January 8, 2015

January 8, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer 

Dear Reader, 

 

In the paper “Verbal Behavior in the Measuring Process” (1996) written by L.E. Fraley, things are stated which explain what this author means by Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Just like Fraley’s description of “measuring”, SVB can also be described as generating “new stimuli that intra-verbally evoke new and potentially more effective responding to the situation under investigation.” The “situation” that is “under investigation” is our spoken communication or vocal verbal behavior.

Measuring the independent environmental variables, inside and outside of the skin, that cause and maintain the dependent variable, the way in which we communicate, is not likely to happen any time soon as long as our way of interacting gets us what we want. Interestingly, Fraley starts of his paper by writing “If we can already respond effectively and sufficiently to a situation, it tends not to stimulate measuring.” Given the fact, which is not acknowledged by many, that 95% of our spoken communication consists of NVB, the kind of spoken communication in which, presumably, we get what we want no matter the costs, there is nothing stimulating us to pay attention to what is going on. The only person who is interested in measuring why we keep having so many communication problems, according to Fraley’s line of thought, would be someone who is unhappy enough about the negative consequences of his or her own way of interacting. Indeed, a person, like this author, who recognizes the difference between SVB and NVB, is chronically unhappy with the ubiquity of NVB. Unhappiness is the Establishing Operation for SVB.

Only SVB-deprivation establishes Voice II, the voice that is needed to have SVB, as an effective reinforcer. Only the evocative effect of Voice II increases the behavior that has been reinforced by SVB. Attempts to create and maintain SVB, which necessarily involve measuring, that is, verbally describing what is going on, are caused by what is known as an Establishing Operation. Our common high rates of responding with Voice I, the voice which produces NVB and low rates of responding with Voice II, are only noticed by someone, who, like this author, recognizes that NVB cannot evoke measuring practices. “New intra-verbally evoked stimuli” describe “effective” and “sufficient” very differently from when high rates of Voice I-responding tuned out the possibility of SVB and the difference between SVB and NVB was not noticeable. 

 

If our NVB proves to be ineffective, there are only two options: either our NVB rate of responding will increase or it will decrease. If it increases, this is because higher rates of NVB are reinforced by our environment, if it decreases, then higher rates of SVB are reinforced by our environment. Interestingly, SVB never proves to be ineffective, only NVB proves to be ineffective. Moreover, the ineffectiveness of NVB is always a consequence of SVB and without SVB, the ineffectiveness of NVB cannot be analyzed. Stated differently, the analysis of the ineffectiveness of NVB brings about SVB.

The “new stimuli” which “can bring new behavior to bear on a situation” don’t and can’t occur in NVB and only occur in SVB. Voice I elicits the same old reflexive NVB, but Voice II evokes novel, lively, intelligent SVB. “New stimuli” that “share in evoking the previously conditioned behaviors that could not otherwise be evoked in the current situation” are neural behaviors which are produced covertly. Although it is our behaving body which changes the situation, if we practice disembodied communication, as we continuously do when we engage in NVB, we don’t and can't let this changed situation speak. Talking about our NVB implies being vulnerable and expressing our feelings of tension, pain, stress, anxiety and fear. However, in NVB negative experiences are never accurately expressed. This can only happen during SVB. 

During SVB we are able to talk about things which we are unable to talk about during NVB. During SVB we can talk about NVB, but we cannot talk about SVB during NVB. The fact that this is not known creates enormous problems. SVB and NVB are mutually exclusive response classes. We cannot accurately talk about our negative emotions as long as we are negative. Only to the extent that we have positive emotions can we talk about our negative emotions. If we are constantly experiencing negative emotions, we cannot talk about them, we don’t want to talk about them. We only want them to stop. Numbing our emotions can be accomplished in various ways. Medicating our negative emotions doesn’t allow us to talk about them. It is a complete lie that the combination of pharmacological therapy with psychotherapy works. It doesn’t and it can’t. The medications which numb the nervous system prevent mental health clients from experiencing emotions. What is urgently needed is a better way of communicating. First, NVB must to be stopped. SVB only occurs when NVB has been stopped. This writer knows how do that.

To anyone who has investigated with this writer – during conversation – the response classes SVB and NVB, it is evident that only SVB produces a “new set of responses” that are “more effective than responses to the stimuli otherwise already available.” Stated bluntly, NVB only makes things worse, it  rapidly deteriorates human relationship and destroys any sense of community. “Measurement-enabled improvement” of how we interact with one another requires us to become more objective about what we experience subjectively, while we communicate. This hasn’t happened yet. It couldn’t happen in NVB.

 

“The measurement practice” that “like probing and prompting, is a kind of intervention that enhances the evocative capacity of antecedent stimuli” has happened in many fields of science, but not in our spoken communication. SVB is that measurement practice. SVB is interaction in which “functionally, a measurement yields a kind of supplement to the antecedents that share in controlling subsequent behavior.” Surprisingly, Fraley gets frail when he ends the paragraph by stating that such measurements are “hopefully yielding more effective forms of behavior.” For behaviorologists there is no such a thing as hope. If behavior happens, it can happen, if it doesn’t happen, it couldn’t happen. SVB can and will happen if we measure what actually takes place while we are communicating. In other words, we must engage in ongoing conversation with one another to be able to measure what is going on. 

Improvements don’t depend on hope, but are reliably achieved by listening to how we sound while we speak. However, SVB is not about trying to change the way we sound. It is simply about listening to how we sound and not about trying to change how we sound. We have not listened to ourselves while we speak. The “more effective forms” of verbal behavior reveal themselves as SVB and can be replicated, while NVB should be understood as a feedback-impairment. This author thinks about SVB and NVB, when Fraley states “A person’s behavior always produces some kind of effect on the environment that might, in turn, control that person’s subsequent behavior.” The instance in which the verbalizer’s effect on the mediator controls the verbalizer’s verbal and nonverbal expressions in such a way that he or she becomes him or herself a mediator of him or herself – while he or she talks about this – is one in which the contingency is changed so that SVB can begin to occur. Our private speech can become public speech in SVB.

“Data collected during the process of measuring” thus only refers to what happens during SVB. When “feedback” occurring “from probes of the environment” is “not evoking effective responding” this simply means that our “measurement-produced stimuli” are inaccurate or insufficient. Whether we talk about private or public speech makes no difference. NVB public speech sets the stage for NVB private speech and SVB public speech sets the stage for SVB private speech. Indeed “some enhancement of to the antecedent controls on our behavior is needed if that more appropriate kind of responding is to be evoked.” Only our SVB public speech can dissolve our NVB private speech and conditions neural behavior, which “is preserved as some kind of record.” However, when it comes to measurement of verbal behavior, “a record” is the same “as the event to which it pertains”. It is important to recognize that our body is the instrument without which there is no sound. In SVB “stimulus supplementation from measuring” equals the increasingly more accurate verbalization in public speech of what happens within our own skin.