On Wed, 24 Oct 2012 08:29:08 -0700, Patrick Dolan wrote: >I just covered Language in my Intro class and was interested to learn from the >book that chimpanzee vocalizations are made while inhaling, not exhaling. I >made an offhand comment about it to my primatologist wife who skeptically asked >for a reference. Turns out the book doesn't offer one. If that weren't >bothersome enough, I can't find any support for this claim online. Scholar >books pulled up a quote from Terrence Deacon's The symbolic species: The >co-evolution of language and the brain (a book I've found credible on other >language issues) in which he wrote "chimps vocalize on both the outbreath and >the inbreath" (p. 250; but no reference either). >Anybody?
This not my area of interest in language but the first text appears to be wrong while Deacon's claim appears to be more consistent with literature that I have been able to find. A relevant reference is the following: MacLarnon, A. M., & Hewitt, G. P. (1999). The evolution of human speech: The role of enhanced breathing control. American journal of physical anthropology, 109(3), 341-363. I note that the above ref was published in 1999 and may be somewhat dated. I quote the following: |Precise comparisons of breathing patterns |during human speech and nonhuman primate |sequences of vocalizations are difficult |for a number of reasons. The most important |of these is that most researchers who have |worked on nonhuman primate vocalizations |have not focused on breathing related to |vocalization, and hence information in this |area is often only available incidentally, or |has to be estimated from sonograms selected |and reproduced for other purposes. What |evidence there is suggests that sequences of |varied, discrete sounds are commonly produced |by nonhuman primates on a series of |both inspirations and expirations, with only |single sound units expressed on individual |air movements (e.g., pant hoot, Pan troglodytes |(Marler and Hobbett, 1975; Marler |and Tenaza, 1977; Clark and Wrangham, |1993); sections of gibbon songs, Hylobates |spp. (Geissmann, 1993; Gittins, 1984; Haimoff, |1983, 1984); whoop gobble, Cercocebus |spp. (Waser, 1982); two-phase or roar grunt, |Papio spp. (Andrew, 1963a,b; Byrne, 1981, |1982); gecker, Macaca fuscata (Green, 1975); |loud low-pitched calls, Callicebus moloch |(Robinson, 1979); grunt series, Eulemur fulvus |and Nycticebus coucang (Andrew, 1963a); |click-grunt, Otolemur crassicaudatus and |Perodicticus potto (Andrew, 1963a)), rather |than multiple units on extended expirations, |which is the human pattern. This |qualitative distinction implies that the interrelationship |between vocalization and |breathing is very different in our species. Again, more recent research may paint a different picture but chimpanzees do appear to use inhalations and exhalations in making vocalizations but how they use them is different from that of humans. Also see page 227 from "The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution" Edited by Maggie Tallerman, Kathleen R. Gibson which is available on books.google.com; the link below should take you to the relevant page: http://books.google.com/books?id=GjU_FeDArjwC&pg=PA227&dq=chimpanzee+speech+articulation+inhalation&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3hiIUJ7-EMK_0AHauYHYDg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=chimpanzee%20speech%20articulation%20inhalation&f=false On something of a sidenote, Falk covers a lot of ground in his review of "Mothese" in humans and primates in the following article: Falk, D. (2004). Prelinguistic evolution in early hominins: Whence motherese?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(4), 491-502. Falk at one point makes a comparison between humans and chimpanzee laughter. I quote from the article: |Provine (1996; 2000) notes that chimpanzee laughter |has the sound and cadence of a handsaw cutting wood, and |differs from that of humans in the way that sounds are typically |related to the airstream. The vowel-like notes of human |laughter (e.g., “ha”) “are performed by chopping a single |expiration, whereas chimpanzee laughter is a breathy |panting vocalization that is produced during each brief expiration |and inspiration” (Provine 1996, p. 40). Chimpanzee |laughter also lacks the vowel-like notes that typify |human laughter. In other words, unlike the norm for humans, |chimpanzees breathe in and out as they produce a |breathy, panting laughter. (In a personal communication, |however, Phillip Tobias noted that the late Louis Leakey |had a marvelous belly laugh that was vocalized on both the |exhale and the inhale, an anecdote which shows that the |classic human “ha-ha” laugh is a central theme around |which variation occurs.) Provine suggests that chimpanzee- |like laughter was present in the common ancestor |of apes and humans. If so, it would have been an important |component of mother-infant communication in early hominins. >More generally, has anybody contacted an author when you find >problems with the text? Well, you can ask David Myer who apparently reads TiPS from time to time about taking the Freudian Iceberg picture out of the his textbook. It can, however, prove to be somewhat embarassing depending upon the nature of the problem. Fred Kerlinger is known for his textbook "Foundations of Behavioral Research" which has gone through several editions. The last edition, I believe published in 2000 and updated by Howard Lee (I think that Kerlinger had died and the Lee was chosen by the publisher to make the updates). For reasons that are unclear, a research study by Miller and DiCara on conditioning of autonomic functioning was used as an example without any indication that there was considerable doubt about the validity of the research. I emailed the author who said he was unaware of the issues involved and said if there was a new edition, it would be corrected. There have been no subsequent editions that I know of. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=21273 or send a blank email to leave-21273-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
