July 26, 2015

July 26, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

The following writing is my fifth response to the paper “Two Organizing Principles of Vocal Production: Implications for Nonhuman and Human Primates” by Owren, Amoss & Rendall (2010). 

“Affect-triggered primate and human vocalizations” form the first system that is recognized by these authors. They refer to such vocalizations as “production-first’’ development” that is characterized “by the emergence of acoustically and contextually appropriate vocalizations even in the absence of significant experience in hearing or producing the sounds.” The second system is “spoken language in humans alone” and is termed “”reception- first’’ development, with both vocal acoustics and usage showing specific dependence on prior experience, including both in hearing the sounds from others and in practicing their production.” The authors are “however, not arguing that experience with vocalizations plays no role whatsoever in production-first development nor that reception-first systems are immune to constraints associated with factors such as phylogenetic history, the details of species-typical vocal anatomy, and the like.” 

In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) it can be said that we are least constrained by phylogenetic factors, but in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) we most impaired by phylogenetic factors. These researchers organized primate vocalization with a “production-first vs reception-first system” and their system can and should also be applied to human vocal verbal behavior. 

The authors provided an “organizational framework for understanding the many different kinds of phenomena found in primate vocal behavior.” Thiss biological approach is needed to sort out unaddressed problems of human vocal behavior. Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which is based on the “production-first system”, is not really communication; it is domination, intimidation, coercion and verbal abuse. Only Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), based on the “reception-first system” can make us interact.  

 

“Auditory experience and motor practice” don’t matter at all during NVB, they only matter during SVB. Thus, when these authors state that “the unimportance of experience is specific to the sound production component of primate vocal behavior”, they refer to NVB. After they explain the difference between the "production-first" and "reception-first system", the authors note that “Both primate calling and spontaneous affect-triggered human vocalizations are thus production-first systems, whereas spoken language represents reception-first development.”  

By studying primate vocalization we can learn something that is crucially important about human vocal verbal behavior: we distinguish between SVB and NVB. “The goal here is to more easily separate the roles that experience can play in production-first vs. reception-first systems, particularly to avoid conflating the two.” Moreover, if we consider that “auditory experience and motor practice play a little role in producing the sounds” in young vervet alarm calls, (which are similar to  a human baby crying for its mother) and that “young vervets show a clear “narrowing” effect or “tuning effect” in call usage”, we learn that NVB is maintained by habituation. 

Human vocalizations are effected by language. Only when parents are producing SVB are they capable of talking and willing to talk with their kids. However, if parents are having themselves all sorts of negative affective experiences, the baby will habituate to their NVB and grows up to be as insensitive and dissociative in their interaction as them. 

“Habituation is the simplest and most ubiquitous form of true learning, referring to a decrease in responsiveness to a repeated stimulus that has no functional significance. For example, a young child that is initially startled and frightened by bearded men can lose that reaction by learning that seeing facial hair is not followed by negative outcomes.” The authors give a visual rather than an auditory example of the pairing of stimuli. An auditory example would be more useful as they are discussing vocalizations. 

This common bias for visual sensory experience is the main reason why affective auditory phenomena have been given short shrift for such a long time. Threat vocalizations will also become linked with visual stimuli. A child is less likely startled by a friendly-sounding bearded man, but if his or her father happens to be a noxious-sounding bearded man, he or she will habituate to him, because he or she can’t just move away. 

“Although a variety of both predator-related and non-predator-related stimuli may thus initially trigger active reactions and alarm-calling in vervet infants, only the former are followed by negative outcomes or vocalizations from others. The latter provoke nothing other than the infant’s own response, leading to stimulus-specific decreases in subsequent affective reactivity.” Thus, the abusive vocalizations by a father may trigger the predator-related alarm calls in the infant, but the vocalizations by other family members may “provoke nothing other than the infant’s own response, leading to stimulus-specific decreases in subsequent affective reactivity.” This explains why the abusive father can continue, because family members influence each other to vocally give in to him. It is important to note this discussion is about the production-first system. 

Responding to alarm calls is quite different matter. “Here, learning and cognitive representation probably play central roles, with a youngster’s initial undifferentiated startle reactions upon hearing calls likely facilitating the ensuing gradual development of flexible situation-dependent escape strategies.” When we say “cognitive representation,” we talk about the verbal behavior taught to us by a verbal community. The responses which are mediated by the production-first system are not taught by our verbal community as they are innate. “In a reception-first system, infants would need to learn not only how to respond to calls and associated predators, but also critical features of the various species, how to produce acoustically appropriate vocalizations, and which calls to produce in a given circumstance.” Thus, NVB is believed to be “vocal production” that is “a highly constrained limbically dominated process”, while SVB which involves “hearing calls", that is, listening, "brings the entire brain into play.”