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Chuck
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Josh
Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And I'm not going to scream to start this off because I care about all of you listening.
Chuck
Yeah, that was an.
Josh
Issue.
Chuck
Yeah, we're talking about. Julia helped us out with this one and I commissioned this one and I don't remember what instigated it. It definitely wasn't from hearing somebody scream. I may have seen an article or something that piqued my interest and I was like, wait a minute. Screaming is interesting that people scream and for all different kinds of reasons people scream. And that's why I picked it.
Josh
Here we are. Yeah, I was very surprised and impressed that it's one of those ones where you just think you know about it because you never really thought about it. And when you dive into it, there's a lot more to it than you ever realized. Although all of it makes sense. Anecdotally you're like, oh yeah, oh yeah, I've done that. I've screamed like that I screamed and screamed and screamed again. Yeah, I like ones like this, I guess. Human nature explained. And there's a comma in there somewhere.
Chuck
Somewhere in there. Definitely not a colon. We should get some nuts and bolts out of the way. As far as, like, everyone knows what a scream is. It's obviously a very loud, high pitched, harsh thing on the ears. That's a sound that you make with, I was about to say with your mouth. But we'll get to the parts that make the scream. But nuts and bolts wise, the scream is in about the 80 to 120 decibel range. In volume, 60 decibels is normal speech. Unless you're my wife. That's more like an A75, I would say. She and her friend Stacy are two of the loudest humans on earth and they admit that they're not wallflowers and they own it, and I respect it. Nice. They reach frequency. Not Stacy and Emily, but humans or. I'm sorry. The human scream can reach a frequency in the range of 2,000 to 3,000 hertz, whereas a normal talker is about 80 to 300 hertz.
Josh
Yeah. And for dum dums with sound like me, the higher the hertz, the higher the pitch. So hertz is a measure of actual frequency. Pitch is basically a measure, a description of how we experience that frequency.
Chuck
That's right. And just to clear up something for what's coming later, a sound, a tone can have two different frequencies.
Josh
I've got it. I have it now.
Chuck
Okay, that's it.
Josh
No, I can't wait to explain it later because it's going to get flubbed all over the place.
Chuck
Well, it isn't intuitive like you would think, like a guitar string makes like, you know, one frequency range. But it's just. Yeah, it's not true. It's one of those things.
Josh
Yeah, it's just not true. We'll just leave it at that. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, Chuck.
Chuck
Yeah. Back to screaming, right?
Josh
Yeah. Because if you think about screaming, I always think of someone screaming. Usually in a horror movie or something like that. I haven't heard too many, like, real deal screams in. In real life, which is nice, but we're not the only animals that scream. There's plenty of other animals in the animal kingdom that. That scream that we know of. I'm quite sure there's plants that scream too. We just can't hear them.
Chuck
Maybe.
Josh
But birds scream. Seals, marmots, mountain lions, and I didn't know giraffes scream. That's got to Be off putting. The funniest scream of all is a goat screaming.
Chuck
Yeah.
Josh
If you have never witnessed a goat scream, go right now to YouTube and just look up goat screaming videos. And they don't all scream the same way, but every once in a while one of them is going to come along and scream like a man. And it is like, you will. You can't not laugh out loud when you see it. Every time I watch the same goat scream over and over again and. And I laughed out loud every time I watched it. Yeah.
Chuck
And it's so non goat sounding. Cause it's not even like a loud bleat that you wonder like, is somebody punking me? And that's just like, you know, that's James Caan from Misery that they're looping in there.
Josh
It does kind of sound like that. Another one to look up real quick are two links in Ontario screaming at each other, like right in their faces. Have you seen that one?
Chuck
I haven't seen that one.
Josh
Oh, it's nuts.
Chuck
Animals. Well, they. Well, let's just talk about why anything screams. It's a very effective tool. It's obviously a great fear response because everyone's gonna sit up and take notice because it's so harsh and loud. It's a very jarring thing. It can also distract predators. Obviously. Screaming. If you're lost, scream can travel a great distance in the woods or anywhere and you can, you know, alert somebody from a great distance. So it's a, it's a great communicative tool for humans and animals alike.
Josh
Yeah. And that loudness. I saw the Guinness record for the loudest scream is 129 decibels, which is 1 decibel under a jet engine and almost 10 times louder than a police siren.
Chuck
I wonder who that was.
Josh
I don't know, but man, I can't imagine that they did that too many times because as we'll see, screaming can really mess up your neck junk.
Chuck
Yeah, that's really gross. I'm getting older, so I'm getting more and more neck junk.
Josh
Very distressing. I'm talking about neck junk too.
Chuck
All right. So humans are born with this ability. We know how to scream right away because we come out of the womb screaming. In fact, that's a very comforting sound When a baby is born is that first scream. They're gonna clear that phlegm in their airway so they can breathe. It lets everybody know, hey, I'm here, I'm ready for action. I'm feeling good, despite the fact that I'm screaming. If a baby is born and there is no scream, that is a very scary, scary moment for parents and everybody in that room.
Josh
Yeah, I can imagine. It's like the one time where not screaming means that there's an issue.
Chuck
Yeah.
Josh
You know, totally. And there's a lot of information in a baby's scream. It says, I'm in distress, I'm in pain. I could use a nosh. There's just a lot that makes a parent, because we're tuned to this kind of thing, especially if you're the parent of that baby. Studies show that you respond to your own baby's cries or screams a lot more easily or quickly than somebody who is not the parent of that baby. But you rush over there and you say, here's some food. Here's a little blanket, and way to go. You just got all the phlegm out of your throat, so now you can breathe normally.
Chuck
Yeah. I remember when you met Ruby as a baby and she was screaming, and you're like, what the hell's wrong with this kid?
Josh
Right. Yeah, I just, you know, I tried to bounce around my knee faster, and it did the opposite of help.
Chuck
And I said, oh, Josh, I'm in tune already. Not in tune. Attuned already. I was also in tune. And I said, that just means she's hungry, so just raise your shirt.
Josh
Yeah, give her what she needs. That didn't work either. She got, like, hair in her mouth, though.
Chuck
Oh, my God. This got really disturbing very fast.
Josh
Yeah, we got it out.
Chuck
What about that cat cry?
Josh
So there is a syndrome that's colloquially called, I think, cri de chat cry of the cat in French, and it has some similarities to down syndrome. But one of the defining characteristics of Krito shot is a larynx malformation. So that babies, when they cry, like, the loud screaming cry, make a very specific cry that sounds very much like a cat crying. Yeah. You can find a couple of videos on YouTube of people with their baby with Creta shot of crying. And it's really cute in a lot of ways. But also, you're like, that sounds a lot like a cat. And it's so distinct that you can actually initially diagnose an infant with creta shot syndrome because of their cry. It's that distinct.
Chuck
Yeah. So, I mean, that's a benefit that can save a lot of time and discomfort for this kid in diagnosing this kind of condition.
Josh
Exactly.
Chuck
It's great. It also is a sign, obviously, when a kid is screaming, saying, hey, parent, go into fight or flight mode. Because I need something. And, you know, if it's one of distress, even more so, obviously. And not just like, I'm hungry, like severe distress. I don't know that we need to discuss fight or flight in detail because we did it 364 times over the first, like, five years of the show. Right, but everyone knows what that is, right?
Josh
Yeah, I would think so. I don't think we really need to describe fight or flight.
Chuck
You're like. But it's the.
Josh
I didn't. I stopped myself. I exercised great restraint.
Chuck
Nice work.
Josh
Okay, well, anyway, I'll take it from here, Chuck.
Chuck
Yeah.
Josh
Because the reason you brought that up is screams activate fight or flight mode in some really, like, basic ways, as we'll see. And so a scream actually activates in you a human who hears a scream. That readiness to, like, either spring into action or run like hell or freeze or. Fawn is the other one. Now, because the fight or flight syndrome's really come a long way since we last talked about it. And fawn is the response that you want when a baby's crying. You want to go and be like, oh, it's okay.
Chuck
Yeah, that's right. Here, Nevermind. I'm going to abandon that line of thought.
Josh
I think you should.
Chuck
So let's talk about sound for a minute. Because all sound comes from and is perceived by us through a series of processes in the brain, and most of these are in the higher brain region. But screams are different. They happen in the lower brain region. And it's a very interesting thing. It kind of lives in its own. As far as, like, humans making sound lives in its own area. It's very distinct from all the other sounds we make.
Josh
Yeah. And it's a lot faster to basically activate us than the normal speech that we hear. Right. So when you talk and when you're making. Just talk, like I am right now, say this is a good example. I'm using this description as an example in real time. Okay.
Chuck
That's right.
Josh
So I'm using my laryngeal motor cortex that's basically running the show right now. And that is a higher brain process. Right. So I'm using cognition. I'm figuring out how my mouth should move, which also requires fine motor coordination. I'm processing sound, I think, from our internal dialogue episode. I'm doing a quick quality check right before I actually say the words.
Chuck
Yeah, sound like Josh.
Josh
Exactly. And do I sound like a Muppety tenor? I do. Let's go. And then this stuff is sent to the brainstem, which basically Says, okay, larynx and vocal cords and lungs and abdominal muscles, let's talk. That's normal speech. And again, it requires a lot of higher brain processing. Screaming uses a different set of equipment to make itself happen. It's nuts because you think screaming is a form of speech. It's actually not. Even though we use a lot of the same stuff, a lot of the same bait and tackle, say like it's its own thing, which is. I just find this is where I'm like, okay, this is super fascinating now.
Chuck
Yeah, that's right. So for screams and some involuntary vocalizations, but really screams, the sound production takes different and like you said, a much faster path. The signal starts in the limbic system and it skips that higher brain processing. It happens in the amygdala. Basically, the emotional stimulus that the amygdala is all about just sends a scream signal. It's sort of like a direct path, like a express train through that brain stem to all the anatomy that you were talking about in your. The neck junk. And that scream just comes out immediately. And the craziest part is our body actually picks up on this before our ears and brain can even process what we've just heard.
Josh
Yeah. Once the scream comes out of someone else, when we hear that scream, it puts us in fight or flight mode before we're even consciously aware that we have heard a scream. That's how finely tuned we are to responding to screams, which, again, this is something you just think exists out there. And then when you dig in, you're like, my God. So there's like a whole set of processes that take place that again are different than how we would respond if we hear regular speech. Right. So it follows some of the same processes. It hits the outer ear, goes through the ear canal, the eardrum goes boom, boom, boom. That is amplified in the middle ear and that goes on to the cochlea, which triggers a wave along the basilar membrane which says, I'm going to turn this into an electrical signal, sends it to the auditory nerve, which sends it to the brain stem and then to the thalamus. And the thalamus is the sensory clearinghouse. It sends this to that and that to that. All of your sensory information goes to the thalamus. And here is where it diverges from normal speech. Yeah.
Chuck
And I mean, that's why when somebody screams, like a blood curdling scream out in public, you're instantly reacting. You don't hear that and then decide like, well, maybe I should go see what's going on. Over there. Like your body is instantly reacting because it is unconsciously picked up on that scream before it's even registered in your brain. So it's really a pretty remarkable sort of evolutionary trait, I think, like to help rescue, you know, probably back in Tuk Tuk's days. The wife or baby that the husband who's out hunting and gathering has to protect from whatever dangers are around the fire.
Josh
Yeah. And the reason why that happens is because when it hits that thalamus, it gets sent two different ways. Like it gets sent the normal way to that higher brain processing. And when it goes through that higher brain processing, that's when you become conscious of hearing that scream.
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Josh
But what's happened even faster is it got sent to that amygdala and that sent in the fight or flight response. And that happened before your higher brain finished processing, which is just. So there's this own pathway for just screams that the human brain has evolved to basically make you able to respond to a scream faster. It has its own expressway. Screams only essentially is what it says. And if you're regular speech, you try to use that same expressway. It's got those tire bursting spikes that will just stop you cold right there, and they'll send you back along the way you're supposed to go to the higher brain.
Chuck
You go back to Talktown buddy.
Josh
Exactly. And it's gonna take you a while to get there because you don't have tires. You're driving on just rims now because you were dumb and you made a poor decision. Yeah.
Chuck
And you shouldn't do that because you're gonna damage those rims. You need to pull over immediately.
Josh
Yeah, it's bad.
Chuck
Should we take a break?
Josh
Yeah, I think so.
Chuck
All right, we're gonna take a break and come back and Josh is gonna explain something called the roughness domain right after this.
Josh
Learning things with Jack and Jack shining on my face.
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You'Re thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got your core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is you're engaged with your investments and public gets that. That's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public you can put together a multi asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto. It's all there plus an industry leading 3.8% APY high yield cash account. Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public.com and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public. Paid for by Public Investing. All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for U.S. listed registered securities, options and bonds in a self directed account are offered by Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC. Crypto trading provided by Backed Crypto Solutions LLC. Complete disclosures available@public.com disclosures Life's messy.
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Josh
All right, Chuck, here we go. Here's the flubbing.
Chuck
Okay, well, we'll see. It's a little brain breaking, but we'll get it.
Josh
I think it's one of those things where if I just thought too hard about it and I've made it maybe breaking, but so, so screams have something in common and that is that they exist in a region of human perception that's called the roughness domain. Okay. And if you take someone's voice, right, it has a certain frequency. My voice has a certain frequency. You can recognize it as mine, but you can take my voice and make it modulate, right? So like the British police car that goes, that's modulating, right? So it has its own, its own frequency, right? But you're making it change pitch. So that's a second frequency that it has. And if that frequency is between 30Hz and 150Hz, that modulation between up and down or left and right, however you want to look at it, that is that roughness area. And it also seems to be reserved as far as human sounds go, just for screams.
Chuck
Yeah. There was a study. They learned this because of a study in.
Josh
Whoa, whoa, whoa. How'd I do?
Chuck
Oh, you did great.
Josh
Okay, good.
Chuck
I'm sorry, I didn't. The customary thank you.
Josh
We usually edit the claps out. I think we should leave that one in.
Chuck
Yeah, yeah, let's leave that one in. They know this because in 2015, NYU, the neuroscientists there, published a study supporting this role of amplitude modulation. And the crazy part is that the only other sound in that ruftus domain, like, that's the only sound a human can make that's like that. The only other sounds are all artificial alarms. So the human screen lives in the ruffthyss domain alongside sirens and car alarms and, you know, just other. Other. Like klaxon, maybe.
Josh
What is that? Is that the bad guys in Doctor who?
Chuck
I think a klaxon is the.
Josh
Oh, those are terrible. Like, pull your credit card out of the card terminal.
Chuck
Does it actually do that?
Josh
Yes. So they. They did originally. I think they kind of stopped, but it used to be really jarring.
Chuck
Yeah. I mean, because that's the sound that happens when a nuclear facilities melting down.
Josh
Right. Forget your credit card meltdown and nuclear facility. Basically the same thing.
Chuck
Yeah. So thanks NYU for that. Right.
Josh
Well, okay, that was just part one of this study. This is a really robust study. So they analyzed recorded sounds, and they found that screams were all in roughness. And the only other sounds that were in there were alarms. Right. Then they got a bunch of volunteers, almost guaranteed, NYU undergrads looking for extra credit, and they said, we want you to make a bunch of sounds. We want you to scream. We want you to speak normally. We want you to scream. Speak.
Chuck
Yeah.
Josh
And make a bunch of meaningless vocalizations like yips, yammers, yelps, that whole thing. Right, sure. And then they analyzed those, just like they analyzed the recorded sounds, and they found that all of the scream sounds were in the roughness domain, and all of the non scream sounds, including yips and yammers, were not in the roughness domain whatsoever. So they're really zeroing in. And yet there's more to this study. This is how robust it was.
Chuck
Yeah. So then they said, all right, we got out this collection of sounds, neutral sounds is what we'll call the ones that aren't screams and then the screamy things. And they brought in some other volunteers, other NYU students for sure, and said, all right, we want you to rate the scariness, like, maybe on a 1 to 10, 1 to 5, who knows what they used to. Maybe a Yelp star system.
Josh
Okay.
Chuck
And they said, rate the scariness of the sounds. All the sounds in the roughness domain, this is pretty obvious. Were rated as scarier than the neutral sounds, and the sounds that were rated the scariest were the ones that were highest on the roughness scale. All makes sense, right?
Josh
So they're really drilling down here. It keeps going, everybody. They actually took volunteers, probably the same ones who rated the scariness of the sounds, and they scanned them while they were listening to scary sounds. And not just screams, but also artificial alarms, too, and probably some of the nonsense sounds and musical sounds. And as they were listening, the screams and the alarms were the only ones that caused spikes in the amygdala. Remember, the amygdala is where that set aside pathway for screams is, and that the higher on the roughness scale, if you can call it that, that the screams or alarms were, the greater the amygdala activity, and then the greater the amygdala activity that was shown in the scans, the higher those sounds had been rated for scariness by the volunteers previously. And when they wrapped it up and put all this together, they were like, I forgot what we were studying in the first place.
Chuck
So the upshot, to borrow a term from Josh, is that it seems like humans are specifically attuned and our amygdala is specifically activated by the sound of a scream. To say, like, hey, it's time to panic, or it's time to kick into high gear. They found that this works if you're awake or asleep.
Josh
Yeah.
Chuck
The rough vocalizations in that rough domain that we were talking about penetrate human sleep cycles more than neutral vocalizations and that's not to say that, like, yeah, of course it's louder, dummy. We're not talking about decibels here. We're talking about a frequency range. Like, I think what they're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that a scream that might be the same decibel level as, like, a really loud talk will penetrate that sleep cycle. Unlike that really loud talk.
Josh
Yes. And they think it's because the amygdala is tuned to that 30-150 Hz roughness band. So the amygdala has its own route for getting you aroused. And not necessarily in the best way. When you hear a scream, and it's also listening out to a specific band of modulation that screams existence. So clearly, thanks to our NYU researchers back in 2015, screams are a really important and kind of overlooked part of human speech. Right, yeah, for sure. And they think also, Chuck, that not only has, like, have we evolved to develop this alarm system, which clearly is what it is, because not only are you saying, help, you're also depending on how nice or altruistic the people listening are, you're also saying, look out, there's danger. And they may run away if they flee. Or they might run to you to help you if they're ready to fight. But they also have shown that screams have evolved in other ways too. Like, we don't scream just out of an alarm system anymore. There's actually at least six other screams that they discovered that correlate or correspond to six other separate emotions.
Chuck
Yeah. Anger, of course, is gonna be one. You can scream at somebody in traffic.
Josh
There's a Europe song called Scream of Anger.
Chuck
Really?
Josh
And Europe, of course, is known for a different song.
Chuck
Yeah. But you know what I heard? Oh, what was it? That other Europe song I forgot about the other day on hair nation on SiriusXM.
Josh
Okay.
Chuck
Which I'm still pounding, by the way. I can't get away from it. I'm so back into the hair metal. It's really funny.
Josh
That's awesome.
Chuck
What was it? Keep on walking that road and I'll follow and if a mirror should break Superstitious.
Josh
That was Europe.
Chuck
Yeah, that was Europe. That was other big song besides Final Countdown.
Josh
Okay, well, so Scream of Anger.
Chuck
It's a great song.
Josh
Okay. Scream of Anger is even better. It's like actual metal tinged.
Chuck
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You just made me think of Europe. They're definitely not screamers. They had voices of angels. They did obviously scream in fear, which is kind of one of the things we've been talking about. Screaming in pain, that's something that I have never experienced. I've felt great deals of physical pain, but I'm very internal. I kind of go inward, but I've been to emergency rooms, and a screamer in an emergency room is a very unsettling situation.
Josh
Yeah, for sure. The one I always associate with that is Tom Barringer telling that guy who got shot in the gut and Platoon to eat the pain.
Chuck
Uh, yeah, that's right.
Josh
That guy was definitely screaming in pain.
Chuck
Yeah. Yeah. He put his hand over his mouth.
Josh
Mm. And it worked.
Chuck
Was that Junior? Yeah.
Josh
So there's also, this one's great. A scream of extreme joy.
Chuck
Yeah, like at a concert, maybe.
Josh
Sure, that's one. Or if you watch the Simpsons and go back and watch, I think the Murder House episode where Marge is a real estate agent selling a murder house to Ned Flanders, you hear a terrible scream and it turns out it's Ned Flanders screaming in joy because there's purple drapes in the house. It's great. Just go look it up.
Chuck
It's like a 10 second clip, I guess. You know, we're not going to dance around this. We're adults here. Obviously, during intercourse, an orgasm can produce quite a scream, I'm told.
Josh
Yeah, next to that, I just have an ellipse. Right.
Chuck
Intense pleasure. So you know, that extreme joy and intense pleasure probably encapsulates both of those if you're doing it right. And then a scream of sadness. And I guess this is just like wailing. Plus.
Josh
Yeah, I feel like this one may have just been mislabeled because I think you can make a case that what they're describing here is actually a scream of emotional pain. Not physical pain, emotional pain.
Chuck
Well, that's what sadness is, right?
Josh
Yeah, I guess so. So, sure. I mean, maybe it's just me that was like, no, that's wrong. A really good example of it as far as movies go is Toni Collette in Hereditary.
Chuck
Oh, God.
Josh
She finds out that her daughter has died. It's gut wrenching, the work she does. Like, oh my God. It's really tough to watch. And of course it's all over the Internet.
Chuck
I. I am about to say something I thought I would never say. I think I would like to see that movie again.
Josh
Oh, why did you not like it the first time?
Chuck
I loved it, but it's a tough movie.
Josh
Oh, it is.
Chuck
And it was one of those where I was like, well, that was amazing. But I don't think I need to see that ever again. But I think I might want to. Cause it was really that great.
Josh
I've seen people here or there describe it as potentially the darkest dark comedy around.
Chuck
Oh, interesting.
Josh
And there's this one part that I think kind of supports it. Do you remember the part where Stephen is in the classroom and he messes himself up pretty good. Mm.
Chuck
It's been a while, but yeah, sorta.
Josh
Yeah, it's. I mean, it's really good. I've seen it, I think just a couple of times. But the second time I saw it was not too long ago. But Chuck, please, please watch St. Maud. As far as A24 horror movies go. That's one of the more overlooked ones. It is off the chain. It's so good and it's just so nuts, man.
Chuck
Why have I heard of that?
Josh
Is that. I've told people about this before, I think. Yeah. And I don't think you watched it because you would have definitely come back and been like, dude, okay, St. Maud.
Chuck
That's all I need to say.
Josh
Okay, dude.
Chuck
Yeah, well, it's a British horror film. I'm all about those.
Josh
It's good. It's rough though. Like this is not for kids and there's really upsetting stuff throughout. So just FYI.
Chuck
All right, so back to screaming, obviously. Rage, fear, pain. These are alarm screams. The non alarm screams like we talked about. The joy, intense pleasure. I don't think I'll throw sadness in there because that can be alarm. But those aren't things that you will find in the animal kingdom. It is a distinctly uniquely human instinct to signal something positive with a scream. Animals don't scream out in joy.
Josh
No. But we do think that some non human primates scream out in grief though. Isn't that awful?
Chuck
Oh, man. Yeah.
Josh
Ghost. I think that's a great way to end this section and start with the ab break. What do you think?
Chuck
Yeah, let's do it.
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Chuck
All right, so back to screaming. I was afraid you were gonna scream at one point.
Josh
No, I wouldn't do that.
Chuck
Not something we're gonna do. I can't remember the last time I tried to scream.
Josh
Yeah, me neither.
Chuck
Like as a, like, hey, what's your scream sound like at a party or something?
Josh
Who does that?
Chuck
You know, that old party trick. And I wonder, like I always think of like the best scream I've ever heard is probably from American movie. The documentary. You saw that, right? No, the American movie. It was about the guys in Wisconsin making the low budget horror movie. That's why I always say coven, because he pronounced it coven.
Josh
I never saw that. I know what you're talking about. Is it worth seeing?
Chuck
Oh, it's one of the great, great documentaries of all time. Highly recommend it. But Mike Schenck, rest in peace. Mike has left us very sadly. There's one part in there where the main guy is trying to record screams for his low budget horror film he's making in the studio. And Mike Schenck, who is this very, very low key friend of his, out of nowhere. I'll send you the clip produces the most blood curdling scream I've ever heard in my life. It's incredible.
Josh
Definitely.
Chuck
And one of the funnier parts of that too, because nobody saw it coming, including his friend. And his reaction is great. And it's just one of the great.
Josh
Parts of that movie. Well, me and everybody listening will definitely see it coming now.
Chuck
Oh, it's. Yeah, I guess that is a little bit of spoiler, but it's a 20 year old documentary, so you know.
Josh
All right, I'll watch it though. Okay. If you watch.
Chuck
ET Goes home to everybody.
Josh
Okay. So there's a name that's been kind of bestowed on some actresses over the years, which is Scream Queen. Yeah, I always associate that with Jamie Lee Curtis, who got that from Halloween and prom night. It actually dates back like 50 plus years before Halloween with Fay Wray when she was in king Kong in 1933. Apparently. I've not seen the original King Kong, but her screams are supposedly really terrifying. And they did them all in post production, like apparently American movie. And then they mixed them together to just make them as disturbing as possible. But Fay Wray, the 1930s actress was the original scream queen.
Chuck
That's right. It's a pretty good scream. Not nearly as chilling as Mike Shanks, but it was 1933. They did a pretty good job. You usually associate it with a scream queen. It's usually a woman screaming in a horror movie. That's just sort of the trope. But there have been some notable man screams. James Caan, certainly I mentioned earlier from Misery. But another that was done in post production but is so great. You should just check out this clip on YouTube is the chilling ending of Invasion of the body snatchers from 1978 with Donald Sutherland. And you know who was in charge of that scream? My friend, you probably looked this up, but it's our old pal from Star Wars. Oh, who was hitting that high tension wire with a wrench. Ben Burt.
Josh
Yeah, he was just a legend, wasn't he?
Chuck
Yeah. Apparently this was layering pig squeals on top of each other. And it's a very. It's a sort of a classic ending to that movie because that is the sound that the pod people make when they see a human. And well, I mean, I guess this is all spoiler stuff, but it's from 1978. Donald Sutherland makes that sound at the end when he sees a human, indicating chillingly that he is now a pod person.
Josh
Yeah. So keep an eye on Donald Sutherland when you watch that movie for the first time.
Chuck
Yeah, for sure.
Josh
There's a couple others. Thomas Jane gives a really terrible scream at the end of the Mist, which has one of the most unsettling endings, I think, of any movie ever. Maybe tied with It Comes in the Night, which is another really unsettling. A 24 movie. Bruce Campbell, He's a great man. Screamer, I guess. Scream king.
Chuck
He does everything great.
Josh
And then Justin Long, he's definitely. He's been in, like, way more horror movies than you would think, but he. I'm pretty sure he screams pretty well in Barbarian.
Chuck
Great movie.
Josh
And then also, I can't help but bring up, since I mentioned Justin Long, he's in a new movie called Coyotes, which is a horror comedy about coyotes going on a rampage. And it just so happens that my niece, Mila Harris is in that movie too. She plays his and Kate Bosworth's daughter.
Chuck
Oh, that's great. I love that it's out now. The odd connection of Justin Long and Hodgman, of course, with the Mac Apple commercials, for sure. When I was out in New York that time, after hanging out with Hodgman, you and I, I think, went to a thing with him. Then later that night, I saw Justin Long out.
Josh
Oh, weird.
Chuck
And had to say something to him. I was like, you know, John's a friend of mine. I was just hanging out with him. It's funny that I saw you. And he said, well, Mila, Josh's future niece is right behind me.
Josh
That's awesome.
Chuck
It was very funny.
Josh
Thanks for circling back like that. That was really kind.
Chuck
Of course. And then we have to also give due to a couple of more scream queens, very famously Janet Leigh and Psycho. And you gotta talk about Neve Campbell in the movie Scream.
Josh
Yes. And I would make an assertion that Mia Goth is the current Scream queen from the Max trilogy. I think she's great. She's the one killing it right now.
Chuck
Yeah, she's awesome. And speaking of Scream, and I'm only plugging an old movie crush because guest Nate Bargetzi is now the biggest comedian on planet Earth.
Josh
I know, it's so great.
Chuck
But I had Nate on because I was a fan of Nate's very early on, and I just wanted to meet Nate. So I drove to Nashville and had N on. And his movie Crush pick was Scream.
Josh
Did he know you were coming?
Chuck
Yeah, I cornered him in a studio, and he's like, who's this guy?
Josh
He's such a good guy too, man. It's like his comedy's perfect. Like, he's. It's. I'm just really happy that he's so huge now.
Chuck
He's a great guy and super, super nice in person. And I'm sure he is still that way. Even now that he's super famous. He seems like he's still a great guy. But Nate was very charming guest so you can if you want to. If you're a big fan of Nate's now and you want to hear him talk to me, you can check out that old movie crush.
Josh
Don't just check out that old movie crush. Check out all the movie crushes, because they are all priceless gems.
Chuck
Yeah, I definitely miss that show. But, you know, some things just have to be retired eventually.
Josh
Exactly, Chuck.
Chuck
Yeah.
Josh
So did you mention death metal? I thought you did.
Chuck
I don't think so, but that's obviously a place where screaming can be a profession in a way, so.
Josh
Yeah. So the University of Utah conducted these tests where they took dynamic mri, so, like, you don't have to just be laying down still to get an MRI image of a person. They took MRIs of a guy named Will Ramos, who's a deathcore singer for a band called Lorna Shore. And he is extraordinarily talented. Whether you like deathcore or can't stand deathcore, go look up to the hellfire. The Lorna Shore video and his range of the work he does with screaming, like death. Death core screaming is.
Chuck
Yeah.
Josh
You can't help but be impressed. He's really good. Right. So they got a really good person to study because not only is he really good at screaming, death core wise or death metal wise, his vocal junk, his neck junk is, like, entirely intact. Like, it's really healthy. He's been doing this for years, and he hasn't done any damage. So these University of Utah researchers are like, what are you doing? Can we take MRIs of you singing? And they did. And it's really cool because the one of him just singing, normally, you can barely see any movement in. Inside the neck right when he screams, it just is chaos in there. And apparently people who know what the anatomy is can look at him, be like, oh, my God, he's doing this. And this is how he's keeping from ruining his vocal cords. So they actually got pretty far with it. But it's worth checking out that article because just for the mri, side by side.
Chuck
Amazing.
Josh
I thought so too.
Chuck
Yeah. And, you know, it sounds like he has something special going on in his neck junk, because screaming can. Can definitely, like, it's very hard on your. On your throat. So good for him. He found his calling.
Josh
He found his niche. He got in where he fought in.
Chuck
That's right. Another reason to scream kind of here as we're finishing up, is pain control. They did a pretty interesting survey in 2020 of children that had been in the hospital. And pain, like screaming to relieve Pain control, it turns out, is probably a thing I haven't seen the most robust scientific study, but at least from this survey, children routinely described feeling a feeling of liberation when they screamed, and then a feeling of calmness afterward that helped them experience pain in a more manageable way. The problem is that adults and doctors and nurses can't take it. Obviously, parents, it's gonna be very disturbing because they're gonna try and get their kid to not scream. And the same goes for doctors and nurses trying to comfort them. But this is the saddest quote of all. It seems like it helped them. And an 8 year old noted, maybe it's good to scream, but they don't know that. Nobody asks me, my God, I know.
Josh
Sad.
Chuck
It's awful.
Josh
The reason why they think that it does help with pain relief is because one of the hormones or one of the chemicals released in the fight or flight response is our endorphins, which can dull pain. So it does make sense that screaming could help you with pain. There's another cleverer use of screaming, if you ask me, than screaming in the emergency room, which is replacing the current paradigm for creating anxiety inside a lab to study anxiety for research, which is to threaten people with a shock. And they've actually found that you can threaten people with a scream and generate anxiety just as reliably. So people are like, we should stop threatening people with shocks because it's unethical, and just start saying, somebody's gonna scream in a second or maybe two seconds, you're never gonna know. And that can generate anxiety as well.
Chuck
But, you know, we're so soft. Before long they're gonna be like, you can't scream at people either, Right?
Josh
They'll be like, we want you to feel anxiety right now, please. Yeah, would you do that for me? I'm sure the participant would be like, I feel anxiety all the time. Can do.
Chuck
Right. Then I guess, finally we should at least mention scream therapy or primal scream therapy. I feel like we talked about this at a certain point, but this has been around since the 60s. I felt like it was probably biggest maybe in the late 60s and 70s. The original Primal scream therapy psychologist was Arthur Janoff. And this was based on the idea that we all had this repressed trauma from childhood. It's stored as primal pain. And Arthur Janoff said, well, you know what? A good old fashioned screaming session can release that stuff and get it out there. The bad news is it turns out there's not a lot of evidence that supports it as being a credible form of Therapy?
Josh
No. And actually, I think it's possible it can hurt in trauma therapy because screaming can arouse anxiety in the person. Screaming even, too. So not necessarily the best thing to do.
Chuck
No, but very 60s 70s. I could see that being a thing.
Josh
Super. There's, like, one of those wicker chairs that people used to take prom pictures in. One of the wicker throne. There's definitely one of those in the office. Yeah.
Chuck
I think Black Moses album cover. Wasn't Isaac Hayes in one of those?
Josh
I believe so. Yeah. Was there, like, a panther laying at his feet, too?
Chuck
Probably there should have been.
Josh
Okay, well, obviously, since we started talking about Isaac Hayes, I think we've just unlocked listener mail. Chuck.
Chuck
That's right, and I am wrong, actually, because, of course, the Black Moses album cover was just that great picture of Isaac Hayes with his shades on and wearing that sort of striped colored hood. But maybe it was on the back. I definitely have seen Isaac Hayes in a wicker throne.
Josh
There you go.
Chuck
Maybe it was Escape from the New York. All right, guys, this is Leslie. All right, guys. I don't remember how I was turned on your podcast, but I've been a regular listener for several years now, and finally, I'm getting around to writing. I often wished I was in the studio during a recording so I could comment or applaud. Hey. Like I did today. Yeah, it was. I was sad to learn that you weren't doing San Francisco Sketchfest this year, but I'm hoping you come back next year and my friend Christine and I will be there. I wanted to write when the topic was animal communication because the musical interlude was an homage to the Beach Boys Pet Sounds, which was brilliant. You can thank Jerry for that, by the way. I work in animal care, you see, So I love your animal episodes. I appreciate how you guys accept correction, showing it's okay to make a mistake as long as you learn from it. And I appreciate how you present important yet sensitive topics in a respectful way, or how you share multiple points of view on divisive issues. I just want to thank you for keeping me company during my commute, explaining complex things, making seemingly unsavory topics palatable. Entertain me, educating me, and more. P.S. in support of your efforts to grow your listenership, still, I shared your Sesame street episode on my Facebook page. So, Leslie, really appreciate that.
Josh
Yeah.
Chuck
And then there's a pps. I've often thought a good drinking game could be to drink every time Chuck says, that's right. Roll off the tongue.
Josh
Or for sure, for sure.
Chuck
But I don't drink alcohol. So if I were to play, I'd probably just get really well hydrated. It's very funny. Leslie S in the San Francisco Bay Area. And yeah, Leslie, we'd love to see you at our show next year because hopefully we'll be there.
Josh
That was really, really sweet. What a very nice email, Leslie. Thank you for taking the time to write all that. And thank you for sharing our Sesame street episode. It's a pretty good one to share if you ask me. And if you want to be like Leslie and send us a very nice email, we always love getting those. You can send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.
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Josh
In.
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Chuck
Lenovo hey audiobook lovers, I'm Cal Penn. I'm Ed Helms. Ed and I are inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with our new podcast, Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Each week we sit down with your.
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Chuck
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Josh
Today the day begins at the Chase.
Chuck
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Josh
You get the clam chowder Mm in San Diego, it's Tostadas New York.
Chuck
Espresso martini.
Josh
It's 10am why not? It's the quiet before your next flight.
Chuck
The shower that resets your day.
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Chuck
FDIC subject to credit approval. This is an iHeart podcast.
Hosts: Josh & Chuck
Date: October 23, 2025
Podcast: Stuff You Should Know (iHeartPodcasts)
In this episode, Josh and Chuck explore the science, psychology, and cultural significance of the human scream. Prompted by Chuck’s curiosity about why people scream for so many different reasons, the duo dives into the anatomy of a scream, its purpose in both humans and animals, how our brains process screams, and why certain screams are so alarming. They round out the episode discussing famous “screams” in movies and music, as well as the idea of primal scream therapy.
Definition & Physical Properties
Human vs. Animal Screams
Screaming instantly grabs attention due to its volume and roughness.
Guinness record for loudest scream: 129db, nearly a jet engine.
Babies are born able to scream—immediate survival benefit: clears airway and signals distress.
“If a baby is born and there is no scream, that is a very scary, scary moment.” – Chuck (08:00)
Fight or Flight Activation
Route Through the Brain
Faster than Conscious Thought
Memorable Analogy:
What Makes a Scream “Alarming”?
Roughness & Fear
Screams Penetrate Sleep
Beyond alarm (fear, pain, rage), researchers found at least six emotional types of scream:
Distinctly Human
Movie Screams & Scream Queens/Kings
Screaming as Performance
Pain and Coping:
Primal Scream Therapy
Lab Research:
Josh and Chuck reveal the surprising roles and complex science behind one of humanity’s most primal vocalizations. From evolutionary triggers to music, movies, and mental health, the scream is more than just a cry for help—it's a multifaceted signal that influences our bodies, minds, and cultures.