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COMPILED BY TERRY ROBSON
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Seal speech
Changing the pitch of the voice to be higher or lower is one of the crucial elements of human speech. We can do it because we have direct neural connections between the cortex (outer layer of the brain) and the larynx. Few other mammals appear capable of such tone modulation, but new research suggests seals may be able. The research involved seal pups aged one to three weeks old who were being held in a rehabilitation centre before being returned to the wild. The researchers recorded noises from the ocean and then played them back to the pups at varying degrees of loudness but with a similar tone to that of the seal pups’ calls. When the seal pups heard louder sea noises they lowered their tone of voice and kept a more steady pitch with more intense noise levels. These exciting results mean seals might help reveal the magic of speech.