The human voice aligns with whole-body kinetics

Abstract

AbstractHumans use their voice concurrently with upper limb movements, known as hand gestures. Recently it has been shown that fluctuations in intensity and the tone of the human voice synchronizes with upper limb movement (including gesticulation). In this research direct evidence is provided that the voice changes with arm movements because it interacts with whole-body muscle activity (measured through surface EMG and postural measurements). We show that certain muscles (e.g., pectoralis major) that are associated with posture and upper limb movement are especially likely to interact with the voice. Adding wrist weights to increase the mass of the moving upper limb segment led to increased coupling between movement and voice. These results show that the voice co-patterns with whole-body kinetics relating to force, rather than kinematics, invoking several implications how the voice is biomechanically modeled, how it should be simulated, and importantly how the human voice must have evolved in relation to the whole-body motor system. We concluded that the human voice is animated by the kinetics of the whole body.