Human speech stems from a source sound produced by the larynx that is changed by the positions of the vocal anatomy such as the lips and tongue, Ghazanfar said. These data were converted by coauthor Bart de Boer of the VUB Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Belgium into a computer model that could predict and simulate a macaque's vocal range based on the physical attributes recorded by X-ray. Ghazanfar and co-corresponding author Tecumseh Fitch, a professor of cognitive biology at the University of Vienna in Austria, however, used X-ray videos to capture and then trace the movements of the different parts of a macaque's vocal anatomy - such as the tongue, lips and larynx - during a number of orofacial behaviors. Previous examinations of primate vocal anatomy conducted on cadavers had concluded that monkeys and apes have a very limited range of sounds they could produce relative to humans. Ghazanfar and his co-authors investigated the range of movements that the primate vocal anatomy could produce. This is useful for understanding the starting point for the evolution of language." "This study shows that the anatomical capability to make a variety of sounds, as we do with speech, was present long ago. "An important part of understanding human uniqueness is to know what our relatives do," he said. "It looks like mainly neuro-cognitive - as opposed to anatomical - differences contribute to the broader range of sounds we produce relative to other primates," said Bergman, who is familiar with the research but was not involved in it. SEE ALSO: Can Monkeys Have Autism? The Answer Could Help Us Understand What Causes the Condition Thore Jon Bergman, an assistant professor of psychology and ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan, said that the research could help narrow down the origin of human speech. "Now, the interesting question is, what is it in the human brain that makes it special?" Even if this finding only applies to macaque monkeys, it would still debunk the idea that it's the anatomy that limits speech in nonhumans," Ghazanfar said. "Now nobody can say that it's something about the vocal anatomy that keeps monkeys from being able to speak - it has to be something in the brain. 9 in the journal Science Advances.Ĭo-corresponding author Asif Ghazanfar, a Princeton University professor of psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, said that scientists across many disciplines have long debated if - and to what extent - differences between the human and primate vocal anatomy allow people to speak but not monkeys and apes. The findings - which could apply to other African and Asian primates known as Old World monkeys - suggest that human speech stems mainly from the unique evolution and construction of our brains, and is not linked to vocalization-related anatomical differences between humans and primates, the researchers reported Dec. Monkeys known as macaques possess the vocal anatomy to produce "clearly intelligible" human speech but lack the brain circuitry to do so, according to new research.
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