August 21, 2015

August 21, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my fourth response to Chapter 5.4 “Vocalizations as tools for influencing the affect and behavior of others” by Rendall and Owren, (2010). Humans, like primates, have an “evolved sensitivity to certain kind of sounds” which “naturally creates additional opportunities for signalers to use vocalizations to engage others by influencing their attention, arousal and concomitant behaviors in many contexts, sometimes even overriding their ability to resist such influence.” The affect-inducing ability of any speaker has only two possibilities: the speaker induces negative or positive affect in the listener. In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the speaker’s voice has a threatening effect on the listener, but in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), the sound of the speaker comforts and supports the listener. 

Among non-human primates “one entire class of vocalizations that has been labeled “squeaks, shrieks and screams” resembles the phylogenetic origins of NVB. “These sounds are numerous and diverse, and are produced by every primate species studied, as well as by many other mammals, birds and amphibians. This broad class of vocalizations is characterized by sharp signal onsets, dramatic frequency and amplitude fluctuations, and chaotic spectral structures, which are exactly the acoustic features that have direct impact on animal perception.” Humans make these sounds when they get angry or hostile or when they are in despair and cry for help. These sounds are only made when something’s wrong, when we are threatened. It doesn’t  matter whether we “squeak, shriek and scream” in an attempt to be heard, to defend ourselves or to fight others. Fact is, such a voice of a speaker is experienced as an aversive stimulus by the listener. This listener may not know he or she is aversively stimulated by the NVB speaker, but whether he or she  knows about it or not doesn’t make any difference, it still happens. 

 

In NVB the speaker has a very different sound than the SVB speaker. We are only going to be able to pay attention to this difference if we listen to ourselves while we speak. This difference can be heard in the sound of our own voice.  By listening to our own sound while we speak, we can figure out how we are affected by biological processes while we talk. Those who are threatened as well as those who threaten  produce the same “squeaks, shrieks and screams.” “Vocalizations of this class are produced especially frequently by infants and juveniles, and this pattern is not simply a reflection of an immature vocal production system in young animals. Instead, squeaks, shrieks and screams are likely to be especially functional to youngsters who otherwise have relatively little ability to influence the behavior of older and larger individuals in their groups.” Although this “pattern is not simply a reflection of immature vocal production system in young animals”, when we look at how this applies to human interaction a very different picture emerges. Humans, who still produce these demanding sounds at an old age, did not become fully verbal. We cannot be fully verbal as long as these nonverbal, unconscious sounds overtake us.

Another way of stating this is that NVB kept us unconscious. A child who doesn’t know how to speak can only make sound, but a child who knows how to speak is able to regulate him or herself and able to prevent him or herself from producing a sound which aversively influences the listener. This can only occur if this child grows up in a safe, sensitive and caring environment. Such a child doesn’t need to scream as it is nourished and taken care off. Calling the NVB speaker immature and the SVB speaker mature doesn’t capture that the NVB speaker is limited by involuntary processes. Speech of the SVB speaker doesn’t activate these fight-flight responses. When we grow up in stable, caring environments, we learn the basics of SVB, but when we grow up in chaotic, threatening surroundings, we are bound to be more inclined towards NVB. This lawfulness transcends the whole question about consciousness. We must be safe to be conscious.

Rather than considering these sounds immature, “squeaks, shrieks and screams are likely to be especially functional to youngsters who otherwise have relatively little ability to influence the behavior of older and larger individuals in their groups.” It is appropriate to make these sounds during the pre-verbal stage of development, but once we become verbal such sounds get in the way of speech. ”For example, a young weanling who has been repeatedly rejected from the nipple by its mother cannot physically force its mother to relent and allow nursing or close physical contact. However, it is not entirely helpless, because it is capable of producing loud protracted bouts of harsh and variable vocalizations that effectively influence the mother’s attention mechanisms, increase her arousal state, and with repetition become quite aversive.” The continuation of such “vocal protest” is maladaptive during verbal development as it aversively affects the listener and hinders interaction, which can only improve if noxious vocalizations no longer occur. The fact that NVB is ubiquitous and is basically accepted by everyone as normal signifies that things went wrong in the context of weaning, in the pre-verbal stage of development. “Vocal protests like this in the context of weaning are ubiquitous across species, including humans, and they share a set of common acoustic features that include rapidly varying combinations of loud, noisy screams and piercing high-frequency tonal cries, with dramatic amplitude and frequency modulations." Freud may have had a point with his oral fixation after all.