RSR Award Detail
Research Spending & Results
Award Detail
| Awardee: | TRUSTEES OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, THE |
| Doing Business As Name: | Princeton University |
| PD/PI: |
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| Award Date: | 06/29/2006 |
| Estimated Total Award Amount: | $ 600,001 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
$
600,001
|
| Award Start Date: | 07/01/2006 |
| Award Expiration Date: | 06/30/2012 |
| Transaction Type: | Grant |
| Agency: | NSF |
| Awarding Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Funding Agency Code: | 4900 |
| CFDA Number: | 47.075 |
| Primary Program Source: | 490100 NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Award Title or Description: | CAREER: The Neuro-cognitive Evolution of Speech-reading |
| Federal Award ID Number: | 0547760 |
| DUNS ID: | 002484665 |
| Parent DUNS ID: | 002484665 |
| Program: | COGNEURO |
| Program Officer: |
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Awardee Location | |
| Street: | Off. of Research & Proj. Admin. |
| City: | Princeton |
| State: | NJ |
| ZIP: | 08540-0036 |
| Country: | US |
| Awardee Cong. District: | 12 |
Primary Place of Performance | |
| Organization Name: | Princeton University |
| Street: | Off. of Research & Proj. Admin. |
| City: | Princeton |
| State: | NJ |
| ZIP: | 08540-0036 |
| Country: | US |
| Cong. District: | 12 |
Abstract at Time of Award | |
With a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Asif Ghazanfar at Princeton University will further develop a primate model system to investigate the neural bases for integrating communication signals across sensory modalities. Previous work from his group and others suggest that many perceptual processes related to social communication by monkeys are similar to the processes exhibited by human infants and adults. Like humans, macaque monkeys produce unique facial expressions when producing different vocal signals and they can also perceptually match the appropriate facial expression with a vocalization. The eye movement patterns that monkeys use to process these "multisensory" social inputs are also similar to those used by human adults and children when they view human faces producing speech. | |
Publications Produced as a Result of this Research | |
Zangenehpour S, Ghazanfar AA, Lewkowicz DJ and Zatorre RJ "Heterochrony and cross-species intersensory matching by infant vervet monkeys." PLoS ONE, v. , 2009, p. Ghazanfar AA "The multisensory roles for auditory cortex in primate vocal communication." Hearing Research, v. , 2009, p. Zangenehpour S, Ghazanfar AA, Lewkowicz DJ and Zatorre RJ "Heterochrony and cross-species intersensory matching by infant vervet monkeys." PLoS ONE, v. , 2009, p. Chandrasekaran, C; Trubanova, A; Stillittano, S; Caplier, A; Ghazanfar, AA "The Natural Statistics of Audiovisual Speech" PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY, v.5, 2009, p. View record at Web of Science Chandrasekaran C and Ghazanfar AA "Different neural frequency bands integrate faces and voices differently in the rhesus monkey superior temporal sulcus." Journal of Neurophysiology, v. , 2009, p. Ghazanfar AA "The multisensory roles for auditory cortex in primate vocal communication." Hearing Research, v. , 2009, p. Steckenfinger, SA; Ghazanfar, AA "Monkey visual behavior falls into the uncanny valley" PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v.106, 2009, p.18362 View record at Web of Science Lewkowicz, DJ; Ghazanfar, AA "The emergence of multisensory systems through perceptual narrowing" TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES, v.13, 2009, p.470 View record at Web of Science Vatakis, A; Ghazanfar, AA; Spence, C "Facilitation of multisensory integration by the "unity effect" reveals that speech is special" JOURNAL OF VISION, v.8, 2008, p. View record at Web of Science Ghazanfar, AA; Chandrasekaran, C; Logothetis, NK "Interactions between the superior temporal sulcus and auditory cortex mediate dynamic face/voice integration in rhesus monkeys" JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, v.28, 2008, p.4457 View record at Web of Science Ghazanfar, AA "Language evolution: neural differences that make a difference" NATURE NEUROSCIENCE, v.11, 2008, p.382 View record at Web of Science | |
Project Outcomes ReportDisclaimerThis Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content. | |
Speech may well be what makes us human. As far back as 400 BC, Isocrates suggested that we avoid “living like animals” through our ability to communicate to each other in a uniquely sophisticated manner, which gives us the capacity to build cities, make laws, invent art and so on. The uniqueness of speech to humans is indisputable, but how did it happen? Did speech evolve gradually via communication precursors in the primate lineage or did it arise spontaneously through a fortuitous confluence of neuroanatomical changes that are found only in humans? Even Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s irascible promoter of the theory of evolution by natural selection, found the idea that speech could evolve gradually through animal precursors to be too difficult to swallow. Huxley wrote, “Believing, as I do…, that the possession of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man…, I find it very easy to comprehend that some…inconspicuous structural differences may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of the Human form from the simian strips.” The overarching goal of this proposal was to investigate the evolutionary origins of speech by comparing human behavior with that of the macaque monkey. Any similarities that we find between the two species would suggest that their last common ancester also shared the same feature. This would provide as with an "origin" for different aspects of speech behavior. We tested a variety of features and mechanisms related to speech. These included the 1) rhythmic origins of speech (speech has a universal rhythm of 3-8Hz; that is, your mouth moves between 3 and 8 times per second no matter what language you are speaking), 2) what this rhythm is good for, 3) how facial motion and vocal sounds are linked together during development, and 4) what linking faces to voices are good for in terms of enhancing speech perception. We found that the origin of the speech rhythm is likely through the rhythmic facial expressions of an ancestral primates. Macaques produce a lipsmacking gesture that has the same rhythm has speech and that develops with the same trajectory as speech. What does this rhythm do? It seems that in both species it is used to "chunk" complicated acoustic signals into smaller bits that the brain can process more easily. From these chunks, the brain can extract information about vowel sounds and the identity of the individual speaking. We also learned that the ability to learn how different facial motions are linked to vocal sounds undergoes a period of "narrowing" in humans. We are really good at matching faces and voices no matter what the species (e.g., monkeys and humans) when we are 4 months old, but our ability then becomes limited to only linking human faces and voices by 6 months of age. Monkeys do not undergo this same narrowing process, suggesting that they are less "plastic" during early life. Finally, we learned that one huge advantage for both species is that the ability to link facial motion and sounds leads to faster behavior: both species can detect salient communication events in noisy environments much more quickly if we can use both visual and auditory information together. This points to an evolutionary advantage (thus, a selection pressure) for both species and points to the reason why monkeys and human share some communication abilities.
Last Modified: 05/14/2013 | |
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