Baby cries and dog barks
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Are nonlinear vocal phenomena as distracting as people think?
Andrey Anikin, ORCID Icon Bioacoustics The International Journal of Animal Sound and its Recording (18 Sep 2025)
Keywords
Roughness vocal communication attention infant cries auditory salience nonlinear vocal phenomena
Abstract
What makes baby cries, dog barks and piercing screams so disturbing and difficult to ignore? A common explanation is that their salience is enhanced by vocal roughness and unpredictability caused by irregular phonation. A comprehensive investigation in ten perceptual experiments confirmed that human listeners found nonlinear vocal phenomena (NLP: frequency jumps, amplitude modulation, subharmonics and chaos) distracting and annoying in baby cries and nonverbal vocalisations of adults, including both original recordings and resynthesised versions with manipulated NLP. At least for the tested range of vocalisations, the distraction and annoyance were primarily caused by irregular, rough voice quality during episodes of NLP, and only secondarily by unpredictability and bifurcations between phonatory regimes. In contrast to their clear effects on subjective ratings, NLP had a limited impact on the allocation of attention in dichotic listening tasks, and their presence did not noticeably enhance distraction from the main task in experiments using serial recall and speeded classification. Thus, while irregular phonation typical of distressed baby cries and many animal calls is experienced as unpleasant and subjectively distracting, listeners may be surprisingly adept at blocking or actively avoiding such distractors.
Selected readings
- "Canine intonations" (3/21/22)
- "Annoyed dog responding to the Islamic 'Call to Prayer'" (12/29/15) — this is a classic, but presently not available on YouTube. Does anyone know where else it might be found? [UPDATE 9/22/22: found it here]
- "Canine backtalk" (10/25/19) — this darling dog could have a conversation of sorts with Izzy, but they speak different lects.
- "Talking seals and singing dogs" (11/28/03)
- If you do a search on "language log" dog barks you'll find a lot more posts on talking dogs.
- "Baby talk" (12/21/10)
- "Baby talk, part 2" (8/19/18)
- "The babbling phase: ranting toddler speaks out" (9/2/10)
- "Ask LL: parents' beliefs or infants' abilities?" (10/29/09)
- "Native wails" (11/6/09)
First paragraph:
—
"Newborns cry in their native language".
"Babies cry with an accent within the first week of life".
"Babies cry wiith the same 'prosody' or melody used in their native language by the second day of life".
"Newborn babies mimic the intonation of their native tongue when they cry".
"French babies cry in French, German babies cry in German and, no doubt, the wail of an English infant betrays the distinct tones of a soon-to-be English speaker".
—
[Thanks to Ted McClure]
Victor Mair said,
September 22, 2025 @ 4:24 pm
Remembering all the Language Log posts about talking birds:
A Historical Taxonomy of Talking Birds in Chinese Literature
by Wilt Idema
Description
Parrots and mynahs have played a unique role in Chinese literature for two millennia. These birds that can talk and interact intelligently with their owners were treasured as pets both in the palace and in private homes. The caged birds were pitied for their homesickness but praised for their eagerness to serve. Over time they developed into exemplars of Confucian values such as filial piety and loyalty, and they also featured prominently in tales of love and war. Closely associated with Buddhism from early on, the parrot proved itself an effective preacher of the Dharma and became the favorite bird of the bodhisattva Guanyin.
In this wide-ranging thematic study, Wilt L. Idema traces the development of the parrot and the mynah as characters in many forms of poetry and prose of Chinese elite literature, as well as in the long narrative ballads of traditional popular literature. The book provides complete renditions of Mi Heng’s (173–198) Rhapsody on the Parrot, the anonymous Tale of the Parrot’s Filial Piety of the fifteenth century, and the anonymous Precious Scroll of the Parrot of late-imperial times. An epilogue discusses the disappearance of the parrot in modern Chinese literature.
Author
Wilt L. Idema is Professor of Chinese Literature, Emeritus, at Harvard University.
Book Details
316 pages, 15 illus./12 color illus.
6 x 9 inches
Harvard University Asia Center
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674298675
Robot Therapist said,
September 23, 2025 @ 7:59 am
"Closely associated with Buddhism from early on, the parrot proved itself an effective preacher of the Dharma and became the favorite bird of the bodhisattva Guanyin."
Well, I learn something new every day!
Yves Rehbein said,
September 23, 2025 @ 11:49 am
To compare dog barks to baby cries as a control seems useful. For example, I remember a well recommended psychology lecture noting a kind of aphasia that left people the ability to swear because, apparently, that is to cry in pain (already wanted to say that about "Ou(ch)", May 4, 2025).
If the conclusion is that the test subjects were not distracted by the experiment, I wonder if they should rather use my neighbors for a source of noise. People who eat plastic wrapped crunchy-bars in the library are a similar matter. Long rant omitted – It stands to reason, response to cries must happen at a lowly stage of evolution, say, close to sleep.
Talk about the early bird. I've had a rooster next door– is that how the British term became an insult? Because half asleep I could see myself turn its neck.