Production of Nonverbal Acoustic Signals and Resulting Physiological Responses

Self-Perception Clinical Trial

— SINOVE-PRO  

Official title:

Production of Nonverbal Acoustic Signals and Resulting Physiological Responses

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT05238285
• Other study ID #: 20CH259
• Secondary ID: 2020-A03457-32:
• Status: Recruiting
• Start date: March 8, 2023
• Est. completion date: April 2027

Study information

• Verified date: March 2024
• Source: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne
• Contact: ROLAND PEYRON, MDPhD
• Phone: (0)477127805
• Email: roland.peyron[@]chu-st-etienne.fr
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

Like many other animals, humans produce nonverbal vocal signals including screams, grunts, roars, cries and laughter across a variety of contexts. However, despite their importance in the human vocal repertoire, the mechanisms and functions of non-verbal signals remain little studied and poorly understood in humans.Our studies aim to improve our understanding of the nature and function of non-verbal signals.

Description:

Like many other animals, humans produce nonverbal vocal signals including screams, grunts, roars, cries and laughter across a variety of contexts. Many of these signals (such as cries) are already produced at birth and likely serve a number of important biological and social functions. In addition, human speech is characterised by nonlinguistic acoustic parameters (such as pitch, formant frequencies, and nonlinear phenomena) that are known to correlate with biologically important traits of the vocalizer.

However, despite their importance in the human vocal repertoire, the mechanisms and functions of non-verbal signals remain little studied and poorly understood in humans.

Theses studies aim to improve the understanding of the nature and function of non-verbal signals. Thus, this study is part of a long-term research project in which investigators are trying to clarify the information contained in the acoustic structure of human non-verbal signals, and to investigate the factors influencing their production.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 2000
• Est. completion date: April 2027
• Est. primary completion date: April 2027
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 80 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Participant should be affiliated or entitled to a social security scheme

Exclusion Criteria:

• Pregnant women

• Voice production disorders

• Hearing impairment, speech production disorders or major health problems.

• Chronic smoker (more than 10 cigarettes per day)

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Self-Perception

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Production of vocal sounds
Participants will be asked to produce vocal sounds of different nature according to the non-verbal parameters of interest for the given study. For example, they can read a script containing vowels ('a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u'), short sentences ('hello, how are you'), longer passages of standardised reading texts, and can also be asked to speak freely about any topic ('freedom of speech'). They can be asked to play a role or to imitate a particular emotional state. For example, "imagine that you have just been told that you have won a million euros in the lottery. Produce a vocalisation to express your excitement" or "talk to your dog your dog by imagining that he has done a negative action and then do the same thing by imagining that this time imagining that the action was positive".

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
France	Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint-Etienne	Saint-Étienne

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne	University of Lyon

Country where clinical trial is conducted

France, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Vocal analysis	Participants will receive instructions on what to say or what type of non-verbal vocalisation to produce during the manipulation.; The vocalisations thus produced by the participants will be systematically recorded and analysed using software adapted to acoustic analysis; Measurement of acoustic variables such as fundamental frequency (pitch), vocal tract resonances (formants) and vocal disturbances (jitter, shimmer), the nonlinearities and chaotic/noise properties of vocalisations	During the vocal production
Secondary	Heart rate (bpm)		During the vocal production
Secondary	Skin conductance (Siemens)		During the vocal production
Secondary	Skin temperature (°C)		During the vocal production
Secondary	Nociception Level Index (NOL)	A non-invasive finger probe, containing four sensors, will be placed on the on the index finger of the participants.	During the vocal production
Secondary	Pupillary diameter (millimeter)	Using a high resolution binocular for automated pupil diameter measurement with an infrared camera	During the vocal production