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Specialized brain regions recognize vocal cues that don’t involve speech

July 28, 2022

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Specific parts of the brain recognize complex cues in human vocal sounds that do not involve speech, such as crying, coughing or gasping — found researchers from the University of Pittsburgh.

In a paper published today in PLOS Biology, scientists showed that two areas of the auditory cortex are specialized to recognize human voice sounds that, unlike speech, do not carry linguistic meaning. Rather, they help us react to sound cues that allow people to instantly identify characteristics of the person who is speaking, such as gender, approximate age, mood and even height — all without seeing them.

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