Faculty/Staff Information

2020 - PhD Psychology, Neuroscience and Animal Behavior Program, Emory University

2015 - MA Anthropology, The Ohio State University

2012 - BA Biology, Macalester College

In my courses, in addition to learning cool and important information about psychological science, animal minds, evolution, and the biology of behavior, you'll develop critical and scientific thinking skills that will continue to be useful throughout college and beyond, regardless of your major. 

General Psychology, Motivation, Research Methods, Quantitative Methods, Cognitive Psychology, Animal Psychology

I am interested in vocal communication, emotion, and evolution in humans and animals, and I investigate this by looking at both the production and perception of vocalizations. The production component involves observing and recording animals, to investigate the relationships between emotion and acoustic characteristics (such as pitch or duration) of their vocalizations. The perception component entails testing whether and how human participants perceive emotion from animal calls. The ultimate goal of this work is to gain insight into how emotions generally affect the evolutionary history and tragectory of vocal communication.

Given my interest in animals’ emotions, I am also passionate about animal welfare. Before obtaining my M.A. degree, I volunteered at a howler monkey sanctuary in Panama, and have published on best practices for primate rehabilitation.

Schwartz JW, Pierson KH, Reece AK. 2023. Pitch affects human (Homo sapiens) perception of emotional arousal from diverse animal calls. Journal of Comparative Psychology. 138: 80-87. [link]

Gouzoules H, Engelberg JWM, Schwartz JW. 2023. Loosening the leash: The unique emotional canvas of human screams. [Commentary on “Expression unleashed: The evolutionary & cognitive foundations of human communication,” by C Heintz & T Scott-Phillips]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 46: e10. [link]

Schwartz JW, Gouzoules H. 2022. Humans read emotional arousal in monkey vocalizations: Evidence for evolutionary continuities in communication. PeerJ. 10: e14471. [link]

Schwartz JW, Sanchez MM, Gouzoules H. 2022. Vocal expression of emotional arousal across two call types in young rhesus macaques. Animal Behaviour. 190: 125-138. [link]

Engelberg JWM, Schwartz JW, Gouzoules H. 2021. The emotional canvas of human screams: Patterns and acoustic cues in the perceptual categorization of a basic call type. PeerJ. 9: e10990. [link]

Schwartz JW, Engelberg JWM, Gouzoules H. 2020. Evolving views on cognition in animal communication: Contributions from scream research. Animal Behavior and Cognition. 7(2): 192-213. [link]

Schwartz JW, Engelberg JWM, Gouzoules H. 2020. Was that a scream? Listener agreement and major distinguishing acoustic features. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 44: 233-252. [link]

Schwartz JW, Gouzoules H. 2019. Decoding human screams: Perception of emotional arousal from pitch and duration. Behaviour. 156(13-14): 1283-1307. [link]

Engelberg JWM, Schwartz JW, Gouzoules H. 2019. Do human screams permit individual recognition? PeerJ. 7: e7807. [link]

Schwartz JW, Hopkins ME, Hopkins SJ. 2016. Group pre-release training yields positive rehabilitation outcomes among juvenile mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata). International Journal of Primatology. 37(2): 260-280. [link]

Cheng AM, Handa P, Tateya S, Schwartz J, Tang C, Mitra P, Oram JF, Chait A, Kim, F. 2012. Apolipoprotein A-I attenuates palmitate-mediated NF-κB activation by reducing toll-like receptor-4 recruitment into lipid rafts. PLoS ONE. 7(3): e33917.