WHEN impersonators mimic an accent, celebrity, or do a voice-over for a cartoon, they may use areas of the brain not normally activated during speech, enabling them to 鈥済et under the skin鈥� of their target.
of University College London and colleagues asked seven people to impersonate 40 celebrity voices and a selection of foreign accents while lying in an fMRI brain scanner. Only regions normally activated during speech lit up.
In contrast, when British voice impressionist did a range of impressions in the scanner, many more brain regions were active. The researchers say that this additional activity may reflect greater skill at impersonation. They presented the findings last week at the annual meeting of the in Washington DC.
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Several of the regions in question are associated with vision and motor control. Scott suspects they light up because Wisbey thinks about what his target looks like and then imposes their features onto his own body to improve the voice.
Interestingly, Wisbey seems to produce the same pattern of brain activity even when the impression doesn鈥檛 have to involve a specific individual, for example when mimicking accents. 鈥淲hen we asked him to try a Chinese accent, he said he was thinking about a woman who sells herbs near his house,鈥� says Scott.
See Imagination is the key to vocal mimicry for audio of Wisbey鈥檚 impersonations
