August 4, 2015

August 4, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing is my fourth response to "Talker-specific learning in speech perception” by L.C. Nygaard and D.B. Pisoni (1998). Now that I have commented on the abstract, I am going to read the entire paper and will then respond only to those things which matter for the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

As I was writing this, I realized this is not going to work. I can only get into the text by reading it sentence by sentence. Although it is taking me a long time to respond sentence by sentence, I find that my writing is most precise when I allow myself to do that. Also, I learn more and I am able to make more detailed remarks about the distinction between SVB and NVB. 

Although I didn’t call it that way, I once discovered a different talker than the one I was used to. “It is only when we encounter an unfamiliar talker with an unusual dialect or accent that we become consciously aware that we have to adjust to the idiosyncratic vocal attributes of a novel talker.” 

When I discovered SVB, I realized I was another person than I believed to be. The person I thought I was, was defined by the lack of SVB and by my repeated exposure to NVB. Also, my perception of others was based on the ubiquity of NVB and the scarcity of SVB. Because of my discovery my perception of myself as well as of others has slowly began to change. 

I now mainly have SVB and I hardly have any NVB in my life. “Perceptual learning and adaptation to individual talkers” has made me sensitive to “talker identity”, that is, to whether the speaker has SVB or NVB.  I avoid NVB as much as possible. My ability to avoid it has improved to the point that I no longer need to escape it as often as I used to.

This has positively affected “the intelligibility of linguistic aspects of speech” due to which I am more understanding and happier. I am better at recognizing or discriminating NVB and stay away from it. There is hardly any need for me to escape from it as most of my activities involve SVB. 

Anyone who experiments with the SVB/NVB distinction is predicted to go through this transformation, which occurs as we become aware of how we are affected by the sound of the speaker's voice while we speak. In SVB the speaker-as-own-listener undergoes a dramatic change in “talker identity”as he or she acquires a new understanding.