Breathing, voice, and synchronized movement

When humans vocalize along with rhythmic arm movements, the recorded voice shows the same rhythmic pattern as these movements (1). When others listen to this voice, their rhythmic movements synchronize with those of the unseen vocalizer (1). Pouw et al.’s (1) outstanding multimodal research connects voice and gesture, and—we suggest—even more so breathing and movement. Pouw et al. (1) report rhythmic modulation of fundamental frequency, which is the rate at which vocal folds vibrate. They attribute this rhythmicity to voice modulation. However, many mechanisms can give the voice a rhythmic character; the most common one is breathing. Try exhaling while rhythmically moving your arm; the sound of your breath will become rhythmic. Could breathing alone explain Pouw et al.’s results (1, 2) (Fig. 1)? Their data may show that muscular contractions for movement propagate … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: andrea.ravignani{at}gmail.com or sonja.kotz{at}maastrichtuniversity.nl. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1