February 9, 2015

February 9, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

Like B.F. Skinner, this writer arrived at the constructs of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) “slowly and inductively”. This writing is a response to “B.F. Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior: a chronicle” (2007) by E.A. Vargas, J.S. Vargas & T.J. Knapp. 

During SVB our spoken communication is a function of contingency-control that is shared by both the speaker and the listener, because they take turns, but during NVB only the speaker controls the contingency because there there is no turn-taking. As a seminar leader, this writer “developed his experimental work within this framework and depended on research results to adjust and modify his theory.” The fact that this writer is now writing instead of speaking about the SVB/NVB distinction, is evidence of the process of “behavioral selection” in which all his findings are grounded. This writer doesn’t offer “an exercise in interpretation”, but presents his experimental results as they occur.  

Skinner stated about Verbal Behavior (1957) “What I am doing is applying the concepts I’ve worked out experimentally to this non-experimental (but empirical) field” (Skinner, July 2, 1934). This writer, by contrast, has worked out his SVB/NVB concept experimentally. His writing about the SVB/NVB distinction is experimentally sound and empirically validated, that is, all those who have explored this distinction with him have acknowledged its importance. For a long time, laboratory work, that is, interaction with people, was more important to this writer than theory, but, as this writer learned about behaviorology, he began to acknowledge the importance of theory.

Skinner too wondered about the importance of theory. In “Are theories of learning necessary” (1950), he emphasized that “theories must be couched in the dimensional framework of science subject matter” so that “any range of behavioral phenomena may be accommodated within a contingency selection framework.” Skinner’s thesis started with a review on the reflex. He summarized the early work as “an attempt to resolve, by compromise, the conflict between observed necessity and preconception of freedom in the behavior of organisms (Skinner, 1930, p.9, underlined emphasis Skinner’s). 

During his seminars, this writer also “dismissed any notion of agency as a guiding force in the behavior of any organism” while he introduced the participants to SVB, in which they reject this ancient compromise, which was perpetuated by NVB and “still resonates in the present “theory of mind””. Stated differently, as a communication facilitator, this writer has successfully introduced hundreds of groups and individuals to the irrefutable, scientific fact of “the speaker as a locus”, thus setting the stage for SVB. He also demonstrated that the speaker as “an initiator” sets the stage for dualistic, problematic NVB.  Although during NVB the speaker definitely controls the contingency and doesn’t allow the listener to become the speaker, there is no reason to “assign spontaneous control to the special inner self called the speaker” (1957, p. 460). 

When we explore during our conversation the two different response classes called SVB and NVB, we find that the replacement of the latter by the former involves the substitution of agency by contingency. Skinner’s emphasis on contingency can be traced back to his earlier interest in correlation. Similarly, this writer noted that two different sounds, Voice II and Voice I, correlated to SVB and NVB, which are two distinctively different sets of behavior. 

This writer feels validated by Skinner’s earlier interest in correlation which “was not correlation in a statistical sense”, but “the correlative relation between two (or more) events.”  Skinner’s assertion that “a scientific discipline…must describe the event not only for itself but in its relation to other events (Skinner, 1930, p. 37) (italics added by this writer) is applicable to the SVB/NVB distinction. Moreover, with this distinction we are capable of seeing how one SVB event is contiguously connected to another SVB event, how one SVB may evoke a NVB event, how one NVB event is connected to another NVB event and how one NVB event may give rise to a SVB event.  Indeed, “No event is a stimulus independent of its relation to another event called a response, and no event is a response independent of its relation to another event called a stimulus.” SVB and NVB are two operant classes of verbal behavior that give us a much-needed “a frame of reference.”

In the following sentence Skinner describes this writer’s behavior: “The definition of the subject matter of any science is determined largely by the interest of the scientist. We are interested primarily in the movement of an organism in some frame of reference.” Due to his behavioral history this writer was always interested in the question: why do we talk the way we do? That question represents a longing for better communication. “An internal change” of being moved had “an observable and significant effect” upon a new way of communicating in which meaning and frame of reference are created by the extent to which we are listening to ourselves while we speak. During SVB, but not during NVB, we can “reflect” on the “four-term contingency that builds upon the prior two or three term ones.” Only during SVB can we comfortably and inductively begin to take notice of the “overlapping properties of the behavioral, biological and physical events involved both inside and outside the body” (1992) E.A. Vargas.