Animals who try to sound 'bigger' are good at learning sounds

Date:
July 8, 2020
Source:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Summary:
Some animals fake their body size by sounding 'bigger' than they
actually are. Researchers studied 164 different mammals and found
that animals who lower their voice to sound bigger are often skilled
vocalists. Both strategies -- sounding bigger and learning sounds
-- are likely driven by sexual selection, and may play a role in
explaining the origins of human speech evolution.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
Some animals fake their body size by sounding 'bigger' than they
actually are.

Researchers studied 164 different mammals and found that animals who
lower their voice to sound bigger are often skilled vocalists. Both
strategies - - sounding bigger and learning sounds -- are likely driven
by sexual selection, and may play a role in explaining the origins of
human speech evolution.


==========================================================================
"If you saw a Chihuahua barking as deep as a Rottweiler, you would
definitely be surprised," says Andrea Ravignani, a researcher at the MPI
and the Dutch Sealcentre Pieterburen. Body size influences the frequency
of the sounds animals produce, but many animals found ways to sound
'smaller' or 'bigger' than expected. "Nature is full of animals like squeaky-Rottweilers and tenor- Chihuahuas," explains Ravignani. Some
animals fake their size by developing larger vocal organs that lower
their sound, which makes them sound larger than you would expect. Other
animals are good at controlling the sounds they produce. Such strategies (called 'dishonest signalling' by biologists) could be driven by sexual selection, as males with larger body size or superior singing skills
(hitting very high or low notes) attract more females (or vice versa).

Garcia and Ravignani wondered whether some animals may have learned to
make new sounds as a strategy to attract mates. Few animal species are
capable of vocal learning, among them mammals such as seals, dolphins,
bats and elephants. For instance, seals can imitate sounds, and some
seals copy call types of successfully breeding individuals. Would
animals who often 'fake' their body size also be the ones capable of
learning new sounds? The researchers analysed the sounds and body size
of 164 different mammals, ranging from mice and monkeys to water dwelling mammals such as the subantarctic fur seal and the Amazonian manatee. They combined methods from acoustics, anatomy, and evolutionary biology to
compare the different sorts of animals in the dataset.

The scientists found that animals who 'fake' their body size are often
skilled sound learners. According to Garcia and Ravignani, their framework provides a new way of investigating the evolution of communication
systems. "We want to expand our theory to take into account other
evolutionary pressures, not just sexual selection," adds Ravignani. "We
also want to replicate our preliminary findings with more mammals and
test whether our ideas also apply to birds or other taxonomic groups."
In their position paper, Garcia and Ravignani suggest that there may be a
link to human speech evolution. "We believe that a 'dishonest signalling' strategy may be a first evolutionary step towards learning how to make
new sounds of any sort," says Garcia. "Speculatively, it brings us closer
to understanding human speech evolution: our ancestors may have learnt
how to speak after learning how to sound bigger or how to hit high notes."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Max_Planck_Institute_for_Psycholinguistics. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Maxime Garcia, Andrea Ravignani. Acoustic allometry and vocal
learning in
mammals. Biology Letters, 2020; 16 (7): 20200081 DOI: 10.1098/
rsbl.2020.0081 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200708105948.htm

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