August 7, 2015

August 7, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing is my seventh response to “Talker-specific learning in speech perception” by Nygaard and Pisoni (1998). I agree with the authors that “the abstractionist approach to speech perception and spoken language recognition” which “ suggests that the traditional view of perceptual normalization and its long-standing emphasis on the search for abstract, canonical linguistic units as the endpoint of perception may need to be reconsidered or abandoned entirely.” However, this is only likely going to happen if we change the way in which we talk. 

Only if we recognize the “abstractionist approach” as representing Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) will we be able to replace it with Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Although it is encouraging to read that “Over the last few years, a number of researchers have demonstrated that stimulus variability is a rich source of information that is encoded and stored in memory

along with the linguistic content of a talker’s utterance", this doesn’t result into the new SVB way of talking. It makes a few of the experts read and write more about talking, but it doesn’t and it can’t do anything to increase talking, or, more precisely, to increase SVB and to decrease NVB. 

The finding that speech perception “employs highly detailed and specific encodings of speech which preserve many attributes of the acoustic signal” only makes sense while we speak. It cannot, it was not and it will not be expressed in NVB. If we are going to express this knowledge appropriately while we talk, we must learn to have SVB. As we haven’t learned to create and maintain SVB and as we are only beginning to become aware of its possibility, it is crucially important that this writing results into speaking, because if it doesn’t, it will only further enhance NVB, which perpetuates the separation between speaker and listener, organism and environment. 

August 6, 2015

August 6, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is my sixth response to“Talker-specific learning in speech perception” by Nygaard and Pisoni (1998). These researchers give a good example of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) by stating that “variation” in “talker identity” is “assumed to be stripped away so that the listener can arrive at canonical representations that underlie further linguistic analysis.” 

Lack of variation and rigidity of “talker identity” goes hand in hand with "the assumption that the end product of perception is a series of abstract, symbolic, idealized, linguistic units." This assumption is from the NVB talker’s superior point of view. These authors call it “the abstractionist's approach to speech perception.” I totally agree with them that this approach, with “its emphasis on context-free processing units, falls short of providing a satisfactory explanation for the relationship between the processing of linguistic content and the analysis of a talker’s voice," by the listener.

We must focus on how the speaker sounds, because that determines if we (talkers as well as listeners) will engage in SVB or NVB. “A separate body of research has addressed the perception and identification of talker identity, viewing the speech signal as simply a carrier of talker information.” This so-called "perception" is in reality a form of dissociation in the listener. 

During NVB, the listener has no other choice than to try to separate what is said from how it is said, so that the NVB speaker can continue to dominate and intimidate him or her. If the listener would not be doing this, he or she would be punished by the speaker for not listening or for being distracted. 

However, by connecting “talker information” with listener’s perception, that is, by joining speaking and listening behavior or by listening to ourselves while we speak, we will attain SVB. These researchers should consider it to be a NVB assumption that “talker identification and perception” must involve “a distinct set of perceptual mechanisms which operate on attributes of the acoustic speech signal that are separate and autonomous from the attributes that underlie spoken word recognition of the linguistic message.”

August 5, 2015

August 5, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is my fifth response to “Talker-specific learning in speech perception” by L.C. Nygaard and D.B. Pisoni (1998). The reason that “traditionally” the “perception of linguistics concepts of speech —the words, phrases, and sentences of an utterance — has been studied separately from the perception of talker identity” is because of what I call Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), our usual way of talking in which this separation is created and maintained. Perhaps I should say ‘imagined and believed’, because NVB is always based on fictitious knowledge. 

“Talker identity” has not been given much attention. If we did that, we would have to acknowledge that in most our so-called interactions the speaker is aversively affecting the listener. To focus on “talker identity” requires that we take a listener’s perspective of the speaker. This would make us realize that the “perception of linguistic concepts of speech” is not, for the most part, determined by the listener, but by the speaker. 

In NVB the speaker can blame the listener for not understanding him or her. In SVB, by contrast, it is not the adjustment of the listener to the speaker, but it is the adjustment of the speaker to the listener, which makes the speech more effective. The authors write that “variability” in “talker identity” is considered to be “a perceptual problem that listeners must solve if they are to recover the linguistic constituents that carry meaning." This view elevates the speaker above the listener and relieves him or her of having to think about why he or she may not be understood. 

Only during NVB listeners are always blamed for not listening, for not paying attention, for not being obedient to the speaker, but nobody talks about the important, completely ignored fact that NVB speakers are not listening to themselves while they speak. Once we look into the “talking identity” of the NVB speaker, we find that he or she demands that others listen to him or to her, as he or she lacks the skill to listen to him or herself.

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.

August 3, 2015

August 3, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is my third response to “Talker-specific learning in speech perception” by L.C. Nygaard and D.B. Pisoni (1998). In the abstract the researcher state “We found that perceptual learning of novel voices from sentence-length utterances improved speech intelligibility for words in sentences. Generalization and transfer from voice learning to linguistic processing was found to be sensitive to the talker-specific information available during learning and test. These findings demonstrate that increased sensitivity to talker-specific information affects the perception of the linguistic properties of speech in isolated words and sentences.” 

The “talker-specific information” which “affects the perception of the linguistic properties of speech” is whether the speaker sounds good or not. If he or she doesn’t sound good, the listener is experiencing the negative effects of NVB, but if he or she sounds good, the listener is experiencing the positive effects of SVB. Moreover, as we know from the animal researchers Owren and Rendall, if the sender sounds good, he or she induces a positive affective experience in the listener, but if he or she sounds threatening, he or she induces a negative affective experience in the receiver. 

The fact that “Generalization and transfer from voice learning to linguistic processing was found to be sensitive to the talker-specific information available during learning and test” tells us that there is an important link between what we say and how we say it. We are, however, inclined to ignore this link, because we are used to NVB in which supposedly only the content matters. Even if listeners don’t realize this, they are always affected by how speakers speak, that is, by the speaker sounds. 

The listener’s “increased sensitivity to talker-specific information affects the perception of the linguistic properties of speech in isolated words and sentences.” Increased sensitivity in the listener depends very much on the talker; a NVB talker decreases and ignores the listener's sensitivity.