August 20, 2015

August 20, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my third response to Chapter 5.4 “Vocalizations as tools for influencing the affect and behavior of others” by Rendall and Owren, (2010). When I read this chapter I was intrigued and flabbergasted. I was intrigued by the findings in support of the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). However, I was also flabbergasted and baffled by the lack of reasoning of these researchers.

My reasoning is a function of the SVB/NVB distinction of which these researchers are only indirectly aware. They write “Non-human primates are an especially interesting group in which to consider the potential affective influence of vocalizations on listeners.” They are an "interesting group" because of their “phylogenetic proximity to humans.” Humans must have a lot in common with primates. The authors state “The neurophysiological substrates for affective influence are clearly very broadly conserved and, indeed, humans who have even larger brains and (presumably) more sophisticated cognitive capacities than any of the non-human primates show considerable susceptibility to affective influence. Therefore, it is likely that affective influence is also an important part of the vocal signals of non-human primates.” This reasoning is upside down. Since humans are affectively influenced by vocal signals, primates must possess the same neurophysiological substrates which gave rise to language in humans. And, since primates can only use vocalizations to influence each other, they must be able to affectively influence each other with vocalization. The authors state that it is “likely” “affective influence is also an important part of the vocal signals of non-humans primates”, but I think it is out of the question. The fact that affect-inducing influences exist in many species should make us less inclined to fixate on these “” higher-level” cognitive processes that [presumably] organize communication behavior in primates.”

“The alarm vocalizations that are produced during encounters with predators are structurally similar across a range of primate species, and they preserve acoustic features that are well-designed for capturing and manipulating attention and arousal in listeners.” For these vocalizations to be effective, they must have an immediate affective effect. “Alarm calls tend to be short, abrupt-onset, broadband calls. These punctuate designs of alarm calls make them stand out against background noise and make them easy to localize.” During NVB the listeners are aroused because they are made to believe that they are being threatened. 

In NVB the speaker is always localizing a predator and his or her speech creates, maintains and exploits the threat, which presumably is upon the listener. Currently, Trump is high in the poles, because he appeals to the notion that the country is being threatened and going down the drain. His confrontational style of speaking is appealing and effective as he localizes and blames those who are supposedly causing this. Democrats understand that Trump is fear-mongering and deliberately stirring his listeners, but many republican listeners have favorable responses that “involve immediate orienting in the direction of the calls, coupled with reflexive movements preparatory to flight.” Trump’s speech directly appeals to the “functional sensitivity to punctuate sounds in ancestral vertebrates as an aid in identifying and localizing predators, and for capturing prey.” As this presumably strong and capable man is saying that he is going to make America great again, he, like any other demagogue, activates the most ancient parts of the brain. “Developmental studies in primates have shown that such generalized startle responses to species’ alarm calls are induced even in very young infants in the absence of significant experience with either the calls or predators, as would be expected from the operation of widely conserved and low-level brainstem and subcortical processes associated with sound localization, orienting and autonomic responding.” If we know about NVB, Trump's success is a real no-brainer, so to speak!

“Such evolved sensitivity to certain kinds of sound 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.” Especially the last part of this sentence is very important for how biological processes effect how we speak. We are constantly overwhelmed by NVB and SVB is again and again easily dismissed. However, this always involves a speaker, who dysregulates the listener. I say dysregulate to emphasize that when the speaker elicits a fear response in the listener, SVB is impossible even if the listener wants to or tries to have it. SVB will and can only occur in the absence of aversive stimulation. The voice of the SVB speaker is an appetitive stimulus to the listener, but the voice of the NVB speaker is an aversive stimulus to the listener. A NVB speaker will override a SVB speaker, but a SVB speaker cannot override a NVB speaker. This is a much misunderstood phenomenon. Although SVB speakers can self-regulate, they are unable to prevent the aversive effects from the NVB speaker. 

No matter how well-intended and controlled the SVB speaker may be, when he or she is in the company of a NVB speaker, he or she is bound to experience the negative consequences of the NVB speaker’s influence. The only way to not have these experiences is to move away from this NVB speaker, which is our natural, biological response. We must recognize these are implicit, autonomic processes, which are effective because they don’t require any cognitive input. Thus, we are never inclined to question NVB influences, which so often surround us. Such questioning usually only happens when we decrease our proximity to the NVB speaker. This allows us to attend to our private speech which can then catch up with our public speech. In NVB our private speech is excluded from our public speech, but in SVB our private speech is included. Also, in NVB our private speech is considered as causing our public speech. Of course, our NVB public speech causes NVB our private speech. The only moment that we can actually listen to our NVB private speech is when we say out loud what we really think. Only then can we begin to recognize NVB due to our SVB.

August 19, 2015

August 19, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is the second response to Chapter 5.4 “Vocalizations as tools for influencing the affect and behavior of others” by Rendall and Owren, (2010). The direct environment(that is, body)-changing effects of the sound of our voice are often ignored as we are inclined to think that ‘cognitions’ play a bigger role than they actually do. Yet, these physiological effects “are induced with latencies on the order of 10 ms and require no substantive cortical mediation”. Neurologically, these sound-effects are “induced by a very short, direct circuit connecting the auditory nerve to brainstem regions controlling whole body arousal and activation: axons in the auditory nerve project to cochlear root neurons in the brainstem, which project to giant neurons in the nucleus pontis caudalis of the reticular formation, from which projections then radiate to a large number of motor neurons in the brainstem and spinal cord. This simple circuit has been studied extensively in rats and cats and is thought to be the same in humans, attesting to its very deep and broadly conserved nature." There is continuity of behavior...

As we are mostly conditioned by Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), we are often unable to go recognize how the listener is actually affected by the speaker’s voice. We may agree what is a sad song and what is a happy song, but as we are mainly engaged in stressful, anxiety–provoking NVB, we don’t acknowledge the SVB/NVB distinction while we speak. In SVB the speaker is his or her own listener, but in NVB others are forced to listen to the speaker, who doesn’t listen to him or herself. As NVB speakers don’t self-listen, they are ‘tone-deaf’; their voice negatively affects the listener. “Sounds of a particular sort are only a few short synapses away from brainstem, midbrain and limbic system regions that regulate major aspects of organismal autonomic function and whole body arousal and activation.” 

In NVB the speaker is not talking with the listener, but he or she is talking at the listener. Thus, the NVB speaker dysregulates the listener, while only the SVB speaker regulates the listener. It is perhaps better to say that in SVB the speaker and the listener co-regulate each other, as the speaker is also his or her own listener; the other listener can also become the speaker, and, the speaker can also become a listener to the listener who became a speaker. If this does not occur, there will be autonomic activation and the  body of the listener will be aroused to flee, fight, or freeze. These subtle physiological changes caused by our conversations are only apparent to those who are listening to themselves while they speak. As long as listeners are forced by NVB speakers to remain only listeners or to only speak in a NVB manner, they focus, anxiously, fearfully and hyper-vigilantly on the speaker, but they don’t have the chance to speak and listen to themselves. 

Speakers must feel safe enough to be able to listen to themselves. SVB can only happen in the absence of aversive stimulation. NVB happens as the speaker doesn’t acknowledge that his or her voice dysregulates the listener. The speaker produces “vocal signals” which “have the capacity to induce a range of affective effects in listeners.” Only the speaker who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks is capable of inducing positive affective experiences in the listener. In NVB the speaker coerces the listener into the direction the speaker wants him or her to go, but in SVB, they produce “signals with smooth onsets and gradually descending pitch”, which “decrease motor activity.” It is the increase of motor activity in NVB, which makes NVB so problematic. In NVB people are stirring the pot...

“Pastoral herders and domestic animal handlers have long capitalized on the impact of sounds to manage the behavior and activity of their animal charges. To capture attention and increase motor activity, they typically use rapidly repeated pulses of signals with abrupt onsets (e.g., tongue clicks and lip smacks) or signals with dramatic frequency upsweeps (e.g., whistles). In contrast, to decrease motor activity, or to soothe excited animals, they use signals with smooth onsets and gradually descending pitch (e.g., whistles or hums).” As we are so used to having NVB it is difficult for us to map these easy examples onto how we talk. Also, as we become more developed, the content of our speech gains in prominence; the more important content becomes, the less inclined we are to pay attention to how we sound. When what we say is most important, then how we say it is often completely ignored. Thus, the SVB/NVB distinction in spoken communication is not as easy to learn as the herding of cattle. It is easier for herders to recognize these sounds, because while they are herding their cattle, they themselves mobilize when they increase the motor activity of their animals and they slow down when they decrease motor activity in their animals. Exactly the same is true for NVB and SVB. In NVB, the speaker arouses him or herself as well as the listener, but in SVB, the speaker calms down him or herself and the listener. Thus, in NVB the speaker dysregulates the listener as his or her voice induces a negative experience (motor-activity) in the listener, which interferes with the perception of what the speaker says.  

“Humans are also responsive to the same sound patterns. We use whistles with a rapid frequency upsweep to capture a companion’s attention, and similar dramatic frequency variations are characteristic of the speech directed to young infants where it serves to focus and maintain attention and modulate arousal.” We should note here that we tend to be much more aware of how we sound when we are around a baby than when we are with an adult. The speaker’s voice is more likely to “maintain attention and modulate arousal” if it concerns a baby, as the baby cries if we don't do this. When we speak with an adult, he or she is expected to be able to maintain his or her own attention and to modulate his or her own arousal. However, this expectation results in NVB. We will only be able to learn to have SVB when we talk with each other as if we are talking to a baby; only when the speaker’s voice is not aversively influencing the listener, only when the speaker adequately and reliably “maintains the attention and modulates arousal” of the listener, can there be SVB. 

“Additional familiar examples in humans” of NVB “include fingernails scraping on chalk-boards, infant crying” and of SVB “contagious laughter”, all of which have direct affective positive or negative effects on listeners. Other NVB examples are: arguing wives, angry fathers, arrogant bosses, slimy sales men, self-centered professors, hate-inciting demagogues, ruthless business leaders, just to name a few. These are extreme examples which are easy to recognize. To recognize subtle differences between positive or negative affect-inducing voices listeners must learn to discern whether a voice demands or gives attention. If the speaker’s voice demands the listener's attention this indicates NVB, but if the speaker’s voice gives or creates attention in the listener, this indicates SVB. The sound of the speaker’s voice determines whether there will be NVB or SVB.

August 18, 2015

August 18, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my response to Chapter 5.4 “Vocalizations as tools for influencing the affect and behavior of others” by Rendall and Owren, (2010), published in the “Handbook of Mammalian Vocalization – An Integrated Neuroscience Approach”, edited by Brudzynski. This chapter provides evidence for the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the two subsets of human vocal verbal behavior. Rendall and Owren focus on “how vocal signals influence the affective systems of listeners in ways that steer and impel behavioral responding in them.” Only SVB influences “the affective systems of listeners in ways that steer and impel” positive emotions. NVB, on the other hand, elicits negative emotions. As “vocal signals influence the affective systems of the listener” differently, SVB and NVB result in  different ways of responding. Research by Rendall and Owren emphasizes that “affective systems can be important functional targets of signaling in animals, including humans.” We have overestimated the importance of the cognitive aspects of our spoken communication, while more often than we realize we are emotionally influenced by the sound of the speaker's voice.  

The fact that we are emotionally affected by how other people sound is rooted in our evolutionary history. However, only during SVB are we able to acknowledge that humans have a “phylogenetically widespread neuro-affective sensitivity to some sounds.” During NVB we pretend that this “affective sensitivity” to the human voice doesn’t matter, but this has grave consequences. Due to coarseness and superficiality of NVB we remained ignorant about the notion that “such sensitivity can impel responses from listeners in quite direct fashion, or combine with general processes of conditioning and learning to steer listener behavior more indirectly.”

During SVB, on the other hand, we take our emotions into account and we are able to accurately express what we feel. Moreover, during SVB we express and maintain positive emotions, the necessary basis for interaction. The sound of our voice determines if what we say is understood, making sense or paid attention to. “The effect that signals have on core affective processes and behavior in listeners can also serve to scaffold more complex communicative processes and outcomes.” However, this “scaffolding” of  “more complex communicative processes and outcomes” is only, yes, only, possible in SVB and is made impossible, yes, made impossible, by NVB.

We are all already familiar with the “affect induction” qualities of music. “That sounds can exert considerable affective influence on listeners” is not anything particularly “intuitive”, because we have all experienced “a variety of powerful emotions” which “can be sometimes quite difficult to control or resist” in response to some music or some speaker. We can be emotionally moved by each other’s voice in the same way as we can be moved by music. To the extent that we are no longer moved by music, we are also no longer moved by the sound of each other’s voice. Our decreased response to each other’s voice is an outcome of NVB, because in NVB content is more important than context or what we say is more important than how we say it. Moreover, in  NVB the speaker is not in touch with him or herself and he or she is also not in touch with the listener, who is also not allowed to be in touch with him or herself. Stated differently, NVB is dissociative in nature, as the speaker is not listening to him or herself while he or she speaks. 

In NVB the speaker doesn’t really speak and the listener doesn’t really listen. It is a bizarre phenomenon: in NVB the speaker pretends to be speaking and the listener pretends to be listening. As the listener continues to reinforce the phony speaker, the NVB speaker continues his or her phony speech. In other words, the phony NVB speaker never finds out that the listener isn’t really listening. Since in NVB the listener is coerced by the speaker, the listener obeys and complies with the speaker. The NVB speaker only finds out that nobody is really listening to him or to her if he or she finally recognizes that he or she is not listening to him or herself either. Just as “a great deal of music is designed specifically to have these affective effects” so too a great deal of what we say, a much bigger part than we acknowledge, is said to have these affective effects. In NVB, in which the speaker dominates the listener and is hierarchically above the listener, the speaker’s voice characterizes his or her superiority. The voice of someone who dominates elicits negative emotions. And that is precisely what the dominant one wants. He or she intimidates, overwhelms and forces the listener into obedience and compliance. In SVB a different interaction occurs. With how he or she sounds, the SVB speaker elicits positive emotions in the listener. The SVB speaker wants to elicit positive emotions and he or she lets the listener know that he or she is also a speaker who is part of the conversation. The SVB speaker’s voice always has a positive effect on the listener. SVB is happens in the absence of aversive stimulation.

That animals show “a similar affective sensitivity to sounds” and that “many of the vocal signals they commonly produce might be designed to have such effects” and that “systematic research in this area is still in its infancy” is all due to the fact that we have accepted as normal a way of communicating which is abnormal. The ubiquity of “affect induction” is quite apparent. However, such reasoning could only occur from a SVB perspective. In NVB neither the speaker nor the listener can relax. The noxious quality of the speaker’s voice elicits stress, anxiety, fear and anger in the receiver. We cannot engage in normal conversation as long as we continue to experience these negative feelings. Normal conversation requires the maintenance of positive emotions. This is very noticeable in the vocal signaling of primates. Their hierarchical interactions, unlike those of humans, require very few negative emotions. We have accepted NVB as normal and we keep stressing ourselves and each other by the way in which we sound. In NVB the speaker elicits reflexive responses in the listener. 

This involuntary response is known as the “the Acoustic Startle Reflex” (ASR) has been “demonstrated in a wide range of animal taxa (in mammals, e.g., from rats and cats to monkeys, apes and humans), and is thought to occur in every hearing species.” The illusion that humans, because they have language, are not affected by the ASR prevents understanding the extent to which our interactions are impaired by the sound of someone’s voice who induces the ASR in us. And, we induce the ASR in others too with our voice. “It is particularly triggered by sounds that are loud and have abrupt onsets (i.e., short signal rise times) that give them a harsh and plosive quality. When experienced at close range, such sounds induce a cascade of physiological and behavioral changes in listeners that include the immediate cessation of ongoing activity and abrupt shifts in attention toward, and in movement away from, the sound stimulus, and a host of reflexive autonomic changes, such as heart rate and blood pressure changes, increased muscle tonus and modulation of overall brain activity and glucose metabolism.” What is described here is NVB, not SVB. 

During NVB our voice dysregulates the listener as it stabs, grabs, pushes, pulls, chokes and forces. The autonomic changes are fight, flight or freeze mechanisms. SVB only occurs when these adaptive defensive mechanisms are not triggered. In other words, SVB only happens if we are feeling safe. It is important to view NVB events as consisting on a continuum. The startle response is the strongest physiological response, but there is a variety of negative emotions: stress, anxiety, fear, guardedness, distrust, paranoia, irritability, distraction, hostility, aggression, which accumulatively make us more negative. “Altogether, these changes describe a very broad and dramatic systemic response to sound that prepares the organism for a “fight-or-flight” response.” Although the listener is often unaware of this, he or she is always affected by the sound of the speaker’s voice, which instantaneously induces a change in his or her nervous system. “Notably , this suite of effects is induced with latencies on the order of 10 ms and requires no substantive cortical mediation.”