December 21, 2014

December 21, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

When the verbalizer and the mediator are one and the same person, a unique phenomenon can  occur as our speaking and listening behavior happen at the same rate and intensity level. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) occurs when two or more verbalizers create the interaction in which each verbalizer is able to realize that he or she is also the mediator of his or her own verbal and nonverbal expression. The situation in which verbalizers and mediators are unable to perceive themselves as one and the same person, is one in which we engage in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). The absence of turn-taking is a characteristic for NVB. In other words, the contingency for NVB requires that the mediator doesn’t verbalize or that the verbalizer doesn’t mediate. 

What is commonly known as ‘thinking’ is a naturally occurring private neural behavior, which happens covertly, sub-vocally, within the verbalizer’s own skin. However, such ‘thought’ is only possible to the extent to which the verbalizer is able to become his or her own mediator. In other words, there is a public as well as a private version of turn-taking. Moreover, in NVB, due to the absence of public turn-taking, there cannot be a private version of turn-taking. As our private speech is a function of our public speech, NVB public speech results in NVB private speech.  Verbal behavior only stimulates more verbal behavior, if the mediator mediates the verbalizer.

Regardless of whether the mediator is him or herself the verbalizer or whether someone else is the verbalizer, we can learn verbal behavior only to the extent that it is consequated. What this means is that nothing can be done about what a person says to him or herself privately, unless something is done about what the verbalizer says to the mediator publicly. The conditioning of our private verbalizing behavior and our private mediating behavior depends on the public verbalizing and the public mediating behavior that we are and have been exposed to. 

In SVB, human interaction occurs naturally and automatically; SVB public speech causes and includes our SVB private speech. However, nothing is natural about NVB, in which our pathological private speech is presumably excluded from our rigid public speech. Of course, our negative self-talk always spills over into our negative public speech, but during NVB we simply don’t pay any attention to any of this. During NVB, a person’s negative private speech is not seen as functionally related to his or her public speech, but rather it is attributed to personality.  

To reiterate, lack of turn-taking in our overt public speech translates into lack of turn-taking in our covert private speech.  Stated differently, problems with ‘thinking’, with private verbal behavior, are caused and maintained by our NVB public speech. How can we have what we in NVB consider to be ‘our own thoughts’, the thoughts which are reinforcing to us, if our covert verbalizations are not mediated, but are constantly ignored, neglected, unattended and distracted from?  It will not occur, because it cannot occur. In SVB, by contrast, in which our bodies have been changed by different stimuli, by different sounds, by circumstances in which we experienced safety and care, control of our public speech originates in our private speech. In SVB thinking is not done, it simply effortlessly happens, but in NVB thinking appears to be an arduous, effortful process. 

In NVB it is difficult to keep our thoughts focused on what is said, as nonverbal stimuli take our attention away from the verbal.  Because the verbal stimuli presented by the NVB verbalizer remain incongruent with his or her nonverbal expressions and because the nonverbal stimuli of the verbalizer attract more attention than what the verbalizer is saying, the attention of the mediator moves away from the verbal, that is, he or she becomes preoccupied with his or her own nonverbal behavior, because this is more reinforcing. Another way of viewing this is that to the extent that the mediator has only experienced a modicum of love and care, he or she will not be reinforced by the verbal behavior of any NVB verbalizer. Such a mediator invariably turns to the soothing effects of his or her own private speech. Rather than viewing the mediator’s lack of attention as a function of the verbalizer’s NVB, we say that the mediator has attention deficit disorder. 

During SVB, the mediator’s thoughts effortlessly focus on what verbalizer is saying, because the verbalizer doesn’t aversively affect the mediator with the sound of his or her voice. In SVB, the private speech of the mediator is under discriminative control of the verbal and the nonverbal behavior of the verbalizer. Multiple control of the mediator’s private speech keeps not only the thoughts of the mediator ‘focused’, but also keeps the mediator attuned to the verbalizer. Since it is equally reinforcing for the verbalizer and the mediator to hear their own sound, in SVB, the mediator listens to the verbalizer as if he or she is listening to him or herself. As one body transfers positive energy to another, SVB triggers energy that was stored in the body, which changes the body so that it can now produce the antecedent stimuli for SVB. 

As we are fixated on what we say, we don’t pay attention to, we don’t discriminate, the situation in which we say what we say and in which we talk the way we do. If we would experiment, we would find, by letting go of ‘our way’ of communicating, which most likely is NVB, that we attain SVB, a better way of communicating.  If  we refrain from doing what we usually do, from saying what we usually say, from talking the way in which we usually talk, we are likely to produce SVB. This has been proven by this author over and over again. The reader may not want to believe it, but this writer does not want the reader to believe it. He stimulates the reader to verify whether what he writes is true. 

If we would listen to how we sound while we speak, we would immediately discriminate that we all have basically only two sounds, simply called Voice I and Voice II. One exercise in discrimination training would be enough to reveal the low probability of reinforcement for novel verbal behavior with Voice I and the high probability of reinforcement for genuine human interaction with Voice II. Absence of reinforcement for authentic verbal behavior in NVB is not, as is believed, somebody’s fault or someone’s doing. We cannot reinforce SVB with NVB. Unless we change the situation, we will continue to get better, that is, worse, with our NVB. People who suffer from depression have nervous systems which are conditioned to be depressed. People who predominantly have NVB, find themselves mostly in in environments in which they are expected to dissociate from what they think and feel. As discussed, such NVB covert speech creates huge problems with our public speech. 

The mental health problems which so many people are suffering from are in fact communication problems. We don’t discriminate them as such, because it hasn’t been pointed out to us that NVB is reflexive, respondent behavior, while only SVB is operant behavior. Voice II sets the occasion for SVB, whereas Voice I elicits NVB. If SVB is reinforced following the appearance of Voice II, this  increases the likelihood that it will occur again. 

The point of this writing is to bring the attention of the reader to the need to be in an environment in which Voice II can be heard. Voice II will not be heard in an environment which gives rise to NVB. The environment in which Voice II is verbalized, or rather vocalized, mediated and reinforced, in which we all agree that we are having SVB, is one without any aversive Voice I stimulation. Thus, social behavior or group behavior is primarily maintained by nonverbal cues, by how we sound.