Baby talking your Ts?

[pategirl]

I have to admit that I do talk to mine...maybe not baby talk, but I still talk to them like they can fully understand me. I don't know why I do it, I guess it beats talking to myself. I've had people walk past my animal building and ask me who I'm talking to, they usually roll their eyes and keep going when I tell them I'm having a conversation with a tarantula. Maybe I am crazy after all.....

 

[JBoyer]

I talk to mine but never in baby talk. I am fully aware that they do not understand what I am saying and it is usually to ask them "WHAT ARE YOU DOING"! or to make some comment about some spastic thing one of them is doing! Or maybe to tell them to move, or slow down.!

 

[Jive]

Originally posted by greensleeves
Are we going to have to start an Atrax-appreciation threat in the Watering Hole, hon? =D

He has a kid, he's probably married.

Greensleeves

Always have to pop my bubble, don't you? =D

 

[greensleeves]

Originally posted by pategirl
I have to admit that I do talk to mine...maybe not baby talk, but I still talk to them like they can fully understand me. I don't know why I do it, I guess it beats talking to myself. I've had people walk past my animal building and ask me who I'm talking to, they usually roll their eyes and keep going when I tell them I'm having a conversation with a tarantula. Maybe I am crazy after all.....

I don't know... It has been proven (I think) that talking to plants makes them grow, and a T has got to be a lot smarter than an plant, comparatively speaking, right? So maybe they like being talked to as well.

*watches everyone start talking to their slings and blondis to increase growth rate*

Greensleeves

 

[SkyeSpider]

I talk to mine constantly, but never baby-talk. I seem to talk to them like they're rational human beings. I know it's odd, but it calms me down, and seems to calm them down, as well.

The only other pet I have is my rat. She responds to anything I say, so I guess she's made me accustomed to speaking to any of my pets

-Bryan

 

[Mister Internet]

The only theory/opinion I've got on the matter is this: I think somehow inverts come to associate the VERY UNNATURAL vibrations of the human voice with safety, in some primitive way. All the hair-trigger instinctive responses seem to come from stimuli that would naturally be perceived as a predatorial encroachment, such as the CO2 mentioned earlier, or breath movement signifying exposure to elements. Somehow, I think they learn to associate the weird vibrations of speech with, "I remember this, this thing doesn't harm me". Not that it recognizes you or anything, just that the talking differentiates you from any other stimulus that it has in its "repository of instinctive responses".

Just a crackpot musing though, for all the "research" I've done on it... namely just me noticing that my inverts tend to be a little less spastic when I'm talking.

On the baby talk vein of discussion... I'm THOROUGHLY convinced that the reason most kids with speech that sounds "babyish" speak the way they do is that it is how their parents have "taught" them to talk, by ALWAYS talking babyish to them in the first place. I know kids from several families whose parent deemed it unnecessary to "dumb down" their speech just to talk to their kids, and they grew up speaking perfectly proper English... without any of the "vewy sweet widdle" speech anomalies that people tend to associate with young kids. Sure, there will be the occasional cuteness when kids have trouble learning how to form certain dipthongs or other phonetic combinations, but if the parents keep speaking correctly, the kids will quickly move past it. A lot of parents seem to think the "new word" their kid has just invented is so cute that THEY start using to speak to them... as Code once said, I leave the obvious conclusion to the observant.

Then again, I've never had kids, so this is based on pure observation... my brother had a genuine speech problem growing up, and I'm not speaking to genuine speech problems, only poor training.

 

[greensleeves]

Originally posted by Mister Internet
On the baby talk vein of discussion... I'm THOROUGHLY convinced that the reason most kids with speech that sounds "babyish" speak the way they do is that it is how their parents have "taught" them to talk

I think you have a valid point. I would speak proper English to anything that needed to learn English from me.

Otherwise, I think I'll keep talking to my sling and see if he continues to behave positively when I do.

Do you find all your inverts are calmer when you talk? Or just your Ts?

Greensleeves

 

[Mister Internet]

Originally posted by greensleeves
Do you find all your inverts are calmer when you talk? Or just your Ts?

Well, I only have one G. pulchra, and the rest of my inverts are centipedes... and notice I said "less spastic", not necessarily calmer. Of course centipedes are going to freak out when you start opening the cage lid, etc etc, but it seems as if they "know what's coming" (impossible, but for lack of a better term....) if I'm talking before I open their cages.

Er something... like I said, this opinion couldn't possibly be based in less scientific methodology.

 

[Immortal_sin]

I always talk to mine, but not in baby talk. Hell, I never talked to Shelby in baby talk, I"m certainly not going to talk to an invert that way!
I always talk very calmly, almost in a monotone. Who knows, maybe it does help... I know it makes me calm....so somehow they might pick up on it via vibrations etc

 

[Ultimate Instar]

I mostly just say, "Jeez, give me back my forceps!"

Karen N.

 

[MizM]

Originally posted by Mister Internet
The only theory/opinion I've got on the matter is this: I think somehow inverts come to associate the VERY UNNATURAL vibrations of the human voice with safety, in some primitive way. All the hair-trigger instinctive responses seem to come from stimuli that would naturally be perceived as a predatorial encroachment, such as the CO2 mentioned earlier, or breath movement signifying exposure to elements. Somehow, I think they learn to associate the weird vibrations of speech with, "I remember this, this thing doesn't harm me". Not that it recognizes you or anything, just that the talking differentiates you from any other stimulus that it has in its "repository of instinctive responses".

Ahh, you beat me to my opinion! I also think it's a "Pavlov's Dogs" kind of thing. When my Ts hear my voice, and they hear it often, they associate it with crix raining down on them simply because I say the same thing which has the same "rhythym" each time.

My g. rosea that's sitting on a sac DEFINITELY recognizes my voice "patterns." I have to check humidity every few days and inspect the enclosure for pests, when I take it down from it's high, quiet place she tenses up over her sac. But once I get it opened and start talking to her, she will relax and even turn her back on me and wander a few steps away from it!

Baby talk? Hmmm, a typical conversation:
"Well just LOOK at the size of that butt! You're just getting prettier and prettier! C'mere, mama wants to see you. Ohhh, a little cranky are we? Well well well, aren't we the little diva? Fine then, if you're going give me threat, here's your dinner, and next time, you're getting held!"