August 5, 2015

August 5, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is my fifth response to “Talker-specific learning in speech perception” by L.C. Nygaard and D.B. Pisoni (1998). The reason that “traditionally” the “perception of linguistics concepts of speech —the words, phrases, and sentences of an utterance — has been studied separately from the perception of talker identity” is because of what I call Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), our usual way of talking in which this separation is created and maintained. Perhaps I should say ‘imagined and believed’, because NVB is always based on fictitious knowledge. 

“Talker identity” has not been given much attention. If we did that, we would have to acknowledge that in most our so-called interactions the speaker is aversively affecting the listener. To focus on “talker identity” requires that we take a listener’s perspective of the speaker. This would make us realize that the “perception of linguistic concepts of speech” is not, for the most part, determined by the listener, but by the speaker. 

In NVB the speaker can blame the listener for not understanding him or her. In SVB, by contrast, it is not the adjustment of the listener to the speaker, but it is the adjustment of the speaker to the listener, which makes the speech more effective. The authors write that “variability” in “talker identity” is considered to be “a perceptual problem that listeners must solve if they are to recover the linguistic constituents that carry meaning." This view elevates the speaker above the listener and relieves him or her of having to think about why he or she may not be understood. 

Only during NVB listeners are always blamed for not listening, for not paying attention, for not being obedient to the speaker, but nobody talks about the important, completely ignored fact that NVB speakers are not listening to themselves while they speak. Once we look into the “talking identity” of the NVB speaker, we find that he or she demands that others listen to him or to her, as he or she lacks the skill to listen to him or herself.