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Recently someone mentioned on If you believe, as I do, that stuttering is fundamentally the result of stress/tension-sensitive muscles of the vocal folds (also known as vocal cords) that "lock" when over-tensed, it makes sense that cold weather could make stuttering worse.

Other, non-human primates have Broca's and Wernicke's areas in their brains, as do humans. In both species, the Broca's region represents non-linguistic hand and mouth movements. Evidence also suggests that both species may have mirror neurons in this region that are involved in understanding the actions and intentions of others. In both macaques and humans, this region is likely involved in producing orofacial expressions and in understanding the intentions behind orofacial expressions of others. In humans, it has evolved an additional communicative function, namely speech production. Interestingly however, it does not appear to be involved in monkey vocalizations, which are instead mediated by limbic and brainstem areas. In both species, the region represents non-linguistic hand and mouth movements. Evidence also suggests that both species may have mirror neurons in this region that are involved in understanding the actions and intentions of others. In both macaques and humans, this region is likely involved in producing orofacial expressions and in understanding the intentions behind orofacial expressions of others. In humans, it has evolved an additional communicative function, namely speech production. However, unlike in humans, Broca's area does not appear to be involved in monkey vocalizations, which are instead mediated by limbic and brainstem areas. Regarding Wernicke's area, which is responsible for language comprehension in humans, evidence suggests that the left superior temporal gyrus is specialized for processing species-specific calls in macaques, just as it is specialized for speech comprehension in humans.

This article gives a nice overview of how different animals can utilize vocalizations in meaningful ways (vocal mimicry), a behavior that's the precursor to human speech and language.

In April 2010, Adriano Lameira set up his video camera in front of an enclosure at Cologne Zoo in Germany. Inside was an orangutan called Tilda. There was a rumour that Tilda could whistle like a human, and Lameira, of Amsterdam University in the Netherlands, was keen to capture it on camera. The results of this experiment were shocking and led to the question "can animals talk like humans?"

"Humans may love music, biologically speaking, because it mimics the sounds of our own voices. Neuroscientists say the use of 12 tone intervals in the music of many human cultures is rooted in the physics of how our vocal anatomy produces speech and conveys emotion." The study: http://purveslab.net/publications/bowling_purves_2009.pdf

A study shows evidence that bats may have dialects, like humans. Researchers studied vocal learning in bat pups.

Research from Columbia Business School professors Adam Galinsky and Michael Slepian shows that merely saying a name aloud sparks an instant connection to a specific gender, evoking a cascading pattern of stereotypical judgments about the masculinity or femininity of an individual, often in the first second of hearing a spoken name. "Names give cues to social categories, which in turn, activate stereotypes," says Slepian. "By considering how names symbolically represent stereotypes, we link sounds to social perception. The most basic social category division is gender and the most distinction between phonemes (the sounds that make up words) is voiced versus unvoiced. We found that female and male names differ phonetically." The Columbia Business School researchers believe that names become established as for males or females through their spoken sounds. They conducted eleven studies focused on distinguishing the different sounds of spoken names. The findings provide consistent evidence that voiced names (those pronounced with vocal cord vibration which often sound "harder") such as "Gregory," "James," and "William" are given more frequently to males, and unvoiced names (those pronounced without vocal cord vibration which often sound "softer" and breathier) such as "Heather," "Sarah," and "Tiffany" are more frequently given to females. These name assignments fit stereotypical gender categories - men as "hard" and tough, and women as "soft" and tender. The researchers also noted other naming trends, namely 1. A rise in gender-neutral names. 2. Parents are more likely to give their baby a name that has recently grown in popularity. 3. Parents often give names that phonetically resemble their social category. 4. Female names go in and out of style faster than male names. 5. Current naming inspiration includes social media and technology, celestial themes, and royal birth announcements.

Teachers can use music to deepen the learning environment in a literacy classroom. Many commonalities exist between music and literacy, especially in the pre-K to second grade years, and therefore music education is a vital element in children's literary development. Here are some areas that reading and music both address: 1. Development of auditory processes 2. Visual decoding processes 3. Vocabulary growth occurs whenever students are exposed to new material, like a story or a song. Putting new information into a musical context can also help student memory. 4. Poetry: vocal music is essentially poetry set to a melody 5. Building confidence in performance, whether it's vocal or instrumental.

A new form of therapy makes use of virtual therapists, who have the capacity to read facial expressions, vocal patterns, body posture, and speech tones. Cleo Stiller, host of Asking For A Friend, said in a video, "[The virtual therapist]'s also interpreting my speech in real time. Am I using positive or negative language? [the therapist] adjusts her questions based off of my responses." The benefit of virtual therapy is that it removes some of the stigmas associated with "seeing a shrink," and allows people to feel more open with their feelings and problems... at least, that's the idea.

New ways to grab dinner, the trick to using a tool, and learning the local dialect. These are behaviors that animals pick up from each other. K iller whales, chimpanzees, and birds seem to have a cultural component to their lives. Now a new study suggests that sperm whales should be added to that list.

This study shows that language doesn't only consist of words, but can also consist of sounds. People have different styles of language and understand people in different ways from different countries around the world.

With five distinct kinds of clicks, multiple tones and strident vowels - vocalized with a quick choking sound - the Taa language, spoken by a few thousand people in Botswana and Namibia, is believed by most linguists to have the largest sound inventory of any tongue in the world.

"...scientists found that different toddler sounds - or "vocalizations" - emerge and fade in a definite rhythm in the course of a tantrum. "We have the most quantitative theory of tantrums that has ever been developed in the history of humankind" ... where one age-old theory of tantrums might suggest that meltdowns begin in anger (yells and screams) and end in sadness (cries and whimpers), Potegal found that the two emotions were more deeply intertwined. ... The trick in getting a tantrum to end as soon as possible, Potegal said, was to get the child past the peaks of anger. Once the child was past being angry, what was left was sadness, and sad children reach out for comfort. The quickest way past the anger, the scientists said, was to do nothing."

"Researchers identified subtle variations caused by differences in the shape of individual whales' heads. It's the first time that sperm whale vocalizations have been linked to specific individuals. ... While the whales tended to possess the same basic repertoire of "codas" - the technical name for each distinctive series of clicks - one female had a completely different set. ... The question of whether it's appropriate to think of sperm whales as having names is a controversial one. Some scientists think that many cetaceans should be considered persons ..." See also "Sperm Whales Really Do Learn From Each Other" (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/sperm-whales/) - "Yes, sperm whale culture really is culture."

An interesting story--my students, you might recall Sheryl Turkle of MIT referencing robot therapists in her TED talk. USC has developed a robot therapist, Ellie, designed to talk to people who are struggling emotionally, and to take their measure in a way no human can. Originally developed to work with military PTSD patients, Ellie's purpose: to gather information and provide real human therapists detailed analysis of patients' movements and vocal features, in order to give new insights into people struggling with emotional issues. The body, face and voice express things that words sometimes obscure. Ellie's makers believe that her ability to do this will ultimately revolutionize American mental health care.

Emoticons - representations of facial expressions using colons, dashes, parentheses and other text symbols - originated in the days of the telegraph as a substitute for the facial expressions, hand gestures and vocal clues for different emotions that humans pick up during in-person meetings. Because printed words alone can't always convey the full emotional meaning of a conversation, emoticons have evolved into a separate language, especially with the world increasingly relying on texting, tweeting and e-mail. Called Stickers, Facebook's emoticons were born out of more than two years of research into the compassion of Facebook members, then fine-tuned by scientists specializing in human facial expressions. And while they were inspired by evolutionist Charles Darwin's studies in the mid-19th century, Facebook believes they could be a vital part of human-to-human relationships in the digital 21st century.