Human temporal voice areas are sensitive to chimpanzee vocalizations

Abstract

In recent years, research on voice processing, particularly the study of temporal voice areas (TVA), was dedicated almost exclusively to human voice. To characterize commonalities and differences regarding primate vocalization representations in the human brain, the inclusion of closely related primates, especially chimpanzees and bonobos, is needed. We hypothesized that commonalities would depend on both phylogenetic and acoustic proximity, with chimpanzees ranking the closest to Homo. Presenting human participants with four primate species vocalizations (rhesus macaques, chimpanzees, bonobos and humans) and taking into account acoustic distance or removing voxels explained solely by vocalization low-level acoustics, we observed within-TVA enhanced left and right anterior superior temporal gyrus activity for chimpanzee compared to all other species, and chimpanzee compared to human vocalizations. Our results provide evidence for a common neural basis in the TVA for the processing of phylogenetically and acoustically close vocalizations, namely those of humans and chimpanzees.