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Vertebrate Vocal Production: An Introductory Overview

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Vertebrate Sound Production and Acoustic Communication

Part of the book series: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research ((SHAR,volume 53))

Abstract

Vocal production is a central topic in biological and evolutionary approaches to animal communication, linking physics, physiology, and anatomy, on the one hand, with perception, neural processing, and evolution of communication signals, on the other. Understanding of vertebrate vocal production has increased greatly in the last two decades, mainly by building on an understanding of the physics and physiology of human vocal production initially developed by speech scientists. There is an increasing feeling among specialists in bioacoustics that this discipline has entered a new scientific era where the broad theoretical and physical underpinnings of vocal production, in a wide variety of vertebrate species, are solid and well-understood. Unfortunately, the origins of this understanding in speech science pose a problem for many nonspecialists, as the founding texts are highly technical and mathematical treatments written by and for engineers. This chapter, like the volume of which it is part, aims to provide a nontechnical introduction and overview of vertebrate vocal production written by and for biologists interested in vocal communication. The chapter provides a historical overview of the origins of two critical bodies of theory, the source-filter theory of vocal production and the myo-elastic aerodynamic theory of the voice source, and details how these theories were gradually applied to nonhuman animal vocalizations. The chapter ends with a summary of the rest of the chapters in the volume.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, 14 Althanstrasse, Vienna, 1020, Austria

    W. Tecumseh Fitch

  2. Medical Science, Indiana University, 1001 E. Third St., Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    Roderick A. Suthers

Authors
  1. W. Tecumseh Fitch
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  2. Roderick A. Suthers
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Correspondence to W. Tecumseh Fitch .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Science, Jordan Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Roderick A. Suthers

  2. Dept. of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    W. Tecumseh Fitch

  3. Marine Biological Laboratory, Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA

    Richard R. Fay

  4. College Park, USA

    Arthur N. Popper

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Fitch, W.T., Suthers, R.A. (2016). Vertebrate Vocal Production: An Introductory Overview. In: Suthers, R., Fitch, W., Fay, R., Popper, A. (eds) Vertebrate Sound Production and Acoustic Communication. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research, vol 53. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27721-9_1

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