Ph.D., Indiana University, 1986 Associate Professor Member, Social/Cognitive Program owren@gsu.edu 404-413-6285 738 Urban Life

My research examines vocal communication in nonhuman primates, humans, and other mammals within a broad framework of understanding how vocalizations can be used to influence the behaviors of others through direct acoustic impact, affective learning in listeners, and referential-like functions. Vocalizations of particular interest are those that are not linguistic in nature, including all primate calls, as well as emotion-related human sounds such as laughter. So-called “indexical” cues are also of particular interest, meaning aspects of signals related to characteristics that include a vocalizer’s biological sex, individual identity, and emotional state. An overarching goal is to understand nonlinguistic vocalizations in their own right, avoiding the more common approach of invoking language-based properties such a symbolic information encoding. The hope is ultimately to be able to use principles derived from nonlinguistic communication to account for the complexities of human language—not the other way around.

Studies with nonhuman primates are conducted at the GSU Language Research Center, and are currently focusing on using psychophysiological measurement to disentangle affective from cognitive responses to sounds and other stimuli. On-going work with humans is testing perceptual processing of indexical cues, as well as both inherent and learned emotional reactions. In both cases, acoustic analysis and synthesis plays a major role.

At the undergraduate level I am currently teaching introductory psychology from a biological perspective. Graduate seminars focus on animal behavior and comparative cognition.

Representative Publications

Owren, M. J., & Bernacki, R. H. (1988). The acoustic features of vervet monkey alarm calls (Cercopithecus aethiops). Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 5, 1927-1935.

Owren, M. J., Hopp, S. L., Sinnott, J. M., & Petersen, M. R. (1988). Absolute auditory thresholds in three Old World monkey species (Cercopithecus aethiops, C. neglectus, Macaca fuscata) and humans (Homo sapiens). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 102, 99-107.

Owren, M. J. (1990). Acoustic classification of alarm calls by vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) and humans (Homo sapiens): I. Natural calls. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 104, 20-28.

Owren, M. J. (1990). Acoustic classification of alarm calls by vervet monkeys and (Cercopithecus aethiops) and humans (Homo sapiens): II. Synthetic calls. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 104, 29-40.

Hopp, S. L., Sinnott, J. M., Owren, M. J., & Petersen, M. R. (1992). Differential sensitivity of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) and humans (Homo sapiens) to peak position along a synthetic coo call continuum. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 106, 128-136.

Owren, M. J., Dieter, J. A., Seyfarth, R. M., & Cheney, D. L. (1992). 'Food' calls produced by adult female rhesus (Macaca mulatta) and Japanese (M. fuscata) macaques, their normally-raised offspring, and offspring cross-fostered between species. Behaviour, 120, 218-231.

Owren, M. J., Dieter, J. A., Seyfarth, R. M., & Cheney, D. L. (1993). Vocalizations of rhesus (Macaca mulatta) and Japanese (M. fuscata) macaques cross-fostered between species show evidence of only limited modification. Developmental Psychobiology, 26, 389-406.

Owren, M. J., & Casale, T. M. (1994). Variations in fundamental frequency peak position in Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata) "coo" calls. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 108, 291-297.

Bachorowski, J. A., & Owren, M. J. (1995). Vocal expression of emotion: Acoustic properties of speech are associated with emotional intensity and context. Psychological Science, 6, 219-224.

Owren, M. J., & Rendall, D. (1997) An affect-conditioning model of nonhuman primate vocal signaling. In D. H. Owings, M. D. Beecher, & N. S. Thompson (Eds.), Perspectives in Ethology: Vol. 12. Communication (pp. 299-346). New York: Plenum Press.

Owren, M. J., Seyfarth, R. M., & Cheney, D. L. (1997). The acoustic features of vowel-like grunt calls in chacma baboons (Papio cynocephalus ursinus): Implications for production processes and functions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 101, 2951-2963.

Hopp, S. L., Owren, M. J., & Evans, C. S. (Eds.) (1998). Animal acoustic communication: Sound analysis and research methods. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Owren, M. J., & Bernacki, R. H. (1998). Applying linear predictive coding (LPC) to frequency-spectrum analysis of animal acoustic signals. In S. L. Hopp, M. J. Owren, & C. S. Evans (Eds.), Animal acoustic communication: Sound analysis and research methods (pp. 129-161). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Rendall, D., Owren, M. J., & Rodman, P. S. (1998). The role of vocal tract filtering in identity cueing in rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) vocalizations. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 103, 602-614.

Bachorowski, J.-A., & Owren, M. J. (1999). Acoustic correlates of talker sex and individual talker identity are present in a short vowel segment produced in running speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 106, 1054-1063.
Rendall, D., Seyfarth, R. M., Cheney, D. L., & Owren, M. J. (1999). The meaning and function of grunt variants in baboons. Animal Behaviour, 57, 583-592.

Owren, M. J. (2000). Standing evolution on its head: The uneasy role of evolutionary theory in comparative cognition and communication. Reviews in Anthropology, 26, 55-69.

Bachorowski, J.-A., Smoski, M., & Owren, M. J. (2001). The acoustic features of human laughter. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 110, 1581-1597.

Bachorowski, J.-A. & Owren, M.. J. (2001). Not all laughs are alike: Voiced but not unvoiced laughter elicits positive affect in listeners. Psychological Science, 12, 252-257.

Owren, M. J., & Rendall, D. (2001). Sound on the rebound: Bringing form and function back to the forefront in understanding nonhuman primate vocal signaling. Evolutionary Anthropology, 10, 58-71.

Owren, M. J., & Bachorowski, J.-A. (2001). The evolution of emotional expression: A “selfish-gene” account of smiling and laughter in early hominids and humans. T. J. Mayne & G. A. Bonanno (Eds.), Emotion: Current issues and future directions (pp. 152-191). New York: Guilford.

Tokuda, I., Riede, T., Neubauer, J., Owren, M. J., & Herzel, H. (2002). Nonlinear prediction of irregular animal vocalizations. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 111, 2908-2919.

Nicastro, N., & Owren, M. J. (2003). Classification of domestic cat (Felis catus) vocalizations by naïve and experienced human listeners. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 117, 44-52.

Owren, M. J., & Bachorowski, J.-A. (2003). Reconsidering the evolution of nonlinguistic communication: The case of laughter. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 27, 183-200.

Owren, M. J., & Rendall, D. (2003). Salience of caller identity in rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) coo and screams: Perceptual experiments with human listeners. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 117, 380-390.

Owren, M. J. (2003). Vocal production and perception in nonhuman primates provide clues about early hominids and speech evolution. ATR Symposium HIS Series, 1, 1-19.

Riede, T., & Owren, M. J., Clark Arcadi, A. (2004). Nonlinear acoustics in the pant-hoot vocalizations of common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Frequency jumps, subharmonics, biphonation, and deterministic chaos. American Journal of Primatology, 64, 277-291.

Rendall, D., Owren, M. J., Weerts, E., & Heinz, R. D. (2004). Sex differences in the acoustic structure of vowel-like grunt vocalizations in baboons and their perceptual discrimination by baboon listeners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 115, 411-421.

Owren, M. J., Rendall, D., & Bachorowski, J.-A. (2005). Conscious and unconscious emotion in nonlinguistic vocal communication. L. F. Barrett, P. Niedenthal, & P. Winkielman (Eds.), Emotion and Consciousness (pp.185-204). New York: Guilford Publications.

Riede, T. R., Mitchell, B., Tokuda, I., & Owren, M. J. (2005). Characterizing noise in nonhuman vocalizations: Acoustic analysis and human perception of dog and coyote barks. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 118, 514-522.

Owren, M. J., & Bachorowski, J.-A. (in press). Acoustic assessment of vocal expression of emotion. To appear in J. Coan, & J. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of emotion elicitation and assessment. Oxford: Oxford University.