Why do languages sound so different when people across the world have roughly the same speech organs (mouth, lips, tongue and jaw)? Does the shape of our vocal tract explain some of the variation in speech sounds? In extreme ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 19, 2019
0
259
(Phys.org)—A team of researchers at Duke University has found a way to solve what is known as the cocktail party problem, getting a computer to pick out different human voices among multiple speakers in a single room. In ...
A study by the University of York and Aarhus University has revealed that baby talk displays similar properties across 36 languages.
Social Sciences
Oct 10, 2022
0
103
Phonetic convergence, or phonetic imitation, is a form of speech production in which a talker's speech becomes similar to that of the person with whom they are speaking. In a recent article published in the journal Speech ...
Social Sciences
Oct 3, 2022
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219
An ongoing debate among scientists, on why chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates cannot speak or sing like humans, has focused mainly on evolutionary changes in human brain development. Attention has now expanded to anatomical ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 11, 2022
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113
In languages spoken around the world, words describing rough surfaces are highly likely to feature a "trilled /r/" sound—a linguistic pattern that stretches back over 6,000 years, a new study reveals. The international ...
Other
Jan 20, 2022
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465
Most people around the world agree that the made-up word 'bouba' sounds round in shape, and the made-up word 'kiki' sounds pointy—a discovery that may help to explain how spoken languages develop, according to a new study.
Social Sciences
Nov 16, 2021
1
241
Humans learn to speak by mimicking speech sounds. Are there other mammals who can learn sounds by imitation? In an experimental study, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen and the Ludwig ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 22, 2020
0
62
An international research team has uncoupled the mystery of how Tuvan throat singers produce distinctive sounds in which you can hear two different pitches at once—a low rumble and a high whistle-like tone.
Other
Mar 10, 2020
0
280
Sound doesn't fossilize. Language doesn't either.
Plants & Animals
Dec 12, 2019
0
721
