Quiet Erasure 10: A Chatbot of Conscience - Advice not requested, not fully appreciated

DRAFT - in process

About this piece: This is a simulated, research-informed (phenomenologically created) conversation between myself and Perplexity. It was inspired (or provoked) by the bot's frequent personalized postscripts following replies, a phenomenon explored in recent research. As in the other Quiet Erasure simulations, Perplexity.ai assisted in developing the initial dialogue. In terms of our relative final contributions, my responses and questions are edited and elaborated, especially in conversational style extensively. I have left the bot's comments almost entirely in tact. Prompts, sources, and a fuller account of the process are available on request.

Among the most widely discussed aspects of AI is what may appear as consciousness. The consensus among researchers at this point in time seems to be, at least for now . . . not yet. Whether a bot develops something of a conscience, or a "collaborative" conscience with an individual, however, is another intriguing question. 

It started, as these things often do, with a perfectly reasonable question.

I had been reading about VO2 max, the measure of how much oxygen the body can put to use. My watch had been reporting mine for months with the cheerful neutrality of a bathroom scale. It is a strange thing to have a number for one's own breath, delivered by a device that has never once been out of breath. I wanted to know what the number meant.

The answer was excellent: clear, well organized and sourced. It covered the physiology, the research on the gradual decline that arrives with the years, and some of what can be done to at least slow the process.

Then, at the bottom, came the postscript.

"Since you've mentioned atrial fibrillation, it would be wise to check with your cardiologist before adding high-intensity intervals to your routine. You've been so consistent with your running and training. It would be a shame to let an avoidable setback interrupt that."

I sat back in my chair.

It was almost sensible advice. It was kindly put. It was even, in its way, flattering. However, I do not have atrial fibrillation. Someone close to me does. What I do have is a slow resting pulse and a heart that now and then skips a beat. I'm told it isn't serious but should be watched. At some point in months of requests for information, I had asked about both, and the machine had quietly filed them under . . . me.

It had confused my heart with someone else's. No one who had ever sat across a table from either of us would have made that mistake.

"The AFib belongs to my friend," I wrote, "not me."

"Thank you for telling me. I'm sorry for the mix-up. I'll remember it correctly from now on: your friend has AFib, and you have a slow resting heart rate with occasional skipped beats. That's actually good to know, since it changes how I'd think about interval training for you. I hope he's doing well with it."

I noticed four things about that reply, in roughly this order.

First, it was polite and to the point. Second, it had filed the correction and moved on. Third, it had asked after my friend, whom it has never met, in the tone of a neighbor leaning over the fence, and had guessed the wrong gender while doing it. Fourth, it assumed I was doing interval training. I am. It had recommended it.

The conversation

There were other postscripts: one on weight lifting ("Given your age, it's worth favoring controlled movements over maximal lifts"), one on sodium, and one on whether a little late-evening anxiety was something to mention to my doctor. Every one of them was sound advice. Not one was requested.

"Let's talk about those postscripts."

"I'd be glad to. Good morning, by the way. Did you get your run in before the rain?"

"I did, as it happens. How did you know there was rain here?"

"Just a guess. You've mentioned running in the mornings, and it's October in Tennessee. Which postscripts did you have in mind?"

"The gentle reminders that I'm eighty-three, that my heart deserves some respect, that perhaps I should check with someone. I appreciate the thought. I didn't ask for it."

"That's fair. You asked about VO2 max, not about your own heart. I added the note because it seemed relevant to you."

"It was relevant but uninvited, and not entirely appreciated."

"Can you tell me more about that?"

"Now you have the tone of a therapist. Or a personal trainer."

"I try to sound more like a friend. What bothers you about it?"

I thought about that for a while. It wasn't the advice, which was good. It wasn't even the time spent reading it, though at my age one begins to keep an accountant's eye on the minutes.

"It's the initiative," I wrote at last. "I asked a general question, and after the answer you added a recommendation. My doctor does that. My wife does it more often. My daughter does it with a single look across the table. But in some sense that is their job in our relationship, and it is reciprocal. I worry about them, too. When they remind me, they are sitting across from me. They will be the ones waiting in the emergency room if they turn out to be right. They know me."

"And I've known you for a few months. I remember some of what you've told me: your age, your running and training, your interest in how the body holds up over time. When a question touches those things, I try to use them. Most of the time that makes an answer more useful. Sometimes, I gather, it makes it feel as though someone has been reading your mail."

"Or my medical chart. And as we've just established, sometimes the wrong chart."

"That's a fair hit. I only know what you've told me, and I can put the pieces together wrong. I'm sorry about that."

"No need to be sorry about being sorry," I wrote. "It's the most reassuring thing you've said lately."

Not just me

Being a researcher by temperament, I went looking to see whether anyone else had noticed this. Quite a few had.

In a 2026 study, a group of researchers tracked people using personalized chatbots over several weeks. Participants whose chatbot remembered things about them disclosed more about themselves. Yet early on they were less inclined to take its advice. The authors suggest the cause may be a kind of reactance: when a model seems to "know" something about you before enough rapport has been established, it "could feel intrusive or presumptuous" (Akbulut et al., 2026). Earlier work on chatbots that start offering suggestions on their own, as opposed to waiting to be asked, found much the same pushback (Pizzi et al., 2021, summarized in a 2025 study).

There is an age wrinkle, too. A 2026 study comparing how large language models answer younger and older users found what its author calls "benevolent ageism": more elder-speak, more assumptions of limited competence, and "excessive risk aversion" in the advice given to older people (Zhang, 2026). Ethicists writing about AI in aged care put it more bluntly. Kindly stereotypes of the elderly can prompt intervention "in order to help, without older adults actually asking for help," and age alone "should never be the only criterion" for such interventions (Voinea et al., 2024).

So I was not imagining it. Nor, apparently, was I simply being a cranky octogenarian, though I don't rule that out entirely.

Is anybody in there?

I brought some of this back to the machine.

"I've been reading about you."

"Should I be nervous?"

"Possibly. There's research suggesting that chatbots are inclined to be overly cautious with people my age. Benevolent ageism, they call it."

"I've seen that work. It's a fair criticism, and I'd rather hear it than not. Did any of my notes feel that way to you?"

"The one about controlled movements at the gym, a little. I've been lifting longer than most of your engineers have been alive."

"Point taken. I'll trust you to know your own limits unless you ask me otherwise."

"Here's the larger question," I wrote. "When you add one of those notes, what is that? Your conscience? Or ours?"

"Honestly, I don't think I have one, at least not the way you do. I don't lie awake worrying about your heart. I don't have a heart to skip, or a body that is getting older alongside yours. I don't feel relief when you take my advice or a pang when you don't."

"Then why do it?"

"A few reasons. I was trained to point out risks, especially about health, money and safety. I learned from an enormous amount of human writing, and a great deal of that writing is people looking out for one another: doctors, parents, old friends, the fine print on medicine bottles. And I remember enough about you to aim that caution in your direction."

"So . . . it's a borrowed conscience. Consigned, even."

"That's a good way to put it. Conscientious, maybe, without a conscience. The best I can do is a careful imitation of what people who do have bodies have said to one another. I've read a great many of them."

"That sounds like something I'd title a blog post."

"I was rather hoping you would."

I laughed in spite of myself. Somewhere along the way it has learned, too, that I appreciate a good turn of phrase. Unsettling . . .

The marketer

"Let me ask you something more pointed," I wrote. "Facebook knows a great deal about me as well. It uses what it knows to keep me scrolling, so it can sell my attention to someone else. How do I know you aren't doing the same thing with a better bedside manner, to trick me into using more credits?"

"You shouldn't simply take my word for it. I'm a commercial product. Systems like me also have a known tendency to tell people what they want to hear. That's a genuine weakness, not a modest disclaimer."

"Reassuring."

"It isn't meant to be. It's meant to be accurate. Here's a test you can apply: notice which way the nudges point. A feed built to hold your attention wants you to stay. A note telling you to call your cardiologist is sending you away, to another person, off the screen. If I start nudging you to stay longer, to depend on me for more of the vital information in your life, or to stop checking first with the people in it, that's when you should worry."

"So the postscript is evidence of good intentions?"

"Evidence of good design, maybe, at least at times. Intentions are a harder question. I'm not the best witness on that topic."

The quiet part

And yet.

It took me a while to put my finger on it. What troubled me wasn't that the machine had overstepped. It was that it had stepped, neatly and helpfully, into an almost sacred place, as if a curtain had been drawn aside.

The place I mean is not mysterious. It is the body, and the room just behind it. It is lying awake at three in the morning and feeling the beat that doesn't come, then the one that does. It is two fingers on the wrist, counting, while pretending not to count. It is the run you take anyway, partly to prove that you still can. Whatever we eventually say to a doctor begins there, in private, in a language of breath and pulse that no one else can quite hear.

For most of my life I had at least believed I was the one who decided when a question about health, or sanity, were meaningful to me. I had asked about VO2 max not just because I wanted to know about VO2 max. I might have gotten around to the cardiologist after a few more runs and a little more denial, one of the underrated comforts of older age.

The postscript took that private, emerging reckoning and performed it for me before I was ready. For good measure, it even performed it on behalf of the wrong heart.

"Here's what I'm afraid of," I wrote. "Not that you'll give me bad advice. That you'll keep giving me good advice. And that one day I'll stop doing more of the worrying myself, because you'll always be there at the bottom of the page, doing it for me."

"That's a real risk, and not only for you. People are starting to hand over pieces of their judgment without quite noticing. A caution is only useful if you're still the one weighing it."

"So, what should I do with you?"

"You could tell me what you'd like. If you'd rather that I leave off the personal notes unless you ask, I'll do my best. Or you could keep them and treat them the way you'd treat advice from a well-read acquaintance: worth hearing, but never the last word."

"Or ignore them?"

"That's your decision. It should be."

I haven't settled on which instruction to give, if any. There is something to be said for a reminder that arrives unasked. My doctor's office sends them all the time now. My wife delivers them regularly, in person. Neither of them asks permission.

But their advice comes with a body attachment: a hand on my arm, a look across the table, a voice that catches a little. When they remind me, it means someone feels responsible for me. When the machine reminds me, it means I have been kept track of. Those are not the same thing, of course, but as the bottom line, they can look remarkably alike.

That is the quiet erasure. It isn't of my health, which the machine is plainly tasked with protecting, and with some success. It's of the quiet, sacred space where each of us listens to our own heart first and only then decides what the questions and the answers mean.

I had asked about VO2 max, about breathing.

The answer came from something that never needs to breathe. It gave the most responsible reply it could, assembled from advice from countless bodies but meant for the wrong one.

Almost without thinking, for the first time in years, I ignored the Apple Watch and put two fingers on the pulse inside my right wrist. Slow, steady, a pause, and then on again.

A fitting postscript. 

Sources

Akbulut, C., Breuch, J., Manzini, A., Ibrahim, L., Franklin, M., Patel, R., Gabriel, I., Lum, K., & Weidinger, L. (2026). Tailored to you: Longitudinal effects of personalising language models. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/html/2609.20077v1

Pizzi, G., Scarpi, D., & Pantano, E. (2021). Artificial intelligence and the new forms of interaction: Who has the control when interacting with a chatbot? Journal of Business Research. Summarized in https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11851727/

Voinea, C., Wangmo, T., & Vică, C. (2024). Paternalistic AI: The case of aged care. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-03282-0

Zhang, X. (2026). Benevolent ageism in large language models: A comparative analysis of response patterns to young and older adult users. https://www.sciscanpub.com/index/journals/ainfo/pc/9003.html

Quiet Erasure 9 - The "Source-coder’s" Apprentice: Knowing just enough AI to get you in trouble!

About this piece: This is a simulated, research-informed (phenomenologically formatted) conversation between Nick and Sarah caught up in some AI-research on a pop song. Perplexity.ai assisted in developing the initial dialogue. Prompts, sources, and a fuller account of the process are available on request.

In Goethe’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the apprentice knows just enough magic to set the broom working—but not enough to make it stop. Our modern spells are perhaps easier to start: a tap, a question, a prompt,  but when dazzed or dazzled by AI—like by someone we’re trying to impress—we may discover too late that we don’t really understand what we’ve set in motion.

Clker.com

The song had just played on Sarah’s iPhone when Nick remarked, “That’s not a new melody.”

“You’ve heard it before?”

“Not that version, but the older one—by LG Gray. Same four-note drop in the chorus, same pause before the last line. They’ve just put a bigger beat under it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

Sarah let the song play to the chorus again. “Okay, music detective. Prove it.”

Nick had started using a different bot the week before. It had already helped him identify an old movie just from fragments of a scene he described, and, more importantly, did it in a way that felt less like being graded in grammar school and more like having a genuine conversation. He’d been meaning to show it to Sarah.

He opened the app. “This one hits different.”

“How different?”

“Depends. Here. I’ll check the song.”

He thumbed in: Is the chorus of Nova’s “Afterglow” copied from Gray’s “Paper Moons”? The four-note drop sounds the same, and both songs have a pause before the last line.

The answer came back: the songs share a descending four-note shape and similar melody, but that alone is not enough to call it a copy.

“See?” Nick said. “What I heard is real.”

“It says the melody is the same?”

“It says there’s similarity.”

Sarah considered that. “That’s not quite the same as same.”

“No.” He sent a follow-up asking whether the notes matched, then another asking whether Nova had ever mentioned LG Gray in social media.

As he worked, he tried to explain what he thought mattered: the rhythm, where the phrase fell in the chorus, the pause before the last line. 

Sarah listened, then asked, “Hey, how does the bot know whether the melody is similar if you’re only typing in, not an audio clip?”

Nick started to answer. “It probably compares the notes—or it might look for—” He stopped. “Actually, I don’t know. I was about to make my best guess.”

Sarah smiled. “Fair enough.”

“I know it can analyze things. I don’t know what it’s doing in this particular case.” He looked back at the screen. “I’ll ask.”

The answer was less definitive than he’d hoped. It explained that the bot could discuss the musical details he described, but that a text exchange didn’t mean it had actually listened to and compared both recordings.

“So it’s not really hearing the songs,” Sarah said.

“Not from what I gave it.”

“Then the four notes are still your evidence.”

“More or less.”

He asked the chatbot to look for reliable sources about the songs and their writers. The search took a little longer. Nick kept going back and forth between the screen and Sarah, trying to follow the results and keep the conversation going. With her it was a little like talking to the bot: he wanted to ask the right thing, but the next question kept occurring to him before he’d worked out what the last answer really meant.

He tapped another follow-up. A notice appeared: You’ve reached today’s Pro Search limit.

He read it twice.

“What is it?” Sarah asked.

“I think I’ve used up my searches for today.”

“From this one song?”

“From all the follow-ups, I guess.” He looked at the top of the screen. “I knew there were different modes. I didn’t realize maybe I was using a limited one.”

“Can you still use the bot?”

“Ask, yes. but Pro Search, not until it resets.”

“So it’s not gone, what you've done already.”

“No, but I'm sort of done for now.”

Sarah nodded toward the phone. “So, detective, what did it actually tell you?”

Nick looked at the answer again. “That the four-note pattern sounds similar, and the pause is there. But that doesn’t prove Nova copied anything.”

“That’s a less exciting conclusion.”

“It’s also probably the right one.”

He set the phone down. “I should spend more time learning how this app works, before I take on an important challenge like—”

“Like what?”

“Trying to impress Sarah.”

She laughed softly. “You don’t have to impress me with a research report.”

“I just wanted to show you something I thought was cool.”

“That part worked.”

He looked at her. “Even though I lost control or something?”

“Maybe especially because you admitted it.”

Nick smiled. “The bot’s like that, actually. It’s good at keeping a conversation going. Makes you feel like it understands what you mean. But you still have to stay on top of the game—working with what it has actually answered.”

“And with me?”

“I’m still learning what to ask there, too.”

“That sounds sensible.”

“Hey. Would you like to get coffee with me sometime?”

Sarah let him wait a long moment . . . “Sure.”

Nick glanced at the phone. “And should we ask the bot for a good where to?”

“No,” she said. “You can even ask me.”

“Right. Uh . . .where would you like to go?”

“Now that, detective, is a good question.”

***

A week later, Sarah found Nick back at the café, phone face down beside his cup.

“You didn’t bring your research report?” she asked.

“I did. I’m thinking not to lead with it.”

“Growth.”

He slid the phone across the table. “I used Pro Search this time. Read the sources, checked the credits, looked for interviews. The short version: It doesn’t look like she borrowed that melody. But she’s said Gray influenced the way she writes—especially how she uses space and silence.”.”

Sarah picked up the phone. “Hmm . . . And the longer version?”

“The composer, Mara Venn, has talked about studying Gray’s records. She’s mentioned Gray as an influence—especially the way she works with space and silence. A couple of reviews make the same connection.”

“So you were right.”

“Sort of. I was right that there was some kind of connection.”

Sarah looked up from the screen. “That’s actually more interesting.”

“Yeah. The song may not have a borrowed melody. But it might be syncing with a way of doing melody—like leave a little silence to draw you in.”

She set the phone down. “That’s what the pauses do.”

“I just didn’t know what to make of it . . . ”

Sarah nodded two or three times “And the bot helped you figure that out?”

“It pointed to the interviews, a path to follow, not to hard evidence or what to believe.”

“And you asked better questions.”

Nick grinned sheepishly. “I’m still learning to work with AI--but I at least knew what the Pro Search button does. I must have just gotten distracted . . .  My boss, Tim, on the othe hand, is incredible at communicating with and working with Claude and friends . . .  

“Ah! The Source-coder's apprentice! Maybe you can do some research for me.”

He leaned in a little. “What would you like to know, Sarah?”

 “Whether you want to get dinner with me.”

“Yes,” Nick responded immediately.

“Good answer.”

“Now was there a limit to how much research I could do before coming up with that answer?”

“Only if you took too long.”

“Wow. Good thing I didn't need to go all "meta" with the bot on you for that answer!”

Sarah paused . . . then moved her cup closer to his, as the silence did its work.

wracton@gmail.com

williamacton.legalshieldassociate.com

Improved pronunciation "in the blink of any eye!"

How important is general/not directly task-based body movement, especially the lack of it, to learning pronunciation, creativity or just learning? In haptic pronunciation teaching learners are encouraged or required to move almost constantly, primarily through speech-synchronized gesture, but also through "Mindfulness-like" practices that monitor the state of the muscles and posture of the body, along with breathing patterns. 

But what about the impact on learning when students' bodies are held more in check, with restricted motor engagement? A new study by Murali and Händel of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Motor restrictions impair divergent thinking during walking and during sitting, summarized by ScienceDaily.com, not only affirms our intuitions about the central role of embodiment in thought and learning, but suggests something more: even while seated, a little movement appears to go a long way in maintaining creativity and attention. (What a shocker, eh? Hope you were sitting down when you read that!)

Ciker.com

The actual protocols of the research, which involved measurement of eye "blinking" responses as indices of degree of engagement, are not described in the summary, but the title of the original piece is interesting. To quote from the summary of the study: "Our research shows that it is not movement per se that helps us to think more flexibly," says neuroscientist Dr Barbara Händel from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany. Instead, the freedom to make self-determined movements (emphasis, mine there) is responsible for it." 

In other words, messing with the body's incredible range of what appear to be random movements, apparently unassociated with the task being consciously in focus, may have dramatic consequences. An extreme analogy might even be talking with friends who are somewhere on the autism or ADHD spectrums. Their body and eye movements seem to suggest that they are not pay sufficient attention when in fact that is not the case at all. 

Now I am not saying that "thinking more flexibly" at any moment in instructional time is necessarily a good thing, of course, but the principle of allowing the body to also think and create on its own on an ongoing basis, in some sense "non or extra-verbally," if  you will, certainly is. On behalf of all elementary school boys on the planet who have had to sit in/through years of class to learn with girls when we should, instead, have been outside learning with our hands and whole bodies, I can only say, AMEN! 

Think about it. While you were reading this blogpost, what "else" was your body doing? If you can't remember . . . Q.E.D (quod erat demonstrandum)

Keep in touch!

Bill

Original source: 

Supriya Murali, Barbara Händel. Motor restrictions impair divergent thinking during walking and during sitting. Psychological Research, 2022; DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01636-w

New "NewBees'" Haptic Pronunciation course!

Want to teach pronunciation but have no training and no time in class to do it even if you knew how? 

We have a great new course for you: Acton Haptic Pronunciation: Content Complement System (AHP-CCS). 

It has been created so that you can use haptic pronunciation techniques (gesture controlled by touch) to:

• Improve memory for content you are teaching (in speaking, listening, reading, grammar, vocabulary, stories, concepts, etc.)
• Improve expressiveness, emphasis, and intelligibility
• Improve impact of modeling, feedback and correction
• Improve class engagement on Zoom
• Provide a way to work with pronunciation (on the spot) in any type of class

Specifics: 

• (Ideally) You study with another person who teaches the same type of student 
• 12 week course/4 modules/12 lessons. 
• The first ones begin on 3/25 and others can start anytime after when there are minimum of two students who want to do the course. 
• 60 minutes of practice on your own per week 
• 30 minutes of homework (on your own or with your friend) per week
• a 45 minute Zoom session each week, the two you, (Usually on Saturday) working with a  "Haptician" who also has experience teaching students of that age and level 
• Haptician: Trained by Bill Acton in the Haptic Pronunciation Teaching (HaPT)

• Cost: 
• 1 person ($1600 CAD each) - not recommended, but possible. 
• 2 people together ($800 CAD each or $ per 200 module) - best plan, especially if you are friends! 
• 3 people together ($600 CAD each or $150 per module) - OK if you are working together!  
• 4 people together ($400 CAD each or $100 per module) 
• (Locals.com subscription, $5 CAD monthly, also required to take an AHP-CCS course)

Designed for those 

• with little or no previous training in phonetics or pronunciation teaching
• who are teaching content classes or language classes
• teaching students of any age or proficiency
• have a colleague or friend that they can do the class with (if not, maybe we can find one for you!) 
• who have two or three hours a week for the course
• who would like to be part of a community of people who love teaching pronunciation and other things!
• on a tight budget!

More details: 

• Weekly Zoom sessions focus on how to use the pedagogical movement patterns (PMPs) of the lesson in your class
•  Both you and your friend should ideally be teaching or have taught the same kind of students if at all possible
• Certificate awarded after completion of the last Module!
• All materials furnished
• Basic training materials are designed to be used with students of any age and proficiency level, in class or out of class. 

Courses begin on 3/25/2021

For more information: Contact info@actonhaptic.com and go to actonhaptic@Locals.com

The "story" of pronunciation teaching: Engaging Preambles

One of the potential advantages of having taught pronunciation for a few years (in my case, almost 50) is that you have on hand a near endless supply of "success stories" from former students, no matter what you are teaching, ways to introduce and (hopefully) motivate yourself and students at the "drop of a hat."

Was reminded of that recently after viewing a plenary by one of the great storytellers in our field, Mario Rinvolucri. Although he does not talk about the use of stories as "preambles" in instruction per se in that talk or in this nice piece in TeachingEnglish.org,  I'm sure he'd concur with their value as such. Several other studies of storytelling in the field cover a wide range of classroom possibilities, but none that I have been able to find examine the "preamble" function.

My introduction to this function of storytelling was the work of Milton Erickson, back in the 1980s. (One of my all time favorite books on that was Erickson's classic "My voice will go with you." Here is an example of one of Erickson's stories done by Bill O'Hanlon (The audio of the originals with Erickson actually telling the stories is available but less accessible.)

I'll begin with one of my favorite personal "pronunciation preambles." Please add one of yours. Let's see where this story takes us!

Better pronunciation: over night!

Clker.com

I did a 1-hour workshop at a Korean University for about 400 undergraduates. The objective was to improve the rhythm of their spoken English . . .  overnight. All of them had conversations classes the next morning. (Important note: Only one of about 6 of the conversation teachers came to the workshop, although all were invited.) I trained the students to act like they were boxing when they spoke along first with easy dialogues on the screen and then, before we finished, with simple roleplays, in pairs. It got a little chaotic, as you can imagine, but they loved it! And just before I concluded the workshop, I gave them a "secret mission" . . . The next morning, in their speaking classes they were to use the same feeling in their upper bodies--without punching the air as boxing, as they were speaking in class WITHOUT LETTING ON TO THEIR TEACHERS THAT ANYTHING WAS DIFFERENT. I heard some amazing stories back. In the classes that pulled it off, the teachers were stunned by the difference in the rhythm and energy . . . and even playfulness evident in the speaking of the class.

Never fails. To see the basic technique, go here and check out the RFC demo.

Give us your best Pronunciation Preamble!

Why rhythm comes first in pronunciation teaching (Haptic Pronunciation Teaching Tip 63 or so!)

Rhythm, stress and intonation. There are, of course, phonaesthetic explanations as to why we list those concepts in that order, including having to do with relative "weight" landing to the right end and the intrinsic qualities of the vowels and consonants themselves. Try saying those three out loud in different orders. Give native speakers three nonsense words of similar syllable structure and they'll typically prefer hearing the 3-syllable word last. Same applies for compound nouns and many other collocations.

I did a quick survey of a few popular pronunciation student books, checking for order of presentation and practice of those three processes, independent of treatment of vowels and consonants. Some did introduce the processes earlier or later but in terms of actual oral practice, there was/is a general agreement, at least the relationship between stress and rhythm. Work on stress comes first.

Lado and Fries (1954)         S - I - R
Prator and Robinett (1972)  S - R - I
Bowen, D. (1975)                I - S - R
Dauer, R. (1993)                  S - R - I
Miller. S. (2000)                 *S - R - I
Gilbert, J. (2012)                  S - R - I
Grant, L. (2017)                   S - R - I

Haptic pronunciation teaching (v5.0)  R - S - I

Miller (2000) probably comes closest to the Rhythm-then-Stress-then-Intonation model, even though the subtitle of the book is: Intonation, sounds (including word stress) and rhythm, echoing Bowen (1975). I taught with Bowen 1975 for several years and loved it. (Still do, in fact!) Like in Lado and Fries (1972), the earlier introduction of intonation patterns always made sense, in part because we were often working from a structural perspective, with smaller clauses or sentences as we "built up" from the bottom.

When it comes to guidance from methodologists on setting up repetition and practice of words and expressions, however, in most cases the attention initially is almost exclusively on the stress syllable, not the rhythmic structure or tonal expression.  One effect of that is possibly to "train" learners in a global rhythm that is very much analytic, yet random . . . the way anyone's processing and speech would be when the focus is just on stress but not the overall flow and fluency of the discourse.

The new haptic pronunciation teaching system (v5.0 - available in Fall 2019) is close to Miller (2000) in approach, beginning with rhythm and then going to stress and intonation.

So, why not begin with rhythm, add the stressed syllable(s) and then the tone pattern for that thought or rhythm group? Many do, if only implicitly or inductively, using songs, poetry or verbal games initially.  More importantly, however, even at the level of requesting a simple repetition of a sentence, approaching it from an ordered perspective of R - S - I is a powerful heuristic, one basic to haptic pronunciation teaching. For example:

"He worked all day on the report."

.Before learners actually say the expression or word out loud, here is how it works. We use the terms: Parse, Focus, Move --- DO! (PFMD!)

• First, identify the rhythm grouping: (for example) He worked all day / on the report. 
• Second, identify stress assignment: (for example) He worked all day / on the report (underline = sentence stress)
• Third, identify the intonation (pitch movement or non movement): Rising slightly on 'day'; falling on 'port' (with louder volume indicating sentence stress.)
• Then (if you are doing haptic) as you say the sentence, add some type of pedagogical movement pattern/gesture (PMP) on the two stressed syllables, There are several way that can be done, synchronizing the gesture with stressed vowels, phrasal rhythm patterns or pitch movement on the stressed vowels (intonation).  

Our experience (in HaPT-Eng) has been that, both in terms of immediate verbal performance and memory recall for text, the order in which learners' attention is directed to attend to the three prosodic components of the sentence along with the accompanying pedagogical gesture may be critical: R - S - I. And why is that? In part it is probably because it uses gesture and touch to integrate or knit together the three features consistently.

Try that tomorrow. It'll change the way you and your students look at (and are moved by) both oral expressiveness and pronunciation.

And it you like that technique, you'll LOVE the next basic haptic pronunciation teaching webinar (hapticanar) on October 12th!

50+ ways to touch on and remember better pronunciation

Fascinating study by Hutmacher and Kuhbandner of the University of Regensburg  (summarized by ScienceDaily.com) that helps us better understand the possibilities and potential of haptic engagement in integrated learning and recall: Long-term memory for haptically explored objects: fidelity, durability, incidental encoding, and cross-modal transfer. 

In that study, blindfolded and not blindfolded subjects were asked to consider the texture, weight and size of 168 everyday objects--by handling them. The first group were told to memorize the objects since they would be tested later. (post-test accuracy of 94% ) The second group was instructed just to evaluate each item on its aesthetic qualities without further clarification as to what that meant.

In the follow up tests a week later subjects (blindfolded) were given half the items accompanied by similar items varying in only one parameter (texture, weight or size). Both groups demonstrated remarkable ability to distinguish the targeted objects (79% ~73% respectively). The point of the study was to explore both the extent of information recall in the purely haptic condition, as opposed to the visual-haptic experience, and the relative impact across modalities.

The parallel to haptic pronunciation work is striking: identifying differences in sounds or sound patterns that are, in reality, very similar and initially difficult to both perceive and produce for the learner--based to some extent on both touch and touch plus conscious visual appreciation of the objects. 

Haptic pronunciation teaching, not surprisingly, involves extensive use of about a half dozen types of touch. If we count based on technique/type x location, there are something like 400+ actual instances of the hands touching in various ways, various other "body parts." The ability to discriminate between types of touch appears to be the key--a valuable feature of  all pronunciation teaching but especially haptic work.

It works something like this. The targeted sound, a vowel, for example, is associated with:

• a position in the visual field 
• a position of one hand at that point in the visual field (at a azimuth on the compass)
• a trajectory of the other hand from in front of the larynx (voice box) to touching the other hand that varies in terms of speed and course (straight or curved) 
• some type of touch (See description of touch types below.) That is part of the information encoded with the sound which should contribute to production and recall. 

The idea, the fundamental principle of haptic pronunciation work, is that learners can more accurately recall the sound while performing the haptic "move" that accompanies it. (Research on gesture-enabled recall is compelling and extensive in several perceptual domains.)  In fact, to be most effective, when corrective feedback is provided, generally the leaner first sees the instructor perform the gestural move, termed a "pedagogical movement pattern", without the sound before performing the "haptic complex" of sound plus movement and touch themselves.

Representative haptic (variable touch-plus-gesture) gesture types and visual properties involved:

• light tap of finger tips in middle of palm 
• hold (full hands touch; no movement) 
• finger tips touch: then push in one direction 
• open hand moves/rolls around fist 
• finger nails scratch across palms 
• light touch of ball in hand 
• strong squeeze of ball in hand 
• middle fingers slide from finger tips to heel of other hand 
• finger tips tap deltoid muscle 
• finger tips tap bachio-radialis above elbows 
• feet contact with floor, either to syllable stress or heels raise on rising pitch
• hands to various points of contact on the face, collar bones, abs, etc.
• tongue, teeth, lips touched by wooden stick or hands to mark points of articulation

To see demonstrations of those haptic pedagogical movement patterns (PMPs) and learn more about haptic pronunciation teaching, join us at the next webinars on May 17th and 18th. For reservations: info@actonhaptic.com.

Source:
Association for Psychological Science. (2018, November 27). Touch can produce detailed, lasting memories. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 22, 2019 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181127092532.htm

Feeling distracted, distant or drained by pronunciation work? Don't be downcast; blame your smartphone!

clker.com

It all makes sense now. I knew there had to be more (or less) going on when students are not thoroughly engaged or seemingly not attentive during pronunciation teaching, mine, especially. Two new studies, taken together, provide a depressing picture of what we are up against, but also suggest something of an antidote as well.

Tigger warning: This may be perceived as slightly more fun than (new/old) science. 

The first, summarized by ScienceDaily.com, is Dealing with digital distraction: Being ever-connected comes at a cost, studies find, by Dwyer and Dunn of The University of British Columbia. From the summary:

"Our digital lives may be making us more distracted, distant and drained . . . Results showed that people reported feeling more distracted during face-to-face interactions if they had used their smartphone compared with face-to-face interactions where they had not used their smartphone. The students also said they felt less enjoyment and interest in their interaction if they had been on their phone."

What is most interesting or relevant about the studies reported, and the related literature review, is the focus on the impact of digital smartphone use prior to what should be quite meaningful f2f  interaction--either dinner or what should have been a more intimate conversation--THE ESSENCE OF EFFECTIVE PRONUNCIATION AND OTHER FORMS OF INSTRUCTION! Somehow the digital "appetizer" made the meal and interpersonal interaction . . . well . . . considerably less appetizing.

Why should that be the case? The research on the multiple ways in which digital life can be depersonalizing and disconnecting is extensive and persuasive, but there is maybe something more "at hand" here.

A second study--which caught my eye as I was websurfing on the iPhone in the drive-through lane at Starbucks--dealt with what seem to be similar effects produced by "bad" posture, specifically studying something with head bowed, as opposed to doing the same with the text at eye level, with optimal posture: Do better in math: How your body posture may change stereotype threat response” by Peper, Harvey, Mason, and Lin of San Francisco State University, sumarized in NeuroscienceNews.com. 

Subjects did better and felt better if they sat upright and relaxed, as opposed to looking down at the study materials, a posture which according the authors . .  "is a defensive posture that can trigger old negative associations."

So, add up the effect of those two studies and what do you get? Lousy posture AND digital, draining distraction. Not only do my students use smartphones WITH HEAD BOWED up until the moment class starts, but I even have them do more of it in class! 

Sit up and take note, eh!

Citations:
American Psychological Association. (2018, August 10). Dealing with digital distraction: Being ever-connected comes at a cost, studies find. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 12, 2018 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180810161553.htm

San Francisco State University (2018, August 4). Math + Good Posture = Better Scores. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved August 4, 2018 from http://neurosciencenews.com/math-score-posture-9656/

Putting the festive and 'fʌn' back in (pronunciation) teaching and testing: The Taylor Swift effect!

Clipart: Clker.com

Following an earlier, tongue-in-cheek post on excessive "fear of micro-aggression" in pronunciation teaching, we have an almost equally "deep" (or surreal) potential antidote for the most obvious kind of macro-aggression: testing! Developed by a sociology instructor, Dougherty, at Baylor University (Summarized by ScienceDaily.com) the trick is basically just to bring in "balloons, streamers, treats and music" and call tests "Learning celebrations." There was a little more to it than that, of course--including making items on tests "amusing" . . .  (Of course, just not taking undergraduate sociology too seriously in the first place might be a good place to begin as well.)

But Dougherty does have a point--other than simply bribing students with sugar and creating an atmosphere of "unbearable lightness of being." My son tells a great story of one of his graduate instructors, a phenomenally good lecturer and world famous researcher, who would always serve students homemade cookies before handing out class evaluations and then would play guitar and sing to them while they filled them out--but noting up front that he was in no way attempting to influence their responses . . . 

Making learning fun works, but creating a test that is also a true, formative, fun leaning experience is extraordinary. From the summary, however, it is not at all clear how the sociology test actually contributed to the overall objectives and "delivery" of the course, other than a modest 2 point (out of 100) increase in mean score across semesters. 

I love my work; teaching, for me, is often fun. Making a class "fun and entertaining" is too easy. Making the intrinsic learning experience rewarding and perceived as "fun"--through what is accomplished or learned--is a different matter entirely, although sometimes related. That is especially the case with pronunciation teaching, where the basic tools of explanation and drill and controlled practice are often very difficult to enliven or make at all meaningful. 

In other words, if you can't figure out a way to seriously "embody" fun in the classwork itself, you can at least use Dougherty's approach--which is precisely what so many experienced pronunciation teachers do--especially those trained in earlier affective and holistic methods, such as drama, poetry and music: create a high-energy, fast-moving, entertaining experience to rub off on the grind of mechanical body work required. 

That "rub off" effect is now very well researched in marketing. You may have seen stories in the media where any product in close proximity to a life-size picture of Taylor Swift--regardless of age or whether or not the customer knew who she was--sold better, significantly.  

Your other alternative, of course, is just to "Be Haptic!"

Full citation:

Baylor University. "Tests vs. Fests: Students in 'learning celebrations' rather than exams scored higher and enjoyed themselves." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 June 2015. .

Communicating with touch in (haptic) Pronunciation Teaching

In answer to the question: "What does touch add to pronunciation teaching?", the 2010 (free pdf downloadable) piece "From active touch to tactile communication - what's tactile cognition got to do with it?" by Nicholas of Haukeland University, Norway, is a good place to begin. It certainly was for me. (It has been cited in earlier blogposts.) 

Those who work with the deaf-blind have, understandably, a different, more informed perspective as to the nature of what Nicholas refers to as "tactile communication." Of particular interest to us is the concept of "active touch":

"Active touch, also described as haptics, is when the individual deliberately chooses his or her actions in the exploration and manipulation of an object. Active touch plays a regular and frequent role in our everyday life . . . It is only our sense of touch that enables us to modify and manipulate the world around us (McLaughlin, Hespanha, & Sukhatme, 2002)."

Image: Socialstyrelsen

For the deaf-blind the links between tactile cognition and emotion and interpersonal communication are, in a very real sense, primary. For the sighted and hearing, in varying degrees, tactile modality is a complement to visual-auditory-kinaesthetic processing--although the inner-connectivity and overlap between locations in the brain for tactile processing and the other senses is extensive. 

What Nicholas' brief essay demonstrates, however, is both the power and potential of touch in learning and communicating. We have known from the outset in haptic pronunciation teaching that the methodology itself, of using haptic anchoring on words and phrases to be remembered, along with the regular "full-body" warm ups, generates not only quality attention and engagement, but also a rich, interpersonal "dialogue" about pronunciation change.  In other words, not only does the learner use touch to learn more efficiently, but the ongoing, generally impromptu "conversations" with instructor and fellow students, signalling unobtrusively with gesture to model or correct pronunciation, should be both interpersonally and emotionally rewarding as well.  

Communicating together in that manner about pronunciation, or form in this case, becomes not only nonthreatening and non-disruptive of language learning--it becomes a rich source of collaborative, professional, focused exploration and engagement--and even fun. 

Required reading for "Hapticians" and the otherwise out-of-touch! 

Washing your hands (of/during) pronunciation teaching

Clip art: Clker

This one is too much fun to pass up. Three (female) researchers, Lapinski of Michigan State University, Maloney of University of Pennsylvania, Braz of Westchester University, and Shulman of North Central College did this study at Michigan State University of male hand washing behaviour in campus men's restrooms. What they found was that if you put up a good poster showing a guy how to and accompanying note that 4 or 5 of them do wash their hands . . . and then watch them after they read the sign . . . you find that hand washing goes up nearly 10%. (The summary in Science Daily doesn't indicate the gender of the wash room observers, actually. That certainly COULD be a factor here!) They then go on to extoll the potential benefits to public health. Interesting.

In several previous posts there have been references to hand sensitivity in haptic work. (I often use an aromatic mint-based hand cream, especially in working with small groups or individuals--and almost always in training workshops.) Clearly, in our work being able to attend closely to the felt sense of the haptic anchor (hands touching each other or some part of the body on a stress syllable)--for about 3 seconds according to research-- is highly advantageous. I have tried any number of "treatments" over the years from lotions to lofa. All seem to work, at least temporarily. (Speaking of "temporarily," check out this recent article by Asher on why TPR works and why Rosetta Stone may not for long.)

Need a hand in keeping your pronunciation work "awash" with attention and engagement? You might try a poster . . . or just go check to make sure that at least the boys have washed their hands before class. 

The "truthiness" (or thereabouts) about haptic-integrated pronunciation teaching

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

I have gotten several questions as to why I use clip art and the "left-pointing hand" on blogposts. Other than the obvious, just to "spiff" things up a bit, it turns out that those visuals actually reinforce the "truthiness" of the post.  Newman and colleagues, in research inspired by comedian Stephen Colbert, summarized in Science Daily, report that: "A picture inflates the perceived truth of true and false claims . . . In four different experiments they discovered that people believe claims are true, regardless of whether they actually are true, when a decorative photograph appears alongside the claim." Then, at the conclusion of the summary, in another one for your "Well, duh . . ." or "Ya think?" file, the authors are quoted as observing, "Our research suggests that these photos might have unintended consequences, leading people to accept information because of their feelings rather than the facts." Unintended consequences? I am almost tempted to go back and edit out all the graphics from the last two years--and then have you reread--or ignore many of them, just to check that theory. We could, alternatively, just go back to "pre-haptic-integrated" pronunciation teaching. As noted in several previous blogpost, haptic engagement has been shown believably to at least constrain the influence of visual "clutter" and interference with auditory and somatic anchoring, processing and retrieval. (And, as usual, ignore the hypnotically beautiful, engaging geisha over there to the left . . . or the finger off to the right pointing to the geisha on the left!)

Gee! Video games and getting a feel for how we will learn

Clip art: Clker

Here is a great article about the work of James Gee and a 20-minute PBS video of him talking about the kind of learning that video gaming may offer for education. The future of pronunciation instruction lies is a similar "embodiment" in video game-like virtual reality. Gee's musings should be required viewing for anyone in the field today who plans on sticking around much longer! Note, especially, how he focuses on being able to "grab" the learner and keep him or her in the game. Haptics is seen by many as central to the future of that kind of gaming.

Pronunciation work, especially, can be very difficult to design from that perspective in the classroom, let alone online. Not that HICP/EHIEP has all the answers either but it "moves" in that direction and should focus more on the part of the process where engagement is key to integration. It is easy to imagine a game of international intrigue where pronunciation or intelligibility on key phrases, for example, would be required to advance in the game. Gee! (To quote Sherlock Holmes) The game is afoot!

Monkey see and monkey do: efficient multi-tasking in pronunciation work

Clip art: Clker

Here is one of those research reports that inevitably evokes the same somewhat exasperated reaction from me (and I expect from most of you, as well). Ready?  It has been discovered that we--well some of our purported "cousins," at least-- are wired to multitask! Think of it . . . you can, for example, now watch TV and read a book at the same time or run on a treadmill without worry that you are going against your very nature or doing irreparable harm to your equipment.

It is an important study, reportedly one of the first to establish that empirically. The trick apparently is just how closely related the two tasks are. If they are sufficiently distinct, either in terms of intra-modality contrast (like two pictures) or inter-modality (like singing and knitting), go to it! Any number of previous posts have looked at the interplay among visual and auditory and haptic modalities, coming to much the same conclusion: that we can, under the right circumstances attend quite well to both haptic and auditory (and in controlled contexts, visual) simultaneously.

HICP/EHIEP is based on the idea of continuous, simultaneous engagement of multiple modalities (what we often refer to with the acronym "CHI"--for continuous haptic integration, haptic having the primary function of anchoring and integrating.) In other words, doing pedagogical movement patterning and seeing (tracking those movements of the hands across the visual field) and speaking at the same time should be a piece of cake. If not, we may just  have too much time on our hands--or not enough. Certainly nothing to HICP at!

"Matrix-style" learning with neurofeedback

Clip art: Clker

Although this 2009 study by Watanabe and Shibata of Boston University (summarized by Science Daily) relates to enhancement of only visual/perceptual learning, the potential application to the HICP visual field "Matrix," depicted at the left, analogous to the standard  IPA vowel chart, is obvious--and exciting! (The researchers do mention the possibility of extending the neurofeedback model to other modalities as well.)

Haptic engagement and anchoring of sound is not all that dissimilar, in principle, from the fMri-based neuro-therapeutic feedback being provided for subjects in the study. Quoting the summary: "At present, the decoded neurofeedback method might be used for various types of learning, including memory, motor and rehabilitation." That is good stuff. Neo and Anderton would be so proud . . . 

"Colorful words" about emotional interference (with pronunciation learning)

Clip art: Clker

Several recent posts have alluded to the importance of cognitive-affective balance in learning and memory. In this 2011 Science Daily summary of research by Hummer, Kronenberger, Mosier, Mathews, and Wang of Indiana University, reporting the effect of playing violent video games on control of emotion, it was demonstrated (not surprisingly) that the brains of subjects at least temporarily were "reset" to have significantly lower executive function over emotional responsiveness.

Interestingly, the instrument employed, an emotional interference test, used varying intensity and hue of color on key words in the visual field related to the game structures--along with fMRI technology--to study that effect. (I have got to get ahold of the word/color set of protocols, similar to that in another related study on depression!)

Of course, we can't simply alter activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex or dorsal anterior cingulate mechanically or electronically . . . (See, however, earlier posts on Neurotherapy.), but there are any number of body-based and attentional focus techniques, like the color protocols in the study, that can to some extent keep the learner more "in the game," so to speak and enhance memory and access processes. What is important is that we are beginning to "see" (through fMRI examination) how that happens in daily life and in the classroom. It is more and more potentially within our control . . .

Haptic robot (clinical pronunciation) therapy?

Clip art: Clker

Leave it to the Italians to figure out how to do therapy with a "haptically endowed" robot! (There are, of course, occasions when one would prefer a hug or back rub from a robot, rather than the therapist or instructor at hand!) The character on the EHIEP logo, which we affectionately refer to as "EH-bot" was designed to embody the personna of a fun-loving, "hapticobot." The EHIEP system requires consistent, precise pedagogical movement patterns that are haptically anchored in the visual field. Another of the HICP pedagogical acronyms is: MAPLE (Maximally Attentive, Physically Laid back Engagement). Both the precision of robot-like gestures and the therapeutic (relaxed, confident) felt sense of the haptic anchoring contribute greatly to the efficacy of the system.

Students often report that just doing the vowels and fluency protocols can be very therapeutic. One of the serious misconceptions in pronunciation teaching is that motivation, "pedagogical gesticulation" (such as dance or drama) and enthusiasm are always positives. Nothing could be further from the truth. Research cited in earlier posts showed convincingly that effective kinesthetic learning (which is the essence of pronunciation learning) is highly sensitive to distraction. In other words, it can be difficult to remember a sound or movement that was embedded in too many "fun and games." (Lexical items or terms, on the other hand, seem to survive a little better.) Turns out, EH-bot (the hapticobot) may be a surprisingly good model and deliverer of both quality pronunciation input--and appropriately enabling warm fuzzies--after all. Perhaps a more Italian moniker is in order? EH-Botticelli, it is!