Nonverbal auditory communication – Evidence for integrated neural systems for voice signal production and perception

Abstract

While humans have developed a sophisticated and unique system of verbal auditory communication, they also share a more common and evolutionarily important nonverbal channel of voice signaling with many other mammalian and vertebrate species. This nonverbal communication is mediated and modulated by the acoustic properties of a voice signal, and is a powerful - yet often neglected - means of sending and perceiving socially relevant information. From the viewpoint of dyadic (involving a sender and a signal receiver) voice signal communication, we discuss the integrated neural dynamics in primate nonverbal voice signal production and perception. Most previous neurobiological models of voice communication modelled these neural dynamics from the limited perspective of either voice production or perception, largely disregarding the neural and cognitive commonalities of both functions. Taking a dyadic perspective on nonverbal communication, however, it turns out that the neural systems for voice production and perception are surprisingly similar. Based on the interdependence of both production and perception functions in communication, we first propose a re-grouping of the neural mechanisms of communication into auditory, limbic, and paramotor systems, with special consideration for a subsidiary basal-ganglia-centered system. Second, we propose that the similarity in the neural systems involved in voice signal production and perception is the result of the co-evolution of nonverbal voice production and perception systems promoted by their strong interdependence in dyadic interactions.