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A | Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science based tools for everyday life. |
B | I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, my guest is Doctor Eric Jarvis. Doctor Jarvis is a professor at the Rockefeller University in New York City, and his laboratory studies the neurobiology of vocal learning, language, speech disorders, and, r... |
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A | So I gave the waking up app a try, and I too found it. |
B | To be extremely useful because sometimes I only have a few minutes to meditate, other times I have longer to meditate. And indeed, I love the fact that I can explore different types of meditation to bring about different levels of understanding about consciousness, but also to place my brain and body into lots of diffe... |
A | Eric, so great to have you here. |
C | Thank you. |
A | Very interested in learning from you about speech and language. And even as I asked the question, I realized that a lot of people, including myself, probably don't fully appreciate the distinction between speech and language. Speech I think of as the motor patterns, the production of sound that has meaning, hopefully, ... |
C | Yeah, well, I'm glad you invited me here, and I'm also glad to get that first question, which I consider a provocative one. The reason why I've been struggling. What is the difference with speech and language for many years? And realize why am I struggling is because there are behavioral terms, let's call them psycholo... |
A | Fascinating, because you've raised a number of animal species early on here, and because I have basically an obsession with animals since the time I was very small, I have to ask, which animals have language? Which animals have modes of communication that are sort of like language? Yeah, you know, I've heard whale song... |
C | Right. So modes of communication that people would define as language more very, in a very narrow definition, they would say production of sounds. So speech and. But what about the hands to gesturing with the hands? What about a bird who is doing aerial displays in the air, communicating information through body langua... |
A | Very clear and very interesting, and immediately prompts the question, have there been brain imaging or other sorts of studies evaluating neural activity in the context of cultures and languages, at least that I associate with a lot of hand movement, like Italian versus, I don't know, maybe you could give us some examp... |
C | Yes. So, as you and I are talking here today, and people who are listening but can't see us, we're actually gesturing with our hands as we talk, without knowing it or doing it unconsciously. And if we were talking on a telephone, I would have one hand here and I would be gesturing with the other hand without even you s... |
A | I see. One thing that I've wondered about for a very long time is whether or not primitive emotions and primitive sounds are the early substrate of language, and whether or not there's a bridge that we can draw between those in terms of just the basic respiration systems associated with different extreme feelings. Here... |
C | No, it's not a crazy idea. And in fact, you hit upon one of the key distinctions in the field of research that I started out in, which is vocal learning research. So for vocal communication, you have most vertebrate species vocalize, but most of them are producing innate sounds that they're born with. Producing, that i... |
A | As well, do we have any sense of when modern or sophisticated language evolved? Thinking back to the species that we evolved from and even within homo sapiens, has there been an evolution of language? Has there been a devolution of language? |
C | Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would say. And to be able to answer that question, it does come with the caveat that I think we humans overrate ourselves when it compared to other species. And so it makes even scientists go astray in trying to hypothesize, when you especially don't find fossil evidence of language that easily out ... |
A | Incredible. Maybe we could talk a little bit more about the overlap between brain circuits that control language and speech in humans and other animals. I was weaned in the neuroscience era, where birdsong and the ability of birds to learn their tutor song was, and still is a prominent field subfield of neuroscience. A... |
C | Yeah. So, going back to the 1950s or even a little earlier, Peter Mahler and others who got involved in neuroethology, the study of neurobiology of behavior in a natural way, they start to find that, behaviorally, there are these species of birds, like songbirds and parrots. And now we also know hummingbirds, just thre... |
A | Incredible. I have to ask, do Hummingbirds sing or DO they hum? |
C | Hummingbirds hum with their wings and sing. |
A | With their syrinx in a coordinated way. |
C | In a coordinated way. There's some species of hummingbirds that actually will. Doug Aschwiller showed this, that will flap their wings and create a slapping sound with their wings that's in unison with their song. And you would not know it, but it sounds like a particular syllable in their songs, even though it's their... |
A | Hummingbirds are clapping to their song. |
C | Clapping. They're snapping their wings together in unison with a song to make it like, if I'm going, ba da da da da ba da, and I banged on the table, except they make it almost sound like their voice with their wings. |
A | Incredible. |
C | Yes. And they got, some of the smaller. |
A | Kids would say, mind blown, right? |
C | Yes. |
A | Incredible. |
C | Yes. |
A | Incredible. I love hummingbirds, and I always feel like it's such a special thing to get in a moment to see one, because they move around so fast and they flit away so fast in these ballistic trajectories that when you get to see one stationary for a moment or even just hovering there, you feel like you're extracting s... |
C | Exactly. And what's amazing about hummingbirds and I'm going to say vocal learning, species in general, is that for whatever reason, they seem to evolve multiple complex traits. This idea that evolving language, spoken language in particular, comes along with a set of specializations. |
A | Incredible. When I was coming up in neuroscience, I learned that, I think it was the work of Peter Marler that young birds learn. Songbirds learn their tutor song and learn it quite well, but that they could learn the song of another tutor. In other words, they could learn a different. And for the listeners, I'm doing ... |
C | That is true, yes. And that's what I learned growing up as well, and talked to Peter Mahler himself about before he passed. He used to call it the innate predisposition to learn. All right, so which would be kind of the equivalent in the linguistic community of universal grammar. There is something genetically influenc... |
A | Fantastic. |
C | So there's. It has something to do with also the social bonding with your own species. |
A | Incredible. That raises a question that I based on something I also heard, but I don't have any scientific, peer reviewed publication to point to, which is this idea of pigeon, not the bird, but this idea of when multiple cultures and languages converge in a given geographic area, that the children of all the different... |
C | I haven't studied enough myself in terms of pidgin specifically, but in terms of cultural evolution of language and hybridization between different cultures and so forth, even amongst birds with different dialects, and you bring them together. What is going on here is cultural evolution, remarkably, tracks genetic evol... |
A | So we've got brain circuits in songbirds and in humans that in many ways are similar, perhaps not in their exact wiring, but in their basic contour of wiring, and genes that are expressed in both sets of neural circuits in very distinct species that are responsible for these phenomena we're calling speech and language.... |
C | You're pretty good. Yeah, you've made some very good guesses there. That makes sense. So, yes, one of the things that differ in the speech pathways of us and these song pathways of birds is some of the connections are fundamentally different than the surrounding circuits, like a direct cortical connection from the area... |
A | Yeah, it's interesting as you say that, because I realize that many aspects of speech are sort of reflexive. I'm not thinking about each word I'm gonna say. They just sort of roll out of my mouth, hopefully with some forethought. We both know people that seem to speak think less. Fewer synapses between their brain and ... |
C | So the answer to both of those questions is yes. But to explain this, I need to let you know, actually, the entire brain is undergoing a critical period development, not just the speech pathways. And so it's easier to learn how to play a piano, it's easier to learn how to ride a bike for the first time and so forth as ... |
A | I knew it. |
C | But we still go through the critical periods like they all do. And now the question you asked about if you learn more languages as a child, is it easier to learn as an adult? And that's a common finding out there in the literature. There are some that argue against it, but for those that support it, the idea there is y... |
A | I see. Incredible. |
C | So it's not like your brain has maintained greater plasticity, is your brain has maintained greater ability to produce different sounds that then allows you to learn another language faster. |
A | Got it. Are the hand gestures associated with sounds or with meanings of words? |
C | I think the hand gestures are associated with both the sounds and the meaning of when I say sound. Like, if you are really angry and you are making a loud, screaming noise, you may make hand gestures that look like you're going to beat the wall because you're making loud sounds and loud gestures. All right, but if you ... |
A | And for people that speak multiple languages, especially those that learn those multiple languages early in development, do they switch their patterns of motor movements according to, let's say, going from Italian to Arabic or from Arabic to French in a way that matches the precision of language that they're speaking? |
C | You know what? You just asked me a question I don't know the answer to. I would imagine that would make sense because of switching in terms of. Sometimes people might call this code switching, even different dialects of the same language. Could you do that with your gestures? I imagine so, but I really don't know if th... |
A | Well, I certainly don't know from my own experience because I only speak one language. |
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A | Two to go a little bit into the abstract, but not too far. What about modes of speech and language that seem to have a depth of emotionality and meaning, but for which it departs from structured language? Here's what I mean. Poetry. I think of musicians like there's some Bob Dylan songs that to me I understand the indi... |
C | Yep, absolutely. So we call this difference semantic communication. Communication with meaning and effective communication. Communication that has more of an emotional feeling content to it, but not with the semantics. And the two can be mixed up, like with singing words that have meaning but also have this effective e... |
A | A friend of mine who's also a therapist said to me, you know, it's possible to say I love you with intense hatred and to say I hate you with intense love, and reminding me that it's possible to hear both of those statements in either way. So I guess it's not just limited to song or poetry. It also, there's something ab... |
C | That's right. And I consider all of that actually meaning, even though I defined it as people commonly do, semantic and effective communication. Effective communication to say I hate you but meant love, right, does have emotional meaning to it. And so one's more like an object kind of meaning or an abstract kind of mea... |
A | How interesting. Well, that's a perfect segue for me to be able to ask you about your background and motor control, not only of the hands, but of the body. So you have a number of important distinctions to your name, but one of them is that you were a member of the Alvin Ailey Dance School of Dance. |
C | That's right. |
A | So you're an accomplished and quite able dancer. Right. Tell us a little bit about your background in the world of dance and as how it informs your interest in neuroscience. Excuse me. And perhaps even how it relates specifically to your work on speech and language. |
C | Yes. Well, it's interesting. And this kind of history even goes before my time. So in my family, my mother and father's side, they both went to the high school of music and Art here in New York City. And particularly my mother's family, going back multiple generations, they were singers. And I even did my family geneal... |
A | Is that right? |
C | That's right, yes. |
A | So I've seen these. I'm just scrolling through the files here. In my mind, I think about every once in a while, someone will. I love parrots. Every once in a while, someone will send me one of these little Instagram or Twitter videos of a parrot doing what looks to me like dance. Typically, it's a cockatoo. |
C | That's right. |
A | Right. |
C | That's right. |
A | Even foot stomping to the sound. |
C | Famous one called snowball out there. But there are many snowballs out there. |
A | All the dancing birds are named snowball. That's an interesting tactic. So only animals with language dance. |
C | Yeah. Vocal learning, in particular, the ability to imitate sounds. Yes. |
A | Incredible. |
C | Yes. And this now is bringing my life full circle. Right. And so when that was discovered in 2009, at that same time in my lab at Duke, we discovered that vocal learning brain pathways in songbirds as well as in humans and parrots. Right. Like snowball are embedded within circuits that control learning how to move. And... |
A | Incredible. And I have to say that as poor as I am at speaking multiple languages, I'm even worse at dancing. |
C | But I guarantee you're better than a monkey. |
A | But not snowball the cockatoo. |
C | Maybe not snowball. On YouTube, we have a video where there's some scientists dancing with snowball, and you'll see snowballs doing better than some of the scientists. |
A | Okay, well, as long as I'm not the worst of all scientists at dancing, there's always neuroplasticity. May it save me someday. You said something incredible that I completely believe, even though I have minimum to, let's just say minimum dancing ability. Okay. I can get by at a party or wedding without complete embarra... |
C | Yeah. Yeah. So let me define first, dance in this context of vocal learning species. This is the kind of dancing that we are specialized in doing. And the vocal learning species specialize in doing is synchronizing body movements of muscles to the rhythmic beat of music. And for some reason, we like doing that. We like... |
A | Singing, I always had the feeling that with certain forms of music, in particular opera, but any kind of music where there are some long notes sung, that at some level, there was a literal resonance created between the singer and the listener. Or I think of like, the deep voice of a Johnny cash, or where at some level,... |
C | I'm going to say possibly, yes. And the reason why is because I just came back from a conference on the neurobiology of dance. |
A | Clearly, I'm going to the wrong meetings. My colleague, vision science is so boring. |
C | Yes, well, one of my colleagues Tecumseh Fitch and Jonathan Fritz, they organized a particular section on this conference in Virginia. And this is the first time I was in the room with so many neuroscientists studying the neurobiology of dance. It's a new field now in the last five years. And there was one lab where th... |
A | I love it. So at least if I can't dance well, maybe I can hear and feel what it is to dance in a certain way. |
C | That's right. And this will be. Some people will think that even songs that they heard, and they can almost sing to themselves in their own head, and they know what they want it to sound like, and, you know, when it really sounds good, what it sounds like, but they can't get their voice to do it. |
A | I'm raising, for those listening, I'm raising my hand. No musical ability. Others in my household have tremendous musical ability with instruments and with voice, but not me. |
C | Yeah. And so this is one of my. One of my selfish goals of trying to find the genetics of why can some people sing really well and some not? Is there some genetic predisposition to that? And then can I modify my own muscles or brain circuits to sing better? |
A | You're still after the sing. I guess this is what happens when siblings vary in proficiency, is that competitiveness amongst brothers and sisters never goes away. |
C | I've been trying to be as good as my brother Mark and Victor for the. My entire life. |
A | Watch out, Mark and Victor. He's coming for you with neuroscience to back him. Earlier, you said that you discovered that you could dance. That caught my ear. It sounds like you didn't actually have to. I'm not suggesting you didn't work hard at it, but that at the moment where you discovered it, it just sort of was a ... |
C | Yeah, well, for me, there could be both explanations. Could be possible for the first. Yeah, I grew up in a family listening to Motown songs, dancing at parties and so forth. Family parties. An african american family, basically. So I grew up dancing from a young child. But this discovery, maybe dancing even more so in... |
A | I'm imagining family gatherings with 23 andme data and intense arguments about it. Innate and learned ability, fun, love to be in attendant. I'm not inviting myself to your Thanksgiving dinner, by the way, but I suppose I am. |
C | You're welcome, Tim. |
A | Thank you. I'll bring my 23 andme data. I'd love to chat a moment about facial expression. Cause that's a form of motor pattern that I think for most people out there, um, just think about smiling and frowning. But there are, of course, you know, thousands, if not millions of micro expressions and things of that sort, ... |
C | Yeah. |
A | So how does the motor circuitry that controls facial expression map onto the brain circuits that control language, speech, and even bodily and hand movements? |
C | You ask a great question, because we both know some colleagues, like Winrich Feivold at Rockefeller University, who study facial expression and the neurobiology behind it. And now we both share some students that were co mentoring and talk about this same question that you brought up. And what I'm learning a lot is tha... |
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