June 7, 2015

June 7, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is the fifth part of my response to “Radical Behaviorism and Buddhism: Complementarities and Conflicts” by Diller and Lattal (2008).  When I woke up this morning from a good sleep, it smelled like smoke.  There is a fire going on. Interesting how smelling the smoke, how an olfactory discriminative stimulus, immediately led to window-closing responses, that one nonverbal behavior led to another nonverbal behavior. I also said to my wife Bonnie, “wow it is really smoky out there” and she agreed that I should close the windows, that is, she mediated my verbal behavior. 

The cat Kayla greeted me and accompanied me seated on my shoulder while I was closing the windows,, I also talked with her about the smoke,, but she didn’t mediate my verbal behavior. She isn’t capable of that. However, she detects the smoke as a nonverbal aversive stimulus. Like us, she would try to escape from the smoke. 

In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) the speaker’s voice functions like an aversive stimulus. Just like the smoke caused the window-closing behaviors,, the noxious stimulus of the speaker’s voice immediately causes nonverbal behavior in the listener. We don’t usually pay attention to the fact that the body of the listener is always immediately affected by the voice of the speaker because we give more importance to what is said than to how it is said. It can be argued that during NVB the attention of the listener is distracted from the nonverbal and fixated on the verbal. Essentially, the listener is scared away from his or her own nonverbal response because of the aversive sounding voice of the speaker. Said in Freudian terms,, the listener will then ‘defend’ him or herself verbally from the speaker.  

My wife woke up and showed me one of the zucchinis she has grown in her vegetable garden. The smoke has lifted and she has opened the windows again. Fresh morning air comes through the house and takes away the smoke that previously entered. We talked about the relief  we felt that the smoke had gone away and we were reminded of one time the smoke stayed around in Chico for three days.   

In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) the voice of the speaker is experienced by the listener as an appetitive stimulus. In the same way the cool and fresh air, affects us,, the voice of the speaker affects us positively if he or she listens to him or herself, that is,, if he or she is nonverbally experiencing what he or she is saying. In NVB in which the speaker is not listening to him or herself while he or she speaks,, the speaker is not nonverbally experiencing what he or she is saying. Consequently, in NVB the listener is coerced into verbal fixation and dissociation from his or her nonverbal experience. In SVB, by contrast,, the speaker’s voice provides an affective nonverbal environment in which the verbal  can become clear due to the connection between a speaker’s verbal and nonverbal expression. Since this connection is expressed by the speaker, it can be experienced by the listener. In NVB this connection is not expressed by the speaker and can therefore also not be experienced by the listener. In SVB, the windows can and will be opened to let the fresh air in, because there is fresh air. If we open the windows in NVB, we will only let in smoke. 

Let’s now get back to discussing the paper. “The verbal behavior associated with describing a self as an entity relates to function, rather than to topography, and function is ultimately context dependent.” In SVB we are no longer trying to “describe the self as an entity” and we realize that this urge arose in the absence of SVB, that is, due to the dominance of NVB. We have an urge for SVB and we try to have it when it is absent. Once it is there, the urge to have it is dissolves. Likewise, we have no need for fresh air when we have fresh air. We long for fresh air only when the air is polluted by smoke. In NVB we “describe the self as an entity”, but in SVB there is no such urge. The fact that the issue of self doesn’t arise during SVB, and only arises during NVB tells us that SVB and NVB are response classes which are functionally related to environmental variables and thus are context dependent. 

We get carried away by talk about "topography" only during NVB, but SVB facilitates conversation and exploration of functional  relationships.This issue of function versus form is important in the analysis of problem behavior and is described in “Learning” (Catania,2013) .  Topography of the self -injurious behavior of a child with developmental disabilities is not going to be of much help in changing this child’s behavior. Unless we find out of what this behavior is a function (e.g. getting attention,, escaping from difficult task or organic source) , we will not be successful in altering it. Unless we look at the common consequences of the behavior, rather than its form, we are likely to exacerbate it rather than improve it. 

Catania explains, “when a class of responses seems insensitive to its consequences, as when the first [attention-seeking] child’s self-injurious behavior seemed not to extinguish,, we must entertain the possibility that we have improperly defined the class, and that it is part of a larger class the members of which continue to have the consequences it once shared with them" (underlining and word between brackets added ). Two such “larger” classes are SVB  and NVB. 

In “Behavior is not ultimately about behavior” Carr (1993) adds another piece of the puzzle, which is often brushed underneath the carpet. He describes the great difference between “unidirectional versus reciprocal causality” of behavior. He argues against the often made stereotypical accusation that behaviorism is “mechanistic”, and “conceptualizes humans as objects to whom we do things”.  This unidirectional, S-R (respondent )  behaviorism which preceded Skinner’s R-S (operant ) behaviorism, maps  onto NVB. 

Reciprocal causality, explains scientific aspects of  interaction that expose NVB as unidirectional, mechanistic and antithetical to human relationship.  Moreover,Carr’s research “demonstrated that the problem behavior of children [with developmental disabilities] has systematic and profound effects on adults who teach the children (Carr, Taylor & Robinson, 1991)  (underlining & brackets added). Likewise, there are “systemic and profound effects” on anyone who talks with anyone,, that is,, there is always bidirectional causation whenever we engage in conversation. Talking is never unidirectional even though in NVB we made it seem as this was the case . 

 

In NVB, we have an inaccurate conceptualization of human interaction. The “dynamic ongoing system”, which contains all the variables of both the speaker and the listener and which is SVB, became visible due to the fact that a passionate and clinically-oriented behaviorists like Carr began to recognize that he and his colleagues were “not talking about unidirectional effects but, rather, about child behavior altering adult behavior, and vice versa.”  

 I have listened to a You Tube lecture byCarr and was instantly struck by how he sounded!!!! I highly respect him as his devotion to his profession made him acknowledge that he was profoundly altered by his interactions with developmentally disabled children. 

In SVB we can finally begin to experience, understand, accept and appreciate the fact that we are altered by all our interactions with others. Carr’s findings extend to every conversation. Carr,wrote that paper because he wanted behaviorism to be viewed as a study of purpose rather than a study of behavior. His views align with SVB. Not surprisingly, Carr was liked very much by his students and  he taught, like me, classes in Principles of Psychology class,.