Whistling shares a common tongue with speech: bioacoustics from real-time MRI of the human vocal tract.

ABSTRACT: Most human communication is carried by modulations of the voice. However, a wide range of cultures has developed alternative forms of communication that make use of a whistled sound source. For example, whistling is used as a highly salient signal for capturing attention, and can have iconic cultural meanings such as the catcall, enact a formal code as in boatswain's calls or stand as a proxy for speech in whistled languages. We used real-time magnetic resonance imaging to examine the muscular control of whistling to describe a strong association between the shape of the tongue and the whistled frequency. This bioacoustic profile parallels the use of the tongue in vowel production. This is consistent with the role of whistled languages as proxies for spoken languages, in which one of the a

SUBMITTER: Belyk M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6784732 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature