Wt. Fitch et Md. Hauser, VOCAL PRODUCTION IN NONHUMAN-PRIMATES - ACOUSTICS, PHYSIOLOGY, AND FUNCTIONAL CONSTRAINTS ON HONEST ADVERTISEMENT, American journal of primatology, 37(3), 1995, pp. 191-219
The physiological mechanisms and acoustic principles underlying sound
production in primates are important for analyzing and synthesizing pr
imate vocalizations, for determining the range of calls that are physi
cally producible, and for understanding primate communication in the b
roader comparative context of what is known about communication in oth
er vertebrates. In this paper we discuss what is known about vocal pro
duction in nonhuman primates, relying heavily on models from speech an
d musical acoustics. We first describe the role of the lungs and laryn
x in generating the sound source, and then discuss the effect; of the
supralaryngeal vocal tract in modifying this source. We conclude that
more research is needed to resolve several important questions about t
he acoustics of primate calls, including the nature of the vocal tract
's contribution to call production. Nonetheless, enough is known to ex
plore the implications of call acoustics for the evolution of primate
communication. In particular, we discuss how anatomy and physiology ma
y provide constraints resulting in ''honest'' acoustic indicators of b
ody size. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.