FOR 499:  Acoustic Communication of Emotions in Nonhuman Mammals and Man: Production, Perception and Neuronal Processing

• Subject Area: Medicine
• Term: from 2003 to 2010
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5470045

What are the biological roots of music and speech in man? This is a central but yet unanswered question in the evolutionary neurobiology of the acoustics of emotions. It is a fundamental trait of the communication system of all mammals to convey emotions. In the acoustic domain, emotions are transmitted by voice and music in man and by vocalisations in nonhuman mammals. To date, it is barely known to what extent humans and nonhuman mammals share mental capacities as well as coding and decoding strategies in acoustic communication and whether they are unique for all mammals, for primates or for man. In our research group zoologists, primatologists, psychologists, linguists, musicologists and physicians cooperate for the first time in a comparative approach to get insight into the acoustic communication of emotions on different levels of brain differentiation from mice to men. Music, speech and nonverbal communication of selected taxa are used as models to illuminate both shared and unique components in the acoustics, psychoacoustics and neurobiology of emotions.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• International Connection: United Kingdom

Projects

• Acoustik communication of emotions in tree shrews (Tupaia belangeri, Scandentia) and mouse lemurs (Mircrocebus murinus, Primates): effects to conspecifics and perceptions (Applicant Zimmermann, Elke )
• Akustische Eigenschaften und neurale Verarbeitung von Lachen mit unterschiedlichem emotionalen Kontext (Applicant Alter, Kai )
• Akustische Eigenschaften und neurale Verarbeitung von Lachen mit unterschiedlichem emotionalen Kontext (Applicant Wildgruber, Dirk )
• Akustische Kommunikation von Affekten bei nonhumanen Säugetieren und dem Menschen: Produktion, Wahrnehmung und neurale Verarbeitung (Applicant Zimmermann, Elke )
• Beziehung zwischen dopaminergem System und akustischer Affektkommunikation: Untersuchung an Parkinsonpatienten (Applicant Dengler, Reinhard )
• Emotionale und kognitive Grundlagen der akustischen Kommunikation: Verhalten und neuronale Repräsentation (Applicant Ehret, Günter )
• Investigations on the perception of emotional prosody within the cortico-striatal network (Applicant Kotz, Sonja A. )
• Psychoaccustical, psychophysiological and neurophysical correlates of emotions during listening to music (Applicant Altenmüller, Eckart )
• Psychoacoustics of communication in bats: call repertoire, call classification and its perceptual basis (Applicant Schmidt, Sabine )
• Studies on the vocal expression of emotional states in squirrel monkey and man (Applicant Jürgens, Uwe )
• Subcortical and cortical substrates of emotion during listening to music and vocalisations: An fMRI-study (Applicant Koelsch, Stefan )

• Spokesperson: Professorin Dr. Elke Zimmermann (†)