Preface

The past decades have seen an explosion of research into the psychological, cognitive, neural, biological, and computational mechanisms of voice perception. These mechanisms refer to the general ability to extract information from voices produced by other living beings or by technological systems. Voice perception research is now a lively area of research studied from many different perspectives ranging from basic research on the acoustical analysis of vocalizations, to its neural and cognitive mechanisms, to comparative research across ages, species, and cultures, to clinical work including neurology and psychiatry, up to applied research in the field of machine-based generation and decoding of voices, telecommunication, etc. This handbook provides a comprehensive and, we hope, authoritative overview of the major research fields related to voice perception, in an accessible form, for a broad readership of students, scholars, and researchers. The handbook is divided into seven major parts, each dealing with a central perspective on voice perception, and covering: what makes the voice special compared to other acoustic signals; the evolutionary and ontogenetic roots of voice perception; emotional and motivational vocal expression; the social cues extracted from voice signals; machine-based recognition of voices; and the clinical disorders that affect voice perception.

From conception to publication of this handbook took several years, and it would have been impossible without the help of many people. We are extremely thankful to all who provided continued support throughout its preparation and publication. First and foremost, we give our heartfelt thanks to all the authors for their excellent chapter contributions, which make this handbook one of the most valuable resources for those interested in past and current research on voice perception. From Oxford University Press, we gratefully thank Martin Baum (Senior Commissioning Editor), Charlotte Holloway (Senior Assistant Commissioning Editor), and April Peak (Assistant Commissioning Editor) for their indispensable and continued support. We also thank Carole Sunderland, Sai Sarath Ram, and Anula Griffiths from the book production team. Finally, we acknowledge the help and support of many colleagues throughout all the years of our scientific endeavours: Patrik Vuilleumier, Didier Grandjean, Stefan Schweinberger, Manfred Herrmann, Yves Samson, Robert Zatorre, and Guillaume Masson.

We gratefully acknowledge the long-term financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SF), from the British Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (PB), and from the French Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale and Agence Nationale de la Recherche (PB).

Sascha Frühholz (Zurich, Switzerland)

Pascal Belin (Marseille, France)

2018