Genetic And Experiential Influences On The Development Of Primate Vocal Behavior

这项研究和另一个项目(Z01 HD001123)研究了灵长类动物的听觉交流。这些研究的总体目标是从发育、神经机制、内分泌因素和社会背景等方面全面了解灵长类听觉交流。两个物种，松鼠猴和普通的绒猴，是主要的研究对象，并在适当的时候从其他物种收集额外的数据。本项目从生物声学和行为学的角度研究灵长类动物的交流，侧重于自然环境中发声的详细声学结构，以及结构差异与年龄、性别、经验和反应选择性差异的关系，以及社会背景和遗传背景等更广泛的因素。该项目之前的工作已经确定，婴儿哭声的详细声学结构有相当大的个体差异，至少在生命的前3个月是稳定的。该项目还证明，Y-迷宫范例成功地评估了具有不同经验的老年人对活婴儿或婴儿哭声录音的反应能力。今年的其他实验表明，大约三分之一的试验，使用活的婴儿或录音的哭声，结果是父母经验丰富的人做出了积极的反应(接近声源)。另一项新的研究涉及使用最有效的方法收集与家人短暂分离的婴儿的发声数据，以记录他们的发声。我们实验室以前的工作为此使用了非常短的分离时间，5分钟。然而，尚不清楚在这段短时间内产生的发声是反映了婴儿的发育状态，还是反映了对分离的短期情感反应。因此，六个婴儿被分开更长的时间，20分钟，并分析他们的发声。研究发现，在分离的前5分钟和最后5分钟，发声的速度或发声类型都没有显著差异。这表明，5分钟的间隔时间足以表征婴儿发声行为的发育阶段。反过来，这意味着我们可以继续使用压力较小、分离时间较短的时间来实现这一目的。

This and a companion project (Z01 HD001123) investigate auditory communication in primates. The overall goal of these studies is to provide a comprehensive understanding of primate auditory communication in terms of development, neural mechanisms, endocrine factors, and social context. Two species, the squirrel monkey and the common marmoset, are the main subjects of study, with additional data collected from other species where appropriate. The present project studies primate communication from a bioacoustic and ethological perspective, focusing on the detailed acoustic structure of vocalizations produced in natural settings, and the relationship of structural differences to differences in age, gender, experience and response selectivity, as well as the broader factors of social context and genetic background. Prior work in this project has determined that there is considerable individual variation in the detailed acoustic structure of infant cries, which is stable over at least the first 3 months of life. The project has also demonstrated that a Y-maze paradigm successfully permits evaluating the responsiveness of older individuals with varying experience to live infants or to recordings of infant crying. Additional experiments this year have shown that about one-third of trials, using either live infants or recorded cries, result in positive responses (approaching the sound source) from parentally experienced individuals. Another new study addressed the issue of using the most efficient method to collect vocal data from infants briefly separated from their family group for the purpose of recording their vocalizations. Prior work in our laboratory had used a very short separation time, 5 minutes, for this purpose. However, it was unclear whether the vocalizations produced during this short time period reflected the developmental state of the infant or were a reflection of a short-term emotional response to the separation. Therefore, six infants were separated for a longer period, 20 minutes, and their vocalizations analyzed. It was found that there were no significant differences in either the rate or the type of vocalizations produced in the first 5 minutes and last 5 minutes of the separation. This suggests that a 5-minute separation period is sufficient to characterize the developmental stage of an infants vocal behavior. This, in turn, means that we can continue using the less stressful, shorter separation period for this purpose.