Music & Language Studies

Speech Prosody 2008, in Campinas, Brazil has announced the call for papers.

Evolution of Emotional Communication: From Sounds in Nonhuman Mammals to Speech and Music in Man

Aims of the symposium: A fundamental trait of the communication system of all mammals is to convey emotions. Emotions are transmitted by non-verbal acoustic communication in all mammals. In addition, humans can make use of speech and music to transmit emotions. A central and as yet unresolved question is whether there exists an underlying set of rules holding across species, governing production and perception of acoustically conveyed emotions.

This interdisciplinary symposium provides a framework for discussing ongoing research in the field of behavioral, cognitive and evolutionary neurosciences. It aims at deepening our understanding of shared and unique principles important to reconstruct evolutionary pathways for emotional communication in the acoustic domain.

Organisers of the symposium: Prof. Elke Zimmermann and Dr Sabine Schmidt, both at the Hanover Veterinary University, and Prof. Eckart Altenmüller (Hanover University for Music and Drama.

Abstracts and Registration: Abstract submission deadline is May 31, 2007. For details regarding registration and the scientific programme, please see our webpage at http://www.eec2007.de