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Although little studied, whining is a vocal pattern that is both familiar and irritating to parents of preschool‐ and early school‐age children. The current study employed multidimensional scaling to identify the crucial acoustic characteristics of whining speech by analysing participants' perceptions of its similarity to other types of speech (question, neutral speech, angry statement, demand, and boasting). We discovered not only that participants find whining speech more annoying than other forms of speech, but that it shares the salient acoustic characteristics found in motherese, namely increased pitch, slowed production, and exaggerated pitch contours. We think that this relationship is not random but may reflect the fact that the two forms of vocalization are the result of a similar accommodation to a universal human auditory sensitivity to the prosody of both forms of speech. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The current study tested the ability of whines and child-directed speech to attract the attention of listeners involved in a story repetition task. Twenty non-parents and 17 parents were presented with two dull stories, each playing to a separate ear, and asked to repeat one of the stories verbatim. The story that participants were instructed to ignore was interrupted occasionally with the reader whining and using child-directed speech. While repeating the passage, participants were monitored for Galvanic skin response, heart rate, and blood pressure. Based on 4 measures, participants tuned in more to whining, and to a lesser extent child-directed speech, than neutral speech segments that served as a control. Participants, regardless of gender or parental status, made more mistakes when presented with the whine or child-directed speech, they recalled hearing those vocalizations, they recognized more words from the whining segment than the neutral control segment, and they exhibited higher Galvanic skin response during the presence of whines and childdirected speech than neutral speech segments. Whines and child-directed speech appear to be integral members of a suite of vocalizations designed to get the attention of attachment partners by playing to an auditory sensitivity among humans. Whines in particular may serve the function of eliciting care at a time when caregivers switch from primarily mothers to greater care from other caregivers.

BackgroundEmerging technologies (ie, mobile phones, Internet) may be effective tools for promoting physical activity (PA). However, few interventions have provided effective means to enhance social support through these platforms. Face-to-face programs that use group dynamics-based principles of behavior change have been shown to be highly effective in enhancing social support through promoting group cohesion and PA, but to date, no studies have examined their effects in Web-based programs.ObjectiveThe aim was to explore proof of concept and test the efficacy of a brief, online group dynamics-based intervention on PA in a controlled experiment. We expected that the impact of the intervention on PA would be moderated by perceptions of cohesion and the partner’s degree of presence in the online media.MethodsParticipants (n=135) were randomized into same-sex dyads and randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: standard social support (standard), group dynamics-based–high presence, group dynamics-based–low presence, or individual control. Participants performed two sets of planking exercises (pre-post). Between sets, participants in partnered conditions interacted with a virtual partner using either a standard social support app or a group dynamics-based app (group dynamics-based–low presence and group dynamics-based–high presence), the latter of which they participated in a series of online team-building exercises. Individual participants were given an equivalent rest period between sets. To increase presence during the second set, participants in the group dynamics-based–high presence group saw a live video stream of their partner exercising. Perceptions of cohesion were measured using a modified PA Group Environment Questionnaire. Physical activity was calculated as the time persisted during set 2 after controlling for persistence in set 1.ResultsPerceptions of cohesion were higher in the group dynamics-based–low presence (overall mean 5.81, SD 1.04) condition compared to the standard (overall mean 5.04, SD 0.81) conditions (P=.006), but did not differ between group dynamics-based–low presence and group dynamics-based–high presence (overall mean 5.42, SD 1.07) conditions (P=.25). Physical activity was higher in the high presence condition (mean 64.48, SD 20.19, P=.01) than all other conditions (mean 53.3, SD 17.35).ConclusionsA brief, online group dynamics-based intervention may be an effective method of improving group cohesion in virtual PA groups. However, it may be insufficient on its own to improve PA.

Field recordings and playback experiments were conducted on brown thrashers (Toxostoma rufum) in central Massachusetts in order to gather information about the consequences and circumstances of song versatility in this species. The results show the birds to have a large song repertoire in excess of 1,100 song‐types or 2,400 figure‐types. The pattern of introduction of novel figure‐types differed significantly from that predicted from a fixed repertoire model. Some song parameters varied systematically between the two individuals studied and between the different samples of one individual. Brown thrashers in the field responded differently to songs of different versatility but not to songs of different patterns of song parameter variation. Zusammenfassung Am Gesang des zu den Spottdrosseln gehörenden Rotsichelspötters Toxostoma rufum wurde die kommunikative Bedeutung der Variabiliät untersucht. Von zwei Männchen äußerte eins 1147 Gesangstypen in 1910, das andere 1116 Typen in 1971 Gesängen. Auf vorgespielte Gesänge reagierten sie stärker, wenn nur 25 statt 200 Gesangstypen darin enthalten waren. Eine Analyse von Freilandaufnahmen ergab, daß die Variabiliät und andere Merkmale des Gesanges sowohl zwischen Individuen wie auch zwischen verschiedenen Wochen derselben Saison wechseln; aber nur wenige der Merkmalsunterschiede ließen sich ökologisch wichtigen Faktoren zuordnen.