Thesis The Voice of Primates : Neuro-evolutionary Aspects of Emotions NEURO-EVOLUTIONARY ASPECTS OF EMOTIONS

Abstract

Rightly emphasized by Pascal Belin “Voices are everywhere”. From music to social conversation, the human voice has indeed the extraordinary power to communicate our everyday emotions. Shaped by millions of years of evolution, the vocal recognition of emotions guides individuals in the best decision to take. The capacity to vocally express and then identify an emotion is not a distinctive characteristic of Homo sapiens. In fact, most species in the animal kingdom have such abilities that maximize their chances of survival and reproductive success. Despite homologous traits between humans and other animals, rare are the studies using a comparative approach to better understand emotional processing in voices. To fill this gap, the present thesis aims to investigate perceptual decision-making mechanisms through emotional vocalizations expressed by humans and non-human primates (NHP), our closest relatives. According to this goal, six complementary studies were performed using imaging as well as behavioral paradigms. Reference

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