December 28, 2013

December 28, 2013

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M. S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

A long time ago, this writer was stimulated by the circumstances that he was in to dedicate his life to a new way of communicating. While he was sitting by himself in his attic, his eyes got sight of a box, standing in the corner, underneath the roof. He reached, pulled it closer and opened it. It contained some old books and a gong. There was also a stick with a soft cotton ball on it, with which he hit the gong. Its sound impacted the author in such a way that he felt he had accidentally stumbled upon a great treasure. He rejoiced as he heard the gong’s resonant sound. Because of his behavioral history in singing opera, the author immediately related the sound of the gong to the sound of his own voice. In that moment, he recognized that he could effortlessly talk with a voice which sounded exactly like that gong. He began to speak out loud, with himself, while sitting alone in his attic,  

The reader should know about the precise circumstances of the author’s discovery without which there wouldn’t and couldn’t have been the development of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Although these circumstances were chance events in the life of the author, they can be easily arranged to facilitate the same effect. The author still possesses that gong and lets the participants of his seminars listen to it, so that they can get a sense of what they can sound like. When asked what the sound of the gong makes them feel like, individuals from different cultures and back grounds say similar things. They find it peaceful, pleasant, relaxing or calming. Only very few people associate the sound of the gong with threatening or anxiety- provoking circumstances. By far the majority said that made them think of prayer, meditation, being present, resting, consciousness and spirituality. 

Once people hear the sound of the gong, they basically all agree that it sounds good.  And, once they hear the sound of their own voice describing the sound of that gong, they find that they themselves sound good too. Because of the enormous contrast this creates, they are immediately aware that normally they seldom use this sound while they speak.  They describe their experience of hearing their voice as a sense of relief, rejuvenation and restfulness and acknowledge that these positive qualities are mostly absent in their daily conversations. The more they talk and experiment with self-listening, the more they realize how horrible and uptight they usually sound. 

When a speaker’s voice is an aversive stimulus, it elicits a sympathetic response in   the listener's autonomic nervous system. The author calls this Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).  Upon hearing such a sound more often, the  listener reacts reflexively with a conditioned fear response and also produces NVB. In NVB the sound of our speaking voice expresses negative emotions, which are characterized by tension, stress, fear and anger. By contrast, in SVB our voice expresses only positive emotions. People are astounded how negative most of their interaction is.

Once the distinction between SVB and NVB is made, they estimate that 95% is NVB. This means that there is as of yet little environmental support for SVB. Acknowledging this is of utmost importance, because SVB can’t exist in an environment that doesn’t support it. Our longing to have it isn’t going to produce it. It can’t, because it has nothing to do with us individually. We think that everything has to do with us individually because we are used to and conditioned by NVB. We are so used to NVB that we expect it and inadvertently set the stage for it. 

Stimuli, the sound of our voices, pertaining to SVB are different than those pertaining to NVB. When stimuli are present to produce the latter, the former can’t be there, because nothing is stimulating it. We need different stimuli than the ones which produce NVB to be able to produce SVB. These stimuli will not be available as long as we do not know what they are.  It isn’t a matter of some of us knowing about them, who then, supposedly, bring others along with them. This isn’t how SVB works. In SVB all participants in the interaction know what it takes.

Only when one studies SVB, will one be able to discriminate the contingencies of reinforcement which make SVB possible. Before this writer sat by himself in his attic, he had become so disillusioned with how people communicated that he n0 longer wished to talk with anyone, because it always led to the same dissatisfying results. The reader should be aware that any dissatisfaction with how we communicate is a dissatisfaction with NVB. When the writer first discovered the importance of the sound of his voice while he speaks, he didn’t know anything about the stimuli which cause NVB . He enjoyed his ability to speak with a voice which deepened his well-being and thought there shouldn't be a big problem in explaining this to others. Although this was true, it turned out that only very few people were willing to listen to themselves while they speak and therefore willing to listen to him. It wasn’t until he began to study behaviorism that this author began to better understand that  a person's ability to acknowledge SVB or NVB depends on his or her behavior-environment  history . Behavior is accumulative and can only build on what is already there.