diversity in production modes, remarkable variability in fundamental frequency characteristics, and consistent lack of articulation effects in supralaryngeal filtering are of particular interest.
Abstract: Remarkably little is known about the acoustic features of laughter. Here, acoustic outcomes are reported for 1024 naturally produced laugh bouts recorded from 97 young adults as they watched funny video clips. Analyses focused on temporal features, production modes, source- and filter-related effects, and indexical cues to laugher sex and individual identity. Although a number of researchers have previously emphasized stereotypy in laughter, its acoustics were found now to be variable and complex. Among the variety of findings reported, evident diversity in production modes, remarkable variability in fundamental frequency characteristics, and consistent lack of articulation effects in supralaryngeal filtering are of particular interest. In addition, formant-related filtering effects were found to be disproportionately important as acoustic correlates of laugher sex and individual identity. These outcomes are examined in light of existing data concerning laugh acoustics, as well as a number of hypotheses and conjectures previously advanced about this species-typical vocal signal.

287 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that laughers use the acoustic features of their vocalizations to shape listener affect, as voiced, songlike laughs were significantly more likely to elicit positive responses than were variants such as unvoiced grunts, pants, and snortlike sounds.
Abstract: We tested whether listeners are differentially responsive to the presence or absence of voicing, a salient, distinguishing acoustic feature, in laughter. Each of 128 participants rated 50 voiced and 20 unvoiced laughs twice according to one of five different rating strategies. Results were highly consistent regardless of whether participants rated their own emotional responses, likely responses of other people, or one of three perceived attributes concerning the laughers, thus indicating that participants were experiencing similarly differentiated affective responses in all these cases. Specifically, voiced, songlike laughs were significantly more likely to elicit positive responses than were variants such as unvoiced grunts, pants, and snortlike sounds. Participants were also highly consistent in their relative dislike of these other sounds, especially those produced by females. Based on these results, we argue that laughers use the acoustic features of their vocalizations to shape listener affect.

238 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined fundamental frequency (F0) and two perturbation measures, jitter and shimmer, in short speech samples recorded from subjects performing a lexical decision task and found significant differences between baseline and on-task values and as interaction effects involving differences in trait levels of emotional intensity and the proportion of success versus failure feedback received.
Abstract: Acoustic properties of speech likely provide external cues about internal emotional processes, a phenomenon called vocal expression of emotion Testing this supposition, we examined fundamental frequency (F0) and two perturbation measures, jitter and shimmer, in short speech samples recorded from subjects performing a lexical decision task Statistically significant differences were found between baseline and on-task values and as interaction effects involving differences in trait levels of emotional intensity and the proportion of success versus failure feedback received These results indicate that acoustic properties of speech can be used to index emotional processes and that characteristic differences in emotional intensity may mediate vocal expression of emotion

227 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued and present evidence that great apes understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared intentionality), and children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life.
Abstract: We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Participation in such activities requires not only especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural learning, but also a unique motivation to share psychological states with oth- ers and unique forms of cognitive representation for doing so. The result of participating in these activities is species-unique forms of cultural cognition and evolution, enabling everything from the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the establishment of social institutions. In support of this proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes (and some children with autism) understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared intentionality). Human children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: (1) the general ape line of understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and intentional agents; and (2) a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and activities with other persons. The develop- mental outcome is children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive representations, which enable them to participate in earnest in the collectivity that is human cognition.

3,660 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Perception-Action Model (PAM), together with an understanding of how representations change with experience, can explain the major empirical effects in the literature and can also predict a variety of empathy disorders.
Abstract: There is disagreement in the literature about the exact nature of the phenomenon of empathy. There are emotional, cogni- tive, and conditioning views, applying in varying degrees across species. An adequate description of the ultimate and proximate mecha- nism can integrate these views. Proximately, the perception of an object's state activates the subject's corresponding representations, which in turn activate somatic and autonomic responses. This mechanism supports basic behaviors (e.g., alarm, social facilitation, vicar- iousness of emotions, mother-infant responsiveness, and the modeling of competitors and predators) that are crucial for the reproduc- tive success of animals living in groups. The Perception-Action Model (PAM), together with an understanding of how representations change with experience, can explain the major empirical effects in the literature (similarity, familiarity, past experience, explicit teach- ing, and salience). It can also predict a variety of empathy disorders. The interaction between the PAM and prefrontal functioning can also explain different levels of empathy across species and age groups. This view can advance our evolutionary understanding of empa- thy beyond inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism and can explain different levels of empathy across individuals, species, stages of de- velopment, and situations.

3,350 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
22 Nov 2002-Science
TL;DR: It is argued that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial interdisciplinary cooperation and how current developments in linguistics can be profitably wedded to work in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience is suggested.
Abstract: We argue that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial interdisciplinary cooperation. We suggest how current developments in linguistics can be profitably wedded to work in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience. We submit that a distinction should be made between the faculty of language in the broad sense (FLB)and in the narrow sense (FLN) . FLB includes a sensory-motor system, a conceptual-intentional system, and the computational mechanisms for recursion, providing the capacity to generate an infinite range of expressions from a finite set of elements. We hypothesize that FLN only includes recursion and is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language. We further argue that FLN may have evolved for reasons other than language, hence comparative studies might look for evidence of such computations outside of the domain of communication (for example, number, navigation, and social relations).

3,293 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is suggested that the evolution of large groups in the human lineage depended on developing a more efficient method for time-sharing the processes of social bonding and that language uniquely fulfills this requirement.
Abstract: Group size is a function of relative neocortical volume in nonhuman primates. Extrapolation from this regression equation yields a predicted group size for modern humans very similar to that of certain hunter-gatherer and traditional horticulturalist societies. Groups of similar size are also found in other large-scale forms of contemporary and historical society. Among primates, the cohesion of groups is maintained by social grooming; the time devoted to social grooming is linearly related to group size among the Old World monkeys and apes. To maintain the stability of the large groups characteristic of humans by grooming alone would place intolerable demands on time budgets. It is suggested that (1) the evolution of large groups in the human lineage depended on the development of a more efficient method for time-sharing the processes of social bonding and that (2) language uniquely fulfills this requirement. Data on the size of conversational and other small interacting groups of humans are in line with the predictions for the relative efficiency of conversation compared to grooming as a bonding process. Analysis of a sample of human conversations shows that about 60% of time is spent gossiping about relationships and personal experiences. It is suggested that language evolved to allow individuals to learn about the behavioural characteristics of other group members more rapidly than is possible by direct observation alone.

1,811 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A meta-analytic summary of the neuroimaging literature on human emotion finds little evidence that discrete emotion categories can be consistently and specifically localized to distinct brain regions, and finds evidence that is consistent with a psychological constructionist approach to the mind.
Abstract: Researchers have wondered how the brain creates emotions since the early days of psychological science. With a surge of studies in affective neuroscience in recent decades, scientists are poised to answer this question. In this target article, we present a meta-analytic summary of the neuroimaging literature on human emotion. We compare the locationist approach (i.e., the hypothesis that discrete emotion categories consistently and specifically correspond to distinct brain regions) with the psychological constructionist approach (i.e., the hypothesis that discrete emotion categories are constructed of more general brain networks not specific to those categories) to better understand the brain basis of emotion. We review both locationist and psychological constructionist hypotheses of brain-emotion correspondence and report meta-analytic findings bearing on these hypotheses. Overall, we found little evidence that discrete emotion categories can be consistently and specifically localized to distinct brain regions. Instead, we found evidence that is consistent with a psychological constructionist approach to the mind: A set of interacting brain regions commonly involved in basic psychological operations of both an emotional and non-emotional nature are active during emotion experience and perception across a range of discrete emotion categories.

1,702 citations