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Coding for ‘Dynamic’ Information: Vocal Expression of Emotional Arousal and Valence in Non-human Animals

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Coding Strategies in Vertebrate Acoustic Communication

Part of the book series: Animal Signals and Communication ((ANISIGCOM,volume 7))

Abstract

Emotions guide behavioural decisions in response to events or stimuli of importance for the organism, and thus, are an important component of an animal’s life. Communicating emotions to conspecifics allows, in turn, the regulation of social interactions (e.g. approach and avoidance). The existence of common rules governing vocal expression of affective states across species has been proposed as a function of the motivational state (i.e. intention of behaviour) of the emitter (‘motivation-structural rules’) and as a function the two main dimensions of emotions, valence (positive versus negative) and arousal (bodily activation). In this chapter, I review the potential for vocalisations to serve as universal non-invasive indicators of animal emotions, by considering the latest evidence for common rules existing across species according to the two dimensions of emotions (‘emotional-dimension rules’). Vocal indicators of emotional arousal have been relatively well studied. Cross-species comparison shows that, when arousal increases, vocalisations tend to be louder and are produced at faster rates, with higher frequencies (both source- and filter-related) and a more variable fundamental frequency (F0). In contrast, indicators of valence have only been investigated in a few species. The evidence so far indicates that, compared with negative vocalisations, positive vocalisations tend to be shorter, with a lower and less variable F0. Yet, comparison of vocal indicators of valence between closely related species suggests that these indicators are more species specific than indicators of arousal, which have clearly been conserved throughout evolution. To conclude, I further suggest a new set of rules that could explain the acoustic structure of vocalisations across species, which combine features predicted by the motivation-structural rules, the emotional-dimension rules, and characteristics of the social relationship involving the emitter and receiver.

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Acknowledgements

I thank the Swiss National Science Foundation for funding the project on vocal expression of emotions in domestic and wild ungulates mentioned in this chapter (project no. PZ00P3_148200) and the ETH Zürich for the possibility to spend time on reading for and writing this text.

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  1. Behavioural Ecology Group, Section for Ecology and Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Elodie F. Briefer

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  1. Elodie F. Briefer
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Correspondence to Elodie F. Briefer .

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  1. Equipe Communications Acoustiques Neuro-PSI, CNRS UMR9197, University Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France

    Thierry Aubin

  2. Equipe de Neuro-Ethologie Sensorielle, ENES/CRNL, CNRS UMR5292, INSERM UMRS1028, University of Lyon, Saint-Etienne, France

    Nicolas Mathevon

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Briefer, E.F. (2020). Coding for ‘Dynamic’ Information: Vocal Expression of Emotional Arousal and Valence in Non-human Animals. In: Aubin, T., Mathevon, N. (eds) Coding Strategies in Vertebrate Acoustic Communication. Animal Signals and Communication, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39200-0_6

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