January 11, 2015

January 11, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

Already in the abstract of her paper, Maria de Lourdes R. da F. Passos (2012) hits the nail on the head. She posits that the controversy among behavior analysts regarding the definition of verbal behavior “might be based on a misreading of Skinner’s (1957) writings.” Regarding the interpretation of the verbalizer by the mediator, it is important to take note of the fact that Passos immediately focuses the reader’s attention on the mediator. When we read someone’s writings, we are mediators of that writer. However, our ability to do mediate and not to read things into Skinner’s writings which he never said, is determined by our history with our verbal community. Perhaps it takes a writer like this writer, who is a relative newcomer to the behaviorist verbal community, to be sensitive to the fact that practically all behaviorists carry with them the conditioning from their non-behaviorist verbal communities. 

The “examination of Skinner’s correspondence with editors of scientific journals” which shows “his knowledge of contemporary approaches in linguistics” is suggested to “help settle the meaning of the passages involved in the controversy.” Like this writer did in his previous writings, Passos informs her audience of the context in which Skinner came up with his definitions and refinements. What she has written was meant to help the mediator mediate the verbalizer. This is needed, but the conditioning acquired in pre-behaviorist verbal communities cannot be counteracted by some written language. To make behaviorists fully verbal would require them to speak. Not only their written, but also their spoken verbalizations should come under evocative control of behaviorist principles. This involves being one’s own mediator. 

All who have followed the instructions from this verbalizer, all who have listened to themselves while they speak, all who put the words from this verbalizer to the test and have explored during multiple conversations with others the interaction between the verbalizer and the mediator in one and the same person, in themselves, have agreed, have mediated correctly, that is, errorless, with 100% interrater-reliability, that there are two universal response classes, SVB and NVB, in every language, in every society. 

 

SVB has an ecto/public and an endo/private speech dimension. Similarly, NVB has an ecto - and endo speech dimension. In addition to SVB ecto-speech, there is Sound Nonverbal Behavior (SNvB) endo-speech. Also, in addition to NVB ecto-speech, there is Noxious Nonverbal Behavior (NNvB) endo-speech. Each of these categories is evidence that not only verbal, but also nonverbal behavior “is mediated by other persons”. An example of NNvB would be “there’s something wrong in this picture.” One might also describe this as “having a gut-feeling.” The verbal statement is NVB, but the distrustful tone of voice is NNvB. An example of SNvB is “I love you” when you really mean and feel it. SNvB refers to the tone of the statement, while SVB refers to the content of the statement. It is useful to identify verbal and nonverbal aspects of positive interaction and to recognize verbal and nonverbal aspects of our negative conversations. 

The paper starts with a quote from Manoel de Barros (2007), who wrote: “Only words were not punished with the natural order of things. Words continue with their unlimit.” This statement is a consequence of NVB, in which the verbalizer and the mediator are not one and the same person, but different persons. Words, like everything else in the natural world, are determined. We must turn to the nonverbal to get a sense of what our words are a function. The only way in which we are going to reliably do that while we speak, is when we are stimulated to listen to our nonverbal expression, to the sound of our own voice. Production of and feedback from our own sound happen simultaneously when we listen to ourselves while we speak: our sound is in the here and now and our listening is also in the here now.

How else can Skinner’s discussion with journal editors about “details of some aspects of grammar” be interpreted than a verbalizer’s attempt at instructing and educating the mediator in terms of how he wishes to be understood? Passos attempt at “rewording” Skinner’s words is yet another attempt by a verbalizer at enhancing the mediator’s ability to mediate. Many mediators lack Skinner’s “sophisticated mastery of English and his knowledge of contemporary approaches of linguistics” and, consequently, are incapable of mediating him correctly. Similarly, someone who hasn’t taken any classes in algebra, is unable to solve a quadratic equation. 

The reason this lack of learning can be addressed in college algebra, but not in behavior analysis is, because, as Barros has said, “Words continue with their unlimit.” In algebra, the student/mediator would be corrected by the teacher/verbalizer and this should improve a student’s ability to mediate the teachers teaching. There should be no difference in teaching behavior analysis or math. The teacher/verbalizer should have the opportunity to correct the student/mediator with more than just words written in a paper. The verbalizer ought to be able to alter the nonverbal mediation of the mediator. Essential to SVB is the verbalizer’s ability to change the mediation of the mediator and the mediator’s ability to change the verbalizer’s expression.

This writer is specifically interested in the adjustment which Skinner made in his definition of verbal behavior. In Chapter 8 of Verbal Behavior (1957), he refines it as “behavior reinforced through the mediation of other persons [who] must be responding in ways which have been conditioned precisely in order to reinforce the behavior of the speaker.” (p. 225). This author believes Passos is absolutely correct in stating that this is “a restriction on the first part” (that verbal behavior is behavior that is reinforced through the mediation of other persons). Moreover, he agrees it was Skinner’s aim to “circumscribe verbal behavior as a particular kind of social behavior.” In addition, he thinks that Passos is right on the mark with her statement that Skinner’s restriction is not “stated clearly enough”, which then leads to the question “Which ways of [social] responding are these to which the listener has been conditioned?” 

This writer thinks of the distinction between SVB and NVB and considers these as two mutually exclusive ways of responding. The listener who has been conditioned to respond to NVB with obedience and conformity, is not even allowed to have any social response. According to this writer, only SVB is a social response. Skinner basically avoided taking a clear stance on an issue which would directly challenge the establishment.

Accepting NVB as social behavior makes discussion about social behavior meaningless. Social behaviors are the ways in which people through their relationships enhance each other and are benefitted by each other. When enhancement, as in NVB, happens at the expense of others, one may ask “why and how does this mediation [of social behavior] affect the behavior of the speaker in such an important manner that it requires an analysis separate from the rest of operant behavior?” Mediation definitely requires an analysis separate from what we, because we have called it operant behavior, have accepted as social behavior. However, mediation of survival behavior can only under certain safe circumstances give rise to social behavior. SVB makes this analysis possible. Skinner seems to refer to SVB when he states “the listener is conditioned to respond in ways that reinforce a speaker’s behavior presenting the patterns found in “the ‘language’….that is, the reinforcing practices of the verbal community” (p. 36).

Skinner, who as a verbalizer, is trying to change the way the mediator talks about behavior. He wants the mediator to do more than only mediate. His more integrated definition of verbal behavior in the paper "Upon Further Reflection" (1987), serves that purpose: “Verbal behavior is behavior that is reinforced through the mediation of other people, but only when the other people are behaving in ways that have been shaped and maintained by an evolved verbal environment, or language” (p.90) [italics added]. Skinner wouldn’t have added and emphasized the behavior of the mediator, if this behavior didn’t include the ability of the mediator to become a verbalizer. 

There is nothing particularly “evolved” about a verbal environment in which the mediator is only supposed to mediate and the verbalizer does all the talking. Such an unevolved and harsh environment is one in which we have NVB. Moreover, the linguist Max Muller, who influenced Skinner, warned against language as a uni-directional “thing by itself”, in which verbalizers get “carried away by the very words which [they] are using.” In the sentences “Language has no independent existence. Language exists in man, it lives in being spoken, it dies with each word that is pronounced, and is no longer heard (p.58) (italics added)” Muller empowers Skinner, the be a verbalizer.

Wegener, another linguist who influenced Skinner, described language as “a collective name, indeed an abstraction, for certain muscular movements of man which are connected with a definite sense for many persons of a social group.” (1885/1971, p.121) (italics added). The mediator must also be a verbalizer, according to Wegener, who identifies “certain muscular movements of man which are connected with a definite sense for many persons of a social group.” However, when mediators no longer verbalize, they are no longer “connected” with “a definite sense of a social group”. 

This writer agrees with Passos that “Skinner found a way of making clear that mediation by others is not enough to characterize verbal behavior.” The restriction he put on his initial definition ("verbal behavior is behavior that is reinforced by the mediation of others") is “still vague because it does not state clearly the ways in which the mediator is behaving.” It is another linguist, Peterson (2004), who sheds light on the reciprocal nature of verbal behavior. He states “by mediated consequences, of course, he meant consequences controlled by another person.” This writer wants to remind the reader, that “the social mediation of the reinforcement process became the primary defining factor” for verbal behavior, because Skinner was unknowingly talking about SVB. “Social mediation of the reinforcement process” does not apply to NVB, because NVB is the hierarchical coercion by the verbalizer.

Malott, a behaviorist, worried that Skinner’s ambiguous definition of verbal behavior might create facilitated communication (FC). FC is a technique which allegedly allows communication by those who were previous unable to communicate due to autism or mental retardation. However, controlled tests conclusively have demonstrated the only one doing the communicating is the facilitator. Interestingly, FC exactly describes NVB, in which our talking is supposedly done for us by others. Danger of FC does not occur with SVB. 

The paper written by Passos is only used by this writer to elaborate about SVB and NVB, his extension of Skinner’s work. Only elements which illustrate the distinction between SVB and NVB are used and the rest of the paper is not considered. He agrees that Skinner’s knowledge of linguistics and literature explain why he defined verbal behavior in the way that he did, but this writer presents a new analysis of the verbalizing mediator. 

This writer is grateful to Passos for her improved version of Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior, because it includes a reference to the form or the topography. “Verbal behavior is operant behavior whose properties are selected by the reinforcing consequences action of a mediator on the basis of their correspondence to the conventions of a community.” Although SVB and NVB are two response classes, which occur in every community, this writer wants the reader to know that SVB and NVB are maintained by two entirely different communities. Actually, to be more precise, only SVB qualifies as a community, because NVB makes the word community meaningless. NVB implies the absence of reciprocal, social, bi-directional communication. NVB is certainly a stable pattern of behavior that is based on common conventions, but it can only create the illusion of community.

Passos ends her paper by stating that language is “the very part of natural phenomena that result mainly from social interaction regulated by the conventions of a group.” This writer writes because he finds something very important is missing from her analysis. No matter where people are, they talk with each other and have SVB or they talk at each other and have NVB.

NVB does not result from social interaction, but signifies the absence of it. There certainly is orderliness to SVB and NVB, but the vast differences in predictable relations of speaking and listening in either one warrants urgently our closest attention. In SVB there is continuous turn-taking between speakers and listeners and that is why speakers can be really speakers and listeners can be really listeners, but in NVB, there is no turn-taking, and, consequently, speakers basically don’t listen and listeners basically don’t speak. We are conditioned by and mostly engaging in NVB, because we don’t know yet how to create and maintain SVB.