July 13, 2015

July 13, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This is the sixth writing which includes findings that were reported by the animal researchers Owren and Rendall in their paper “An affect conditioning model of nonhuman primate vocal signaling” (1997). 

Today’s writing will again only be one page long. It continues yesterday’s discovery that ‘self-listening’ versus ‘other-listening’ is very different for primates than for humans. As humans have public speech, they also have private speech, but as primates don’t have public speech, they also don’t have private speech. 

‘Self-listening’ or “speaker-as-own-listener” (SAOL) requires private speech.  Humans have SAOL with words, but primates have it without words. This is not to say that humans can’t have SAOL without words, they can. 

There is a big difference between human SAOL with or without words. We commonly perceive SAOL without words as quieting down, while SAOL with words is equated with getting upset. 

Language occurs on a continuum; on one end we are very expressive, then less expressive; towards one end there is lots of private speech, but at the end there no private speech at all. 

Language naturally recedes from an overt to a covert level while we grow up. As children we are usually very talkative as we are given words for everything we see, hear, feel, eat, touch, remember, but as we get older, our language is automatically reinforcing as it recedes into our private speech.

Since humans experience Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) public speech or Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) public speech, their private speech will always reflect the amount of SVB and NVB they have been conditioned by. 

Those who have experienced more NVB than SVB will be unable to have SAOL without words, while those who had more SVB than NVB, are not as impaired by or identified with their language. Moreover, those who have SAOL without words, only they can hear their own sound.

July 12, 2015

July 12, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This is the fifth writing which includes findings that were reported by the animal researchers Owren and Rendall in their paper “An affect conditioning model of nonhuman primate vocal signaling” (1997). 

I use this opening for today’s writing knowing that I will probably not be writing about this paper today. By the way, this writing was not done on July 12, 2015, but on July 18, 2015, because I want to catch up with being behind,  while staying focused on the ‘work’ I need to do, that is, write about the above and other papers that have evolutionary evidence for Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

In yesterday’s writing, I made the bold decision to write an entry of only one page. I am going to stick with that until I am back on track. It is quite interesting that reviewing the situation allowed me to make that decision. 

Getting back on track by writing long entries was not going to happen. That was why I was falling behind in the first place. I have this strong sense of completion, which I feel obliged to. Now I am okay with writing one-page entries and I am sure I will be back on track soon.

Another decision was made: I am not going to write today about the above mentioned paper. Let’s face it, on July 12, 2015, I didn’t feel like writing about it, so why pretend to write about it today? I mention this to keep my focus and to get through this catching up business quicker. 

I also was not writing much lately because there was a mismatch between the reader and the writer. My writing had become writing for others and I myself as the reader had moved into the background more and more.

It can be compared to NVB, in which the speaker wants others to listen to him or her, but is not listening to him or herself. Interestingly, this was what the paper was about: vocalizations primates make to influence others. 

July 11, 2015

July 11, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This is the fourth writing which includes findings that were reported by the animal researchers Owren and Rendall in their paper “An affect conditioning model of nonhuman primate vocal signaling” (1997). 

First, I want to write about my current experiences. At this point, there is a gap of seven days in my writing. I am trying to catch up as it feels as if I have somehow fallen behind.   

I feel a certain duty to my journal. For some reason, I want to produce an entry every day. If a day is missing, I feel I have left out something. Not too long ago, I began to write entries of seven pages per day. It was harder and harder to keep up and it became so exhausting that I gave it up. 

My recent writings have been only two or three pages long and I am happier with that. I don’t like my lengthiness, but I like my brevity. The good thing is that ‘falling behind’ made me discover that I want to go on with shorter writings and that will also help me to catch up. 

It seems as if I am writing these words to fill pages of non-existing book, which is only read by me.  Yet, this is how I operate and ‘being back on track’, is appealing to me.

July 10, 2015

July 10, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my third response to the findings of Owren and Rendall published in “An affect conditioning model of nonhuman primate vocal signaling” (1997).  The “conative” function or natural tendency of primate vocal signaling is primarily affective, because senders either induce positive or negative affective experiences in receivers. Cognitive outcomes of signaling are secondary to as they are facilitated by affective experiences that any given vocalization induces. Only “calls which are primarily conative”, which result in a positive affective experience the receivers, could become “cognitive” in function. Those signals which resulted in negative affective experiences in the receivers led to an aversive kind of learning which, rather than stimulating verbal behavior, stimulated nonverbal behavior.   

In humans, Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is always a function of negative affective experiences, such as a threat. The vocalizations produced by the sender in NVB will make the receiver flee, fight or freeze. Such NVB vocalizations are not conducive to activation of cognitive systems as they directly activate and dysregulate subcortical systems which trigger avoidance and escape behavior instead of exploratory approach behavior. 

Only a sender’s Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) has a directly regulating and stabilizing effect on these subcortical systems.  Only if circumstances are such that “the influences that the senders are able to assert” are “beneficial to the receiver” will the cognitive systems of the receiver be properly activated as a function of his or her positive affective experiences. If on the other hand, the circumstances are such that the sender’s vocalizations are “costly to the receiver” or “detrimental to” his or her “overall fitness, natural selection will favor adaptations that decrease those costs.” 

To answer a question from a dominant NVB sender, it is adaptive for the subordinate receiver to produce SVB. Thus, SVB is a function of warding off the NVB sender and out of our increased ability to become better at this and to be safe, our cognitive abilities are believed to have emerged. The less we were bothered by threats and the more we prolonged our positive affective states became, the more our cognitive abilities could flourish.

“A number of relevant principles have been identified in this regard, including constraints imposed by the transmission of the environment in which calls are used (e.g. Brown, Gomez & Waser, 1995) possible relationships among acoustic gradedness, and the degree to which signals in other modalities compliment the acoustic event (e.g. Green & Marler, 1997; Marler, 1975) and a general relationship between the acoustic of calls and sender state (Morton, 1977, 1982).  All of these effects are explained by the Affect Conditioning Model (ACM), but they are even better explained by the SVB/NVB distinction, which clarifies the relationship between form and function, that is, “the bewildering variety of acoustic form and repertoire design among primates” and human beings. 

To the extent that we understand our own Pavlovian anticipatory affective reactions “in response to upcoming events” we will be able to acknowledge that “affective responses play a central role in such learning.” As long as we don’t realize that NVB continues to make us talk and write only in a NVB manner, we are unable to comprehend that another way of conditioning, with SVB, would have led to totally different and more positive results.   

The crucial role played by “acoustic cues to individual identity in vocal communication processes” is well-established and “evidence of either discrimination or explicit recognition of individuals is available from several species” (e.g. Snowdon, 1986; Rendall, Rodman, Emond, 1996). 

Although there is significant evidence that “Adult primates, particularly females, make use of individually distinctive acoustic cues in calls in coming to the aid of related individuals or unrelated allies involved in agonistic social encounters” and primate behavior is generally shaped by “kinship relationship and interaction histories (see Smuths, Cheney, Seyfarth, Wrangham, & Struhsaker, 1987; Cheney & Seyfarth, 1990), nobody is paying attention to the primate in the room: humans influence each other with their sound. These researchers are trying to get the proposal accepted that “primates produce affective vocalizations in conspecifics receivers, thereby influencing the subsequent behavior of those animals,” but they will only succeed if we know about the SVB/NVB distinction.

July 9, 2015

July 9, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is the second writing about findings that were published by Owren and Rendall in “An affect conditioning model of nonhuman primate vocal signaling” (1997) and “The organizing principles of vocal production”  (2010). Yesterday I discussed the asymmetry between sender and receiver, which is as true for primates as for human beings. “The subordinate individual has less opportunity to shape the outcome of an interaction, especially in the case of agonistic encounters.” The subordinate human who tries to shape the outcome of an interaction may risk losing his job. 

The “unconditioned effects of calling” on which the subordinate is believed to rely under such circumstances, is an perfect example of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), while in “affiliative situations” he or she will be able to resort to Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) by “exploiting both conditioned and unconditioned responses.” Furthermore, “based on learning theory, it is expected that acoustic cues to individual identity are important mediators of conditioned affects occurring in receivers.”

“As these responses are shaped by the history of interactions between any two animals, the identity of a caller is a crucial determinant of the significance of a vocalization for a given receiver.” These distinctive, most stable cues, which signify the caller’s identity to the receiver, include “features related to vocal-tract filtering, meaning characteristic amplification and attenuation effects produced by cavities located above the larynx.” These cues consist of “low –frequency, tonal calls with rich harmonic structure and noisy vocalizations of intermediate amplitude.” These sounds are referred to as “sonants and gruffs.” This resembles SVB. 

“High-frequency tonal calls and high-amplitude noisy vocalizations”, however, ”appear to be poorly suited for vocal-tract filtering.” Such NVB sounds are called “squeaks, shrieks and screams.” It is necessary to recognize that such ‘ancient’ vocalizations occur in humans that these sounds determine who is influencing who in our social hierarchy. 

"The acoustic design of primate vocal repertoire” constrains both the elicitation of “unconditioned and conditioned effects.”Something similar is happening in humans, who also produce “bouts of acoustically potent vocalizations, with both repetition and variability shown in the call stream.”

Just like primates, human speakers use vocalizations “to elicit conditioned responses.” However, SVB vocalizations, as they are more attuned, refined and sensitive and also more articulate, “take advantage of any such learning that has already been instilled” more so than NVB vocalizations. The kind of learning that NVB instills is blunt and unsophisticated and always resulting in counter-control as it is based on coercion and forcefulness, but  learning instilled with SVB does never result in such responses.

Since humans and primates recognize each other by how they sound, humans would say that someone doesn’t sound like him or herself, if his or her voice is different from how they usually experience it. “The inclusion of discrete, salient cues to individual identity is paramount.” 

Similarities of the approaches investigating primate communication are overlooked, because a functional account of how vocal signals are used is not widely accepted among animal researchers. This matter is "discussed" by these authors in writing, but not in an actual conversation. When they assume a “well-established, species-typical communication system”, in which “signaling occurs because it has in the evolutionary past provided a net benefit to the fitness interests of the sender by influencing the immediate or later behavior of the receiver,” they are not sitting across from each other, so that they can see and hear and immediately respond to each other. 

The immense difference between writing and reading versus talking and listening is overlooked. As long as this is the case, this “communication system” will not be acknowledged. As long as primate and non-primate researchers continue to write more than talk, they will not be able to acknowledge that their academically sanctioned lack of talking increases NVB and decreases SVB. Most scientific writing is based on NVB and this has turned people away from studying and from become a scientist.