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dc.contributor.authorLameira, Adriano R.
dc.contributor.authorShumaker, Robert W.
dc.date.accessioned2019-08-27T12:30:02Z
dc.date.available2019-08-27T12:30:02Z
dc.date.issued2019-08-23
dc.identifier.citationLameira , A R & Shumaker , R W 2019 , ' Orangutans show active voicing through a membranophone ' , Scientific Reports , vol. 9 , 12289 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-48760-7en
dc.identifier.issn2045-2322
dc.identifier.otherPURE: 260876445
dc.identifier.otherPURE UUID: 78ef659f-fb28-45a5-acc3-90a6b3dd2ed7
dc.identifier.otherRIS: urn:8A8D730054EC2512EAEF3B1198B1CF13
dc.identifier.otherRIS: Lameira2019
dc.identifier.otherScopus: 85071387015
dc.identifier.otherWOS: 000482396100003
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/18379
dc.descriptionA.R.L. was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 702137.en
dc.description.abstractActive voicing – voluntary control over vocal fold oscillation – is essential for speech. Nonhuman great apes can learn new consonant- and vowel-like calls, but active voicing by our closest relatives has historically been the hardest evidence to concede to. To resolve this controversy, a diagnostic test for active voicing is reached here through the use of a membranophone: a musical instrument where a player’s voice flares a membrane’s vibration through oscillating air pressure. We gave the opportunity to use a membranophone to six orangutans (with no effective training), three of whom produced a priori novel (species-atypical) individual-specific vocalizations. After 11 and 34 min, two subjects were successful by producing their novel vocalizations into the instrument, hence, confirming active voicing. Beyond expectation, however, within <1 hour, both subjects found opposite strategies to significantly alter their voice duration and frequency to better activate the membranophone, further demonstrating plastic voice control as a result of experience with the instrument. Results highlight how individual differences in vocal proficiency between great apes may affect performance in experimental tests. Failing to adjust a test’s difficulty level to individuals’ vocal skill may lead to false negatives, which may have largely been the case in past studies now used as “textbook fact” for great ape “missing” vocal capacities. Results qualitatively differ from small changes that can be caused in innate monkey calls by intensive months-long conditional training. Our findings verify that active voicing beyond the typical range of the species’ repertoire, which in our species underpins the acquisition of new voiced speech sounds, is not uniquely human among great apes.
dc.format.extent6
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofScientific Reportsen
dc.rightsCopyright © The Author(s) 2019. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.en
dc.subjectBF Psychologyen
dc.subjectNDASen
dc.subject.lccBFen
dc.titleOrangutans show active voicing through a membranophoneen
dc.typeJournal articleen
dc.contributor.sponsorEuropean Commissionen
dc.description.versionPublisher PDFen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Centre for Social Learning & Cognitive Evolutionen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. School of Psychology and Neuroscienceen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-48760-7
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.identifier.grantnumber702137en


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