July 25, 2015

July 25, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

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

"Pygmy marmoset (Cebuella pygmaea) vocal development is similar to that of humans in also showing a stage of babbling-like vocal behavior. In this species, calling typically begins in the first week of life, with infants producing spontaneous on-going streams of vocalizations that routinely juxtapose sounds that do not typically co-occur later in life.” 

Like humans, pygmy marmosets become more autonomous over the course of development and this changes the way in which they sound. Their loud and needy “shrieks, screams and squeaks”, gradually decreases as they become socialized to produce more “sonants and gruffs.” In humans, this change of sound is usually accompanied by the learning of language. 

Decrease of aversive sounding vocalizations in humans happens only to the extent that one has become a successful member of one’s verbal community. “As in humans, the marmosets make these sounds in the absence of obvious triggering stimuli. Unlike human infants, however, the monkeys produce recognizable versions of adult calls from the very beginning, with no evidence that auditory experience or motor practices are needed."

"Furthermore, although human babbling begins simply and becomes more complex, marmosets show the opposite trend. These animals begin with greater complexity (streams of species-typical and other sounds), then simplify and individuate the various calls later.” In humans an increase of complexity as a fine-tuning of vocal verbal behavior occurs.  

This research made the authors conclude that “some biologically grounded motivational process is involved and that the sounds provide important self-stimulating effects of some kind.” Human vocal verbal behavior is also grounded in “some biologically grounded motivational process” because our own voice provides “important self-stimulating effects of some kind.” However, this effect is only believed to occur in SVB, not in NVB. It cannot occur in NVB as the voice of the sender has not only a negative influence on the other person as the receiver, but in NVB the speaker is unknowingly and negatively effecting him or herself.

Neural evidence on primate vocalizations tells us what must also be true for humans: “The major finding is that subcortical, limbic-system structures are central in vocal production not only in monkeys and apes, but also across mammals in general.” There is “a virtual consensus among neuroscientists there are clear parallels between species-typical primate calling and human emotional vocalizations, such as spontaneous laughter and crying”, because humans have the same “affectively driven and limbically centered control system found in primates.” 

However, the picture is quite different for volitional control of human vocalization. The reader is reminded that only SVB is under volitional control. “Although speech production does show important subcortical involvement and affective influences, central aspects, such as motor planning and execution, are unambiguously cortical functions." This “subcortical involvement” either involves positive or negative affective influences.  In NVB there are negative affective influences, but in SVB there are positive affective influences. NVB is therefore a form of  coercive control, while SVB is always based on positive reinforcement.

Only as long as we keep fixating on the fact that we are different from primates, because we have language, is it “difficult to make substantive connections between vocal ontogeny in primates and spoken language development in humans.” If we pay attention to the fact that humans, like primates, produce sounds while they speak, we will be able to make these “connections.” Because of our language we are again and again inclined to keep focusing on how we are different from primates. 

The SVB/NVB distinction explains why “the unimportance of experience

is specific to the sound production component” of primate vocal behavior. Primates cannot, like humans, describe the sound of others and also cannot  describe their own sound to themselves. In other words, primates experience without having a verbal description of their own experience. However, this doesn’t mean their production of sound is not experienced. It simply means that it is not experienced as we humans do: by being verbal about it. 

“Not surprisingly, although acoustics, usage, and responding are all highly modifiable in human speech, characteristics of spontaneous, affect-triggered human vocalizations closely parallel those of primate calls in this regard as well.” Owren and Rendall are on the right track to acknowledge SVB and NVB in humans, a distinction that is based on how we sound while we speak. They differentiate between “affect-triggered primate and human vocalizations on the one hand and spoken language in humans alone on the other”, which, “indicate that fundamentally different systems are involved.”

July 24, 2015

July 24, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

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

“Like monkeys and apes, infant humans produce spontaneous vocalizations from very early in life, including species-typical crying sounds that can begin literally from the moment of birth.” However, mature human beings, who have learned language, continue to make use of “species-typical” sounds, but in a modified manner. 

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) designate two ontogenetically shaped subclasses of our phylogenetic vocal verbal behavior. Just as any child can learn Arabic or French depending in what environment he or she is placed, every child learns to have SVB or NVB depending on the environment he or she grows up in. SVB and NVB are learned during our lifetime and just as a person can learn a second language, someone with NVB can learn to have SVB.

Other evidence for the phylogenetic origins of language comes from research about laughter. While analyzing laughter produced by congenitally, bilaterally and profoundly deaf students, researchers found “the same acoustic features as in the sounds of their normally hearing peers.” Just like crying, “spontaneous laughter also appears early, and both vocalizations are found in infants who are deaf and blind." It is evident that “human beings do not need significant auditory experience or motor practice in order to produce these vocalizations.” Furthermore,  “ pygmymarmoset (Cebuella pygmaea) vocal development is similar to that of humans in also showing a stage of babbling-like vocal behavior.” Interestingly, with humans it was found “that hearing impairment had a marked effect on babbling vocalizations.” This research “thus, provides clear evidence of the critical role of auditory input for development of spoken language in particular.”

My interpretation of this research is that a particular auditory input, that is, a particular sound of the mother, father or caretaker, lays the foundation for a way of communicating, which is affecting the receiver either affectively or aversively. In the former, listening is enhanced, while in the latter, as the receiver/listener has been aversively influenced by the parent/speaker, there will be more of an emphasis on speaking. 

Only if the speaker appetitively effects the listener, the possibility is created for listening and speaking behavior to join in due course. If, during early development, listening is not enhanced while speaking is, the foundation for NVB will be created. 

Only if the speaker influences the listener with an appetitive contingency, n listening is enhanced, as it should be, and the foundation is created for SVB. Auditory input determines if we will become good listeners and therefore good speakers.

SVB speakers listen to themselves while they speak, but NVB speakers, who are not in touch with themselves, as they don’t listen to themselves, will be inclined to dominate others and force them to listen.

July 23, 2015

July 23, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

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

Human beings have existed for eons of time before the arrival of language. Structures which once only facilitated vocalizations are still there and made languages possible. I say ‘languages’ not to indicate French or Japanese, for which structurally no differences are expected. A child learns Japanese or French just as readily. ‘Languages’ refer to our biology, to Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) or Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the two universal subclasses of human vocal verbal behavior. When humans feel threatened, they produce distinctively different sounds than when they feel safe.  

As these subsets are based on our evolutionary or phylogenetic history, I predict that structural differences account for the rates of SVB and NVB. Since ontogenetic development emerges from phylogenetic history, it is predicted that those people who have learned during their lifetime to have more instances of SVB and less instances of NVB, are those who were already genetically predisposed to do so. By contrast, those who capitalize on NVB and take advantage of the SVB of others, adhere to hierarchical interaction and relationship determined by biology. 

The SVB/NVB distinction posits that a much bigger part of how we talk refers to our phylogenetic than to our ontogenetic history.  Changing the way we talk, as individuals, is not possible for this reason. This is not to say, however, that there are no epi-genetic effects which can be inhibited. I have worked with mentally ill, traumatized and disabled clients and I have found that with each one of them progress was possible due to SVB.

The authors also mention a “second principle” which “concerns a phenomenon” they “dubbed dual neural pathways. Here, the critical observation is that when a species with an existing vocal system evolves a new functionally distinct vocalization capability, it occurs through the emergence of a second parallel neural pathway rather than through expansion of the extant circuitry. In other words, when individuals of a given taxon exhibit two functionally distinct vocal systems, the underlying neural circuitry is found to be organized in parallel pathways rather than as a single multipurpose system.” 

If my prediction is true, NVB and SVB are mediated by these parallel pathways. I am thinking the same way as these authors, who consider “affect to be centered on subcortical limbic structures and pathways.” Moreover, they write that “this usage will contrast with viewing cognition as more abstract and elaborated, with cortical processing, mental concepts, and symbolic representations playing a central role. Affective processing will be considered inherently less flexible than the cognitive variety, although learning and experience are likely important in both cases.” 

Although affect and cognition are intertwined, they are biologically, hierarchically intertwined, that is, emotions have a longer phylogenetic history than cognitions and are therefore more likely to have more impact on cognitions than the other way around. The SVB/NVB distinction therefore predicts that the flexibility of cognitive variety depends on positive affect. Moreover, negative affect is considered by this distinction as a hindrance to learning operant behavior. Although respondent learning can occur under negative affect inducing circumstances, these processes will always in one way or another constrain operant learning processes.

Many antropomorphizing primate researchers still don’t agree on the obvious fact that receivers don’t “encode specific information about predators,” but are influenced by “the arousal or motivational states of vocalizers.” It is unbelievable that this is still even an issue. Animals don’t have language and therefore they can’t have self-talk either. Only humans have self-talk, because they can be a speaker-as-own-listener. 

“Information processing” is an explanatory fiction, which doesn’t explain anything, but private speech or other behavior occurring within our own skin, such as thinking or remembering, is parsimoniously explained as  verbal behavior receded to a covert level. Denial of what is scientifically already known is made possible by NVB, which elevates what we say over how we say it. “Evidence from development and neural control of vocalization is compelling in this regard, showing that while some primate calls can function as if having the ‘‘cognitive and cortical’’ nature of spoken language, the production processes involved are nonetheless fundamentally “affective and subcortical.’’” These researchers provided a good example of “evidence from development.”

The authors noted that “one kind of production learning, namely that while young vervets may call to non-predator events, such as falling leaves and passing warthogs, these kinds of false alarms disappear over time. Yet, even this ‘‘mistaken’’ usage occurs in the ‘‘right’’ circumstances, for example, with eagle calls being elicited by stimuli such as falling leaves, but leopard alarms being reserved for terrestrial events, such as warthogs passing by.” Such evidence confirms “the larger conclusion that call production is generally highly constrained in these animals.” Similarly our human vocalizations are affectively constrained. Like vervet monkey’s, human infants also respond initially to a threat by “running to their mothers, or respond in ways that can increase rather than decrease their risk of being taken.”  Anyone who has ever been around a baby knows that “alarm call production” seem to be more or less “full blown” at birth and “functional responding emerges gradually” through the care that is proved by the mother, that is, “through social learning.” 

The ubiquity of NVB signifies how often social learning fails. Although SVB is needed to bond, affiliate, groom and to be social, although without SVB there would be no safety, connection, support, reciprocation or learning of complex forms of behavior, occurrence of SVB is relatively rare, as SVB is not accidental, but consciously decided. We consciously decide to stop in front of a red light and we can decide to have SVB. However, this will only be learned if we follow the scientific rules of human interaction.

July 22, 2015

July 22, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

The following writing is my first response to the paper “Two Organizing Principles of Vocal Production: Implications for Nonhuman

and Human Primates” by Owren, Amoss & Rendall (2010). 

One of the basic principles on which the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction is build, is the fact that if the speaker focuses too much on what he or she is saying, then he or she is more likely to produce NVB, while if he or she focuses more on how he or she is sounding, then he or she is more likely to produce SVB. 

Stated differently, our verbal fixation leads to a disconnect between the speaker’s verbal and nonverbal expression. Consequently, the NVB speaker says something different verbally and non-verbally. Only in SVB can there be congruence between the speaker’s verbal and nonverbal expression. SVB congruence is effortlessly understood by the receiver. From the fact that “affect has historically been given rather short shrift in the behavioral and neural sciences”, we can learn that the communication that is creating and maintaining this neglect is one which focuses more on what we say than how we say it. In other words, in NVB verbal fixation leads to nonverbal dissociation, while in SVB our nonverbal sensitivity unites nonverbal with verbal expression. Moreover, focus on nonverbal expression includes our verbal expression, since the former developmentally gave rise to the latter.  Adoption of a “cognitively based interpretation that downplayed the role of affect” is parsimoniously explained by the SVB/NVB distinction. 

The SVB/NVB distinction is congruent with "Affect Conditioning Model" (ACM), which, “after reviewing evidence concerning development and neural control of vocalization in primates and other nonhumans”, was extended with “two interrelated principles of production” which are applicable across a variety of species. Conservation of these behaviors must play an important role in human vocalizations as well. The first one of these principles is “a distinction between production-first and reception-first vocal systems, with the former showing little role of auditory experience or motor practice, affective triggering of calls, and limited flexibility in vocal acoustics.” This describes NVB, in which the speaker talks at, not with the listener. A child does that as he or she is too young to be verbal and can only be nonverbal.

Another explanation for NVB is the hierarchical relationship between dominant and subordinate animals. Given the “little role of auditory experience or motor practice, affective triggering of calls, and limited flexibility in vocal acoustics” it can be deduced that “production-first” vocal systems lack a feedback mechanism. In NVB the conversation between the speaker and the listener is not a bi-directional, but a uni-directional phenomenon. In colloquial terms: my-way-or-the-highway. “Reception-first vocal systems”, on the other hand, have “quite different characteristics, including a central role for auditory and motor experience, cognitive control over vocalization, and flexible vocal acoustics.” Such systems are believed to mediate SVB. Given the fact that “a central role” in reception-first systems goes to “auditory and motor experience”, we can deduce that in SVB the listener listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. 

The speaker-as-own-listener is aware of the feedback of his or her voice, which is simultaneously experienced in an auditory and proprioceptive manner. Furthermore, the SVB speaker’s “cognitive control” over his or her vocalizations is facilitated by his or her private speech, which is aligned with his or her public speech, which is just another way of saying that his or her verbal and nonverbal expressions are congruent. However, it is not ”cognitive control over vocalization”, but rather vocalizational control over cognition, which is facilitated by “flexible acoustics.”

In NVB the speaker wants the listener to listen to him or to her, but he or she is not listening to him or herself; that is, a NVB speaker is outwardly oriented. As the child who cries for its mother makes clear, such a speaker is not in touch with him or herself. The mother’s touch and attention is needed to regulate his or her affect to the point that he or she is calm again and feels in touch with him or herself. Being content and calm is the opposite of feeling threatened or fearfully or stressfully aroused. In the former, we are enough unto ourselves, but in the latter, we demand attention from others. NVB demandingness characterizes an outward orientation.