January 10, 2014

January 10, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

When writing is like speaking and reading is like listening, it can be said in writing that when we stop reading, we actually stop listening. Why do we want to read certain words, but not others? Words invite us or they don’t. When we can’t and don’t think while we read thoughts that link the text to what we already know, when covert private speech, our self-talk, is not stimulated by written words to become part of overt public speech, we feel excluded and are likely to give up on what we read. We keep reading based on intermittent reinforcement, which is  the schedule of reinforcement that causes behavior that is most difficult to extinguish and has the highest response rate, because only once in a while there is a surprise reinforcement. What we know affects how we talk with ourselves, our private speech. The writing which doesn’t appeal to our self-talk can’t teach us anything, because we don’t want to read it. We read only what appeals to us because we like to read it. As our need for this kind of writing mostly determines what is written, many texts are written presumably to fulfill that need. However, when texts are written to satisfy a need which was not recognized and which had remained unfulfilled, such writings have nothing to do with the transmission of knowledge. While readers are only reading something that is reinforcing to them, they are on an intermittent reinforcement schedule for reasons that only benefit the writer. The readers buy these writer’s books because they are sold on his or her use of language. However, such emphasis on written words, which ideally represent our real world, still remains a function of our spoken communication, in which we weren’t listened to and in which we didn’t really listen to each other.