I was talking to my infant son the other day. Illiterate as he is, I told him that he doesn’t understand a word of what I’m saying. All he understands is change in the loudness of my voice and change in the pitch of my voice. I was talking at a louder voice and now I have lowered my voice. He experiences a small blip as he got used to my steady tempo and predictions ran smooth until I introduced change, a discrepancy in having lowered my voice. And then I get into a steady pace again and say “Is this the same for you as before? You don’t care much about loudness. You know it. I know it. You care for your predictions run smooth.” Low volume voice + steady tempo = predictions run smooth. Higher volume voice + steady tempo = predictions run smooth. I change pitch. Small blip again. Same tempo again. Same logic.

Wrist tap = initial prosodic state (baseline loudness + pitch);

Elbow tap = new state (lower volume or shifted pitch);

Shoulder tap = next state (another shift).

Rabbit? Not so fast, boy. You got no priors about plausible kinematics of a rabbit at skin scale. You don't even understand that the rabbit is a metaphor I’m using for envelope. I can swap rabbit (continuous rustle) with snake (continuous glide) or lion (separate thuds) and you would be none the wiser. But I love you all the same and forever more. I am sorry for flexing on you. Yeah the kinematics my priors will accept depend on step size and timing. Yeah I see beyond the tempo and unto envelope as I got my priors on point. I am sophisticated. And yet here I stand a servant to your predictions speaking on a tempo lest you wake up your mama from her well-deserved sleep.

When you grow up, you will get your own priors. Today it might just be sensitivity to periodicity but tomorrow it will be complex apparent-motion and cross-limb spatial integration and you’ll feel the safety of a steady beat and the quick repair after a tiny blip. Then you’ll hear the envelope; why voices rise and fall, how a song breathes. Soon the beat and the envelope will carry words; meaning will hitch a ride on rails you and I laid together in our evening discourse. One day your body map will sharpen and you’ll learn to stitch where as easily as when: you’ll feel the difference between a rabbit’s hop, a snake’s glide, and a lion’s separate thuds, not because anyone tells you the names, but because your timing will choose which creature appears. You’ll discover that calm isn’t quiet or loud; it’s predictions run smooth. And if the world gets noisy, you’ll know how to keep a tempo and how to reintegrate into tempo. Like your papa now. Bum Bum. But for the foreseeable future, you remain illiterate and I get to make fun of you.

Note: The narrative is based on real events but has been dramatized for storytelling purposes.