Reaction of Brain and Body to Paralinguistic Characteristics of Human Voice

Background

Sound therapy is currently being explored as a promising way to promote mental health and well-being. Sound stimulation (music, nature sounds, etc.) shows positive results in clinic: from improving cognitive functions in Alzheimer's patients to reducing pain during surgery (Clements-Cortes & Bartel 2015; Nilsson et al. 2005). There is a growing body of evidence that sound therapy (i.e., music and poetry therapy) is effective in reducing stress and anxiety (Mohammadian et al. 2011; Jabarouti & Shariat 2013; Noel 2010; Maess, Koelsch, et al., 2001). At the same time, the mechanism of sound therapy is not well-understood. In current studies, music or poetry is seen more as a holistic phenomenon. Its influence was known in human culture long before it was supported by neuroscience research. In this way, we might miss hidden active components that may be present not only in specific arts but also in other types of sound stimulation, like normal human speech. For example, there is clinical evidence, that Lullaby performed only by voice (without music, through the headsets) could significantly reduce heart rate and increase blood oxygen saturation of neonates in the clinic (Taheri et al., 2016). However, it is not clear whether the therapeutic effect originated from the melody, or the human voice itself.

In our research, we focus on the effect of sound stimulation on the stress response as a universal component accompanying a wide range of physical and mental disorders. Stress is well known for its integrative physiological effects: it involves the whole body through sympathetic activation and changing biochemical balance. We need to find out the underlying mechanism behind sound therapy. Through this, we want to explore the therapeutic potential of human speech as the most common way of communication and mutual influence.

Research Question

The main Research Question is: how functional states of the brain (increase or decrease in stress response) can be influenced by nonverbal components of human speech (musical elements of speech (melody and rhythm) & socio-communicative elements (intonation, affective prosody)).

Method

fNIRS brain imaging + multimodal physiological sensing

Selected Publications

• [Q1] Saskovets M, Saponkova I, Liang Z. (2025) Effects of Sound Interventions on the Mental Stress Response in Adults: A Scoping Review. JMIR Mental Health 12:e69120. DOI: 10.2196/69120. [PubMed/SCI/Scopus]

• [Q2] Saskovets M, Mykhailo Lohachov, Liang Z. (2025) Paralanguage as a Tool for Shaping Stress Response in Listeners: Multimodal Physiological Sensing Study. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology 23:100309. DOI:10.1016/j.cpnec.2025.100309. [PubMed/SCI/Scopus]

• [Q2] Saskovets M, Mykhailo Lohachov, Liang Z. (2025) Validation of a New Stress Induction Protocol using Speech Improvisation. Brain Sciences 15(5): 522. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci15050522. [PubMed/SCI/Scopus] 

• Saskovets M, Liang Z, Piumarta I. (2024) The Utility of fNIRS for Evaluating Human Voice Acoustics for Stress Management. In Proceedings of the VIII Biennial Meeting of the Society for functional near-infrared spectroscopy (SfNIRS 2024), Birmingham, UK.