Abstract
Vocal pitch is used as an important communicative device by humans, as found in the melodic dimension of both speech and song. Vocal pitch is determined by the degree of tension in the vocal folds of the larynx, which itself is influenced by complex and nonlinear interactions among the laryngeal muscles. The relationship between these muscles and vocal pitch has been described by a mathematical model in the form of a set of ‘control rules’. We searched for the biological implementation of these control rules in the larynx motor cortex of the human brain. We scanned choral singers with functional magnetic resonance imaging as they produced discrete pitches at four different levels across their vocal range. While the locations of the larynx motor activations varied across singers, the activation peaks for the four pitch levels were highly consistent within each individual singer. This result was corroborated using multi-voxel pattern analysis, which demonstrated an absence of patterned activations differentiating any pairing of pitch levels. The complex and nonlinear relationships between the multiple laryngeal muscles that control vocal pitch may obscure the neural encoding of vocal pitch in the brain.
Highlights
The modulation of vocal pitch in humans is central to the communication of meaning through both speech prosody and musical melody [1 –6]
Group-level activations are summarized by the contrast of phonation versus rest across pitch levels
The modulation of vocal pitch is critical to human communication processes, including speech and song
Summary
The modulation of vocal pitch in humans is central to the communication of meaning through both speech prosody and musical melody [1 –6]. This includes both the discrete pitch movements found in much of music and the more-continuous pitch transitions that are found in speech and the expression of emotion. Such modulations of pitch are mediated by the brain’s control over the muscles of the larynx.
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