CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 111Animal Vocal Communication and BehaviorPhonetics and Phonology ResearchLanguage and cultural evolution

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 28 of the 28 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Evolutionary loss of complexity in human vocal anatomy as an adaptation for speech

Open access
Nishimura, Takeshi, Tokuda, Isao T., Miyachi, Shigehiro, Dunn, Jacob C., Herbst, Christian T., Ishimura, Kazuyoshi, Kaneko, Akihisa, Kinoshita, Yuki, Koda, Hiroki, Saers, Jaap P. P., Imai, Hirohiko, Matsuda, Tetsuya, Larsen, Ole Næsbye, Jürgens, Uwe, Hirabayashi, Hideki, Kojima, Shozo, Fitch, W. Tecumseh·2022·Science
DOI 10.1126/science.abm1574
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Human speech production obeys the same acoustic principles as vocal production in other animals but has distinctive features: A stable vocal source is filtered by rapidly changing formant frequencies. To understand speech evolution, we examined a wide range of primates, combining observations of phonation with mathematical modeling. We found that source stability relies upon simplifications in laryngeal anatomy, specifically the loss of air sacs and vocal membranes. We conclude that the evolutionary loss of vocal membranes allows human speech to mostly avoid the spontaneous nonlinear phenomena and acoustic chaos common in other primate vocalizations. This loss allows our larynx to produce stable, harmonic-rich phonation, ideally highlighting formant changes that convey most phonetic information. Paradoxically, the increased complexity of human spoken language thus followed simplification of our laryngeal anatomy.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1126/science.abm1574

Cites

28 of 28 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Modifications made to the vocal tract allowed rapid modulation over a wide-frequency spectrum.

    “Equally important were modifications made to the vocal tract to allow rapid modulation over a wide-frequency spectrum (Nishimura et al., 2022).”

    From Large Language Models and the Reverse Turing Test (2023) · cites this paper as Nishimura et al., 2022

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 6

  1. I. R. Titze Principles of Voice Production (Prentice Hall 1994).
  2. S. Hayama “From what period did the formation of human glottal tones originate?” in Primatology Today A. Ehara T. Kimura O. Takenaka M. Iwamoto Eds. (Elsevier 1991) pp. 491–492.
  3. P. Marler R. Tenaza “Signaling behavior of apes with special reference to vocalization ” in How Animals Communicate T. A. Sebeok Ed. (Indiana Univ. Press Bloomington 1977) pp. 965–1033.
  4. J. Neubauer “Nonlinear dynamics of the voice: Bifurcations and mode analysis of complex spatio-temporal signals ” thesis Humboldt University of Berlin (2004).
  5. P. Berg Y. Pomeau C. Vidal Order within Chaos: Towards a Deterministic Approach to Turbulence (Wiley 1986).
  6. S. Kurita K. Nagata M. Hirano “A comparative study of the layer structure of the vocal fold ” in Vocal Fold Physiology: Contemporary Research and Clinical Issues D. M. Bless J. H. Abbs Eds. (College-Hill Press San Diego 1983) pp. 3–21.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Metadata

Authors
Nishimura, T., Tokuda, I. T., Miyachi, S., Dunn, J. C., Herbst, C. T., Ishimura, K., Kaneko, A., Kinoshita, Y., Koda, H., Saers, J. P. P., Imai, H., Matsuda, T., Larsen, O. N., Jürgens, U., Hirabayashi, H., Kojima, S., & Fitch, W. T.
Affiliations
  • Kyoto University (JP)
  • Ritsumeikan University (JP)
  • University of Vienna (AT)
  • University of Cambridge (GB)
  • University of Southern Denmark (DK)
  • German Primate Center (DE)
  • Dokkyo Medical University (JP)
Corresponding author
  • Nishimura, Takeshi
  • Fitch, W. Tecumseh
ORCID
Venue
Science
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Published
2022-08-12
Volume
377
Issue
6607
Pages
760-763
ISSN
  • 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
  • 1095-9203
DOI
10.1126/science.abm1574
OpenAlex
W4293298349
Cited by
102
References
28
Citations by year
2026: 14 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 6
FWCI
20.93
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by-nc-nd
Locations
  • Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Anglia Ruskin Research Online (Anglia Ruskin University) (submittedVersion)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • GoeScholar The Publication Server of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • University of Southern Denmark Research Portal (University of Southern Denmark) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (19H01002, 17H06380., 20K11875)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
Keywords
human speech evolution, larynx, vocal anatomy, air sacs, source stability, formants, nonlinear acoustics, primate vocalizations
MeSH terms
Animals, Biological Evolution, Humans, Larynx, Phonation, Phonetics, Primates, Speech, Speech Acoustics, Vocal Cords

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review