Abstract
According to a novel hypothesis (Arnal et al., 2015, Current Biology 25:2051–2056), auditory roughness, or temporal envelope modulations between 30 and 150 Hz, are present in both natural and artificial human alarm signals, which boosts the detection of these alarms in various tasks. These results also shed new light on the unpleasantness of dissonant sounds to humans, which builds upon the high level of roughness present in such sounds. However, it is not clear whether this hypothesis also applies to other species, such as rodents. In particular, whether consonant/dissonant chords, and particularly whether auditory roughness, can trigger unpleasant sensations in mice remains unknown. Using an autonomous behavioral system, which allows the monitoring of mouse behavior over a period of weeks, we observed that C57Bl6J mice did not show any preference for consonant chords. In addition, we found that mice showed a preference for rough sounds over sounds having amplitude modulations in their temporal envelope outside the “rough” range. These results suggest that some emotional features carried by the acoustic temporal envelope are likely to be species-specific.
Highlights
An easy way to catch the attention of a conspecific individual and ensure an optimal sensory-motor reaction is to increase sound intensity, by screaming or crying
Acoustic roughness, which arises from amplitude modulation of the temporal envelope of sounds, with a modulation frequency between 30 and 150 Hz, typically elicits unpleasant sensations and increases attention (Fastl and Zwicker, 2007)
We obtained an increased preference (15 animals vs. 4) to rough sounds by contrasting the rough 35 Hz Amplitude Modulated (AM) sounds to 2 Hz AM sounds and increasing the SPL by 5 dB (Figure 3Dii). These results suggest that rough sounds with AM frequencies of 35/70 Hz were preferred by a majority of animals over sounds with slower AM frequencies of 2/5 Hz
Summary
An easy way to catch the attention of a conspecific individual and ensure an optimal sensory-motor reaction is to increase sound intensity, by screaming or crying. These two communication signals are considered to be innate and shared across many species, mammals (Newman, 2007; Lingle et al, 2012). They are usually termed “alarm calls” and are uttered in dangerous situations (like the presence of a predator) or by infants looking for adult caregivers (Zuberbühler, 2009). Roughness could be a common feature of “alarm calls” which would involve analogous neuronal responses across mammalian species (Newman, 2007; Lingle et al, 2012)
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