Time period: 2024 - 2028

Funding: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Collaborators: Elisa Pellegrino, Srikanth Madikeri, Pascale Belin, Tomi Kinnunen, Junichi Yamagishi, Yue Zhang

Read more: VOCS - A Doctoral Network in Communication Sciences

Time period: 2020 - 2028

Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)

Collaborators: Alexis Hervais-Adelman

Read more: NCCR - Evolving Language

Time period: 2026 - 2030

Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)

Collaborators: Sarah Ebling, Tobias Haug, Nivia de Jong

Read more: FluSS - Fluency in Speech and Signing

Research on bonobo and chimpanzee vocal behaviour has grown, yet most work relies on unvalidated qualitative call repertoires. Quantitative data are essential for understanding species-wide communication and for comparisons across primates. We provide the first quantitative validation of a Pan vocal repertoire using wild bonobo calls. Analysing more than 1500 calls from 53 adults over 33 months with random-forest models, we identify 11 acoustically distinct call types. We also discuss challenges in defining vocal repertoires from field data and suggest future methods for capturing the graded complexity of bonobo vocal communication.

We introduce the NumberLie game, a method for collecting natural deceptive speech with precise ground-truth labels and immediate consequences for lying. The setup enables isolated, simultaneous audio recording of multiple players in a controlled lab or online environment as they engage in a number-based deception game. We detail the technical features that ensure accurate truth–lie classification and real-time outcomes, supported by performance-based financial incentives. The design is highly adaptable, allowing researchers to manipulate conditions while minimising extraneous variability.

Own-age advantages are well documented in face recognition, but it is unclear whether they occur in voice recognition. Younger (n=42) and older adults (n=32) completed a same/different speaker discrimination task involving younger and older speakers of both sexes. Sensitivity (d′) showed no speaker–listener age or sex interactions. Instead, younger listeners outperformed older listeners, and male voices were discriminated more accurately than female voices. Response bias (c) indicated a stronger “same” bias for younger and female speakers. These results inform models of voice identity processing and have implications for forensic contexts involving earwitness judgments.