Cognition comparée

Domaines de recherche

Affective bias in common chimpanzee vocal production

The production of emotional signals is typically conceived as a largely inflexible activity. In humans, emotional displays are indeed considered as automatic readouts of the affective state of the caller. During my PhD (December 2013 - Université Pierre et Marie Curie), I showed that the mechanisms producing emotional facial signals in humans, far from reflecting solely the emotional state of the signaller, can also be sensitive to the informational needs of our conspecifics. Additionally, I have argued that, as any instance of biological communication, emotional signals cannot be produced automatically, as this might be detrimental to the sender, and since this would eventually threaten the very stability of such communication medium. As affects are thought to play a central role in non-human primate vocal production, I chose to address similar issues in common chimpanzees.
My current work thus examines affective biases in common chimpanzee vocal production (especially in young infants, see the photo of 7 month-old Kaija below) measuring the extent to which vocalizations are bound to specific emotional contexts. Data are collected at the Sonso community of the Budongo Forest in Uganda. 

Publications

Dezecache, G., K. Zuberbühler, M. Davila-Ross, and C. D. Dahl (2017).
Skin temperature changes in wild chimpanzees upon hearing vocalizations of conspecifics.
Royal Society Open Science, 4, 160816,

Dezecache G., Jacob P. & Grèzes J. (2015).
Emotional contagion: its scopes and limits.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Dezecache G. (2015).
Human collective reactions to threat.
WIREs Cognitive Science.

Dezecache G., Eskenazi T. & Grèzes J. (2015).
Emotional convergence: a case of contagion?
In Sukhvinder D. Obhi & Emily S. Cross (eds).
Shared Representations: Sensorimotor Foundations of Social Life.
Cambridge University Press.

Grèzes J., Dezecache G. & Eskenazi T. (2015).
Limbic to motor interactions during social perception.
In Brain Mapping: An Encyclopedic Reference. New York: Elsevier.

Grèzes J. & Dezecache G. (2014).
Bases cérébrales et cognitives de la communication émotionnelle.
In M. Botbol (Ed). L'empathie au carrefour des sciences et de la clinique. 
John Libbey Eurotext.

Martin J.R., Dezecache G., Pressnitzer D., Nuss P., Dokic J., Bruno N.,
Pacherie E. & Franck N. (2014).
Perceptual hysteresis as a marker of perceptual inflexibility in schizophrenia.
Consciousness and Cognition, 30, 62-72.

Martin J.R., Dezecache G., Dokic J. & Grèzes J. (2014).
Prioritization of emotional signals by the human auditory system:
evidence from a perceptual hysteresis protocol.
Evolution and Human Behavior.

Dezecache G. & Grèzes J. (2013).
La communication émotionnelle ou le jeu des affordances sociales.
Santé Mentale. 177, 26-31.
doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.07.002

Grèzes J. & Dezecache G. (2013).
How do shared-representations and emotional processes
cooperate in response to social threat signals?
Neuropsychologia.
doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.09.019

Dezecache G., Conty L. & Grèzes J. (2013).
Social affordances: is the mirror neuron system involved?
Commentary on target article of Schilbach and colleagues.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(4), 417-418.
doi:10.1017/S0140525X12001872

Dezecache G., Mercier H. & Scott-Phillips T. (2013).
An evolutionary perspective to emotional communication.
Journal of Pragmatics, 59, 221-233.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2013.06.007

Dezecache G., Conty L., Philip L., Chadwick M., Soussignan R.,
Sperber D. & Grèzes J. (2013).
Evidence for unintentional emotional contagion beyond dyads.
PLoS ONE, 8(6):e67371.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0067371

Soussignan R., Chadwick M., Philip L., Conty L., Dezecache G.
& Grèzes J. (2013).
Self-relevance appraisal of gaze direction and dynamic facial
expressions: effects on facial electromyographic and autonomic reactions.
Emotion, 13(2), 330-337.
doi:10.1037/a0029892

Grèzes J., Philip L., Chadwick M., Dezecache G., Soussignan R.
& Conty L. (2013).
Self-relevance appraisal influences facial reactions to emotional
body expressions. PLoS ONE, 8(2):e55885.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0055885

Dezecache G. & Dunbar R.I.M. (2012).
Sharing the joke: the size of natural laughter groups.
Evolution & Human Behavior, 33(6), 775-779.

Grèzes J. & Dezecache G. (2012).
Communication émotionnelle: mécanismes cognitifs et cérébraux.
In P. Allain, G. Aubin & D. Le Gall (Eds). Cognition Sociale et Neuropsychologie.
Solal: Marseille.

Conty L., Dezecache G., Hugueville L. & Grèzes J. (2012).
Early binding of gaze, gesture and emotion:
neural time course and correlates.
Journal of Neuroscience, 32(13), 4531-4539.
doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5636-11.2012