September 29, 2015

September 29, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is my third response to “The Unit of Selection: What Do Reinforcers Reinforce?” by J.W. Donahoe, D.C. Palmer and J.E. Burgos (1997). Let us now turn to these “three central points” on which these authors “and a broad sense of commentators agree.” The first one is: “the effects of reinforcers on behavior can be readily demonstrated under conditions in which the antecedents of behavior are not identified. That is, orderly functional relations emerge between operants and reinforcers when the experimental analysis of the effects of antecedents is impossible or impractical.” Why is “the experimental analysis of the effects of antecedents” considered to be “impossible or impractical?” I think, for the most part, it is because of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). We dismiss antecedents as “impossible or impractical” as we don’t know how to talk about them. Once we know how to talk about them, that is, once we have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), it becomes very practical to talk about them, even when we can’t immediately recognize antecedents of why we talk the way we do.

“Orderly functional relations” could “emerge between antecedents and reinforcers” as these authors  kept the conversation going. SVB always keeps the conversation going, but NVB stops it. There is, however, a big difference between writing about this and talking about it. Although different “antecedents and reinforcers” are involved in writing and reading than in speaking and listening there are of course “orderly functional relations” in both. Why are we are not talking more often about these “functional relations?” NVB prevents us from talking about it. Most of what we know about functional relations is because of what has been written about it, not because of what has been said about it.

With NVB behaviorists can’t really talk meaningfully about behaviorism.

These authors agree that “the effects of reinforcers on behavior can be readily demonstrated under conditions in which the antecedents of behavior are not identified” as they have read and studied publications about nonverbal empirical research involving pigeons or rats. However, this didn’t or couldn’t lead to nonverbal agreement in their vocal verbal behavior. There would have to be a focus on their own nonverbal speaking behavior for that to occur. Since most of their vocal verbal behavior is characterized by a fixation on the verbal, they are verbally biased and mainly involved in NVB. Moreover, in NVB, in which the “antecedents of behavior are not identified”, behaviorists are just like non-behaviorists as they can’t discriminate “the effects of reinforcers” on how they themselves speak. “Effects of reinforcers” have been demonstrated on other behavior than their own way of talking. In spite of their NVB, the “effect of reinforcers” can be “readily demonstrated”, but this doesn’t imply that they can demonstrate this effect while they talk and thus, they mainly write about it. It should be a mandatory aspect of behaviorist training to demonstrate, while they speak, the effect of reinforcers on SVB. As long as they can’t talk about the effects of reinforcers behavioral engineering will inadvertently reinforce NVB.  

The second point on which the authors agree is “response-contingent reinforcers most commonly alter the control of responses by their

antecedents. That is, discriminative control of responding is ‘‘practically inevitable (Skinner, 1937, p. 273).” In other words, if NVB is reinforced, people, behaviorists included, will have higher rates of it. Moreover, if NVB is reinforced and SVB is punished, people, behaviorists included, will prefer NVB over SVB. Since SVB and NVB should be easily grasped by behaviorists, as behaviorism focuses on environmental variables that cause behavior, I was surprised by the lack of interest of behaviorists to explore the SVB/NVB distinction with me. The more I learn about behaviorism, however, the more it is evident to me why this is the case.

It is comforting to read that Skinner said “discriminative responding is “practically inevitable.” It’s all about behavioral history.  The third point on which these authors agree is perhaps the most illustrative. “The manipulated antecedents of behavior are typically environmental events in cases that are amenable to experimental analysis, but may include covert or private (intraorganismic) events as well. Covert events (characterized behaviorally or neurally) invariably accompany environment–behavior relations and indispensably contribute to scientific interpretation.” During spoken communication we are always dealing with these “intra-organismic events.” SVB becomes possible when a speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. This unusual “antecedent of behavior” requires our conscious attention for “covert or private events.” Attention for covert events is stimulated by  SVB public speech in which this was reinforced. To the extent that we have been exposed to such SVB public speech, we are able to produce SVB public speech as well as SVB private speech. Exposure to SVB changes “covert events (characterized behaviorally or neurally)” which in turn increases our ability to manage our environment.

The combined effects of SVB covert and overt events “indispensably contribute to scientific interpretation”, but our exposure to NVB skews our scientific efforts as it prevents us from combining covert and overt events while we speak. In the name of objectivity science has had a long history of excluding covert events by calling them subjective. This dualistic split is caused and maintained by NVB. In SVB, the speaker realizes that he or she is and has always been simultaneously the listener. Stated differently, SVB is the only way in which scientific interaction can occur. Subjectivity must be included into our objectivity otherwise we are not truly objective. By steering away from talking and by focusing only on academic writing, scientists have not yet been able to achieve and capitalize on SVB. SVB is a natural phenomenon in which the speaker and the listener attain a sense of well-being. Our well-being informs us of whether we are having SVB. In absence of well-being we are having NVB. SVB is a learned skill which over time becomes more useful. The more we have SVB the less inclined we will be to have NVB.