人类婴儿精确发声-呼吸时间协调的进化背景

文献信息

中文摘要

人类婴儿通过漫长的出生后发育获得言语。包括言语在内的连续发声可被视为由声音和静默交替组成的运动模式。这种时间结构依赖于呼吸气流与喉部活动的协调，然而关于这种时间控制如何在婴儿期发展，受到的关注相对较少。在这篇综述中，我们考察了两种情境下发声时间的发展：非社会环境中产生的自发发声以及面对面互动中的发声交流。我们强调在出生后第一年下半年前后出现的一个发育转变，此时发声时间首先相对于呼吸成熟而变得相对稳定，随后在社会互动中被越来越灵活地使用。为了将这一转变置于进化背景中，我们回顾了来自鸣禽和狨猴的比较研究结果，并将吞咽视为另一种需要紧密喉-呼吸协调的重要行为。在人类中，出生后快速的脑生长可能促进早期补充喂养，增加了对吞咽时间灵活调节的需求，而喉下降可能加剧了对气道保护的需求。这些压力可能为后来灵活发声时间控制的发展提供了生理背景。

英文摘要

Human infants acquire speech through prolonged postnatal development. Sequential vocalizations, including speech, can be viewed as motor patterns consisting of alternating sound and silence. This temporal structure depends on the coordination of respiratory airflow and laryngeal activity, yet relatively little attention has been paid to how such timing control develops in infancy. In this review, we examine the development of vocal timing across two contexts: spontaneous vocalizations produced in nonsocial settings and vocal exchanges during face-to-face interactions. We highlight a developmental transition around the second half of the first year, in which vocal timing first becomes relatively stabilized in relation to respiratory maturation and is then increasingly used flexibly in social interaction. To place this transition in an evolutionary context, we review comparative findings from songbirds and marmosets and consider swallowing as another vital behavior requiring tight laryngeal-respiratory coordination. In humans, rapid postnatal brain growth may promote early complementary feeding, increasing the need for flexible regulation of swallowing timing, while laryngeal descent may heighten the need for airway protection. These pressures may have provided a physiological background for the later elaboration of flexible vocal timing control.