February 4, 2016

February 4, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In “Beyond Words: Human Communication Through Sound” (2016) by Kraus & Slater, the authors refer to research by Johnson & Jusczyk (2001), who found “evidence that stress patterns in speech outweigh statistical cues for determining word boundaries when conflicting cues are pitted against each other.” In my analysis of our spoken communication, we distinguish between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), which is interaction that is based on the listener’s experience of safety and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which is interaction that is based on the listener’s experience of threat. The above should be re-worded in: NVB stress patterns outweigh SVB cues of safety. 

From an evolutionary perspective this makes total sense. As long as the SVB/NVB distinction is not made, the extent to which aversively-sounding threatening patterns of communicating impair learning is not properly understood. Although the authors mention that “sensitivity to durational patterns is particularly important for understanding speech under degraded listening conditions” (read NVB) and acknowledge that “violations of expectation can also influence processing”, they can’t and do not explain the “tension between conformity and deviation” as SVB and NVB. 

“Nuanced relationship with patterns” is not arbitrary, but biological. Without describing the pattern of safety (SVB), which is absolutely necessary in learning how to speak, read and write, the authors state it “is important to note that patterns therefore provide a framework that can modulate processing in two ways, either by emphasizing the importance of elements that are consistent with the pattern or by drawing attention to elements that do not fit with the pattern.” In NVB, the speaker’s sound impairs the listener’s ability to synchronize and “separate words into their individual sounds”, but in SVB listening  skills are stimulated and increased due to the sound of the speaker.