August 1, 2015

August 1, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing is my first response to the paper “Talker-specific learning in speech perception” by L.C. Nygaard and D.B. Pisoni (1998). My writing is to collect evidence from researchers for the existence of what I call Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

One of their findings was that “listeners who were given words that were produced by familiar talkers at test showed better identification performance than did listeners who were given words that were produced by unfamiliar talkers.” This indicates that familiarity with the talker enhances learning. Since the speaker is aversively affecting the listener in NVB, but is appetitively affecting the listener in SVB, it can be concluded that familiarity with the talkers is more likely to occur in the latter, which is more conducive to learning. 

Although the listener can, of course, also be conditioned by and familiar with a NVB speaker, that familiarity is qualitatively different. Familiarity with the NVB speaker is essential to developing the listener’s understanding about his or her place in the hierarchical relationships existing in his or her verbal community, while familiarity with the SVB speaker involves a process of learning which completely free from aversive stimulation. 

I hypothesize that SVB evokes the type of learning which is for the love of knowledge, while NVB elicits learning out of the fear of punishment and the necessity to survive. SVB and NVB are two diametrically opposing ways of talking we all familiar with. However, only some of us are more familiar with SVB than with NVB, while most of us are more familiar with NVB. The common opinion of what it means to learn is more determined by NVB than by SVB. Most of us believe we will have more of a competitive edge if we learn. However, this type of learning prevents those who have mainly been exposed to NVB speakers from becoming familiar with SVB speakers and from learning that takes us beyond our survival behaviors. SVB is the kind of talking in which we completely stop fighting.