October 30, 2015

October 30, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Reader, 

Today, a lot a waiting took place before I started writing. I didn’t want to write about what I was thinking and waited until thoughts appeared which I found worth my while. Such waiting increases the response rate of SVB, but writing or saying something without waiting would increase the response rate of NVB. I am able to wait as I have engaged in so much SVB that I notice the difference between SVB and NVB, even in my own unexpressed private speech. There was a time, when I needed to first express my negative self-talk before I was able to recognize and acknowledge as such. NVB private speech is of course caused by NVB public speech and SVB covert speech is of course caused by SVB overt speech. I am familiar with these analyses and don’t need to think about them anymore. I have thought about them already and they have been validated by my interactions with others. 

It is a natural aspect of our language development for our public speech to recede to a private level. When we say our first words, like ‘mommy’, ‘pappy’ or ‘doggy’, we are reinforced for our verbal behavior, but once we have learned how to speak, read and write, most verbal behavior becomes private, that is, most verbal behavior occurs silently when we are thinking and covertly talking with ourselves. Ideally such thinking is a function of SVB public speech and results into positive self-talk, but, as we all know, very often our self-talk is negative. An increase of the response rate of our negative thoughts of our covert speech, is always a consequence of our involvement in and exposure to overt NVB speech. 

These contingency relations exist and evolve over time. Our response to a given situation is not necessarily determined by antecedents which are available to us. A person’s history of reinforcement determines the behavioral momentum of his or her habitual thoughts. Thoughts that are a consequence of NVB public speech are mechanical and will go on without any awareness, but thoughts which are a consequence of SVB public speech are conscious and discriminate between SVB and NVB. 

The environmental changes which occur during SVB and NVB are very different. SVB public speech modifies the environment which is within our own skin. It does that because the speaker is listening to him or herself while he or she speaks. Due to the feedback mechanism of the speaker-as-own-listener, the speaker has an entirely different effect on the listener as the speaker, who depends on the listener for feedback.   The NVB speaker demands and dominates the listener’s attention and wants them to listen to him or to her. The listening that is involved in SVB is completely different than the listening that is involved in NVB. In the former, the environment within the skin of the listener is affected by the induction of positive emotions, but in the latter, all attention is drawn to what happens outside the skin of the listener. What happens inside the skin of the listener is of no importance to the NVB speaker. Not surprisingly, the NVB speaker induces negative emotions in the listener. The listener who is made to listen to the NVB speaker is taught to tolerate these negative feelings, by distancing him or herself from his or her private speech. Stated differently, NVB speakers condition the listener to dissociate from what he or she is thinking. Thus, conditioned by NVB, we disconnect from our negative emotions and we use others to experience positive emotions. All of this continues to occur because NVB prevents us from bringing our private speech into public speech.   

In SVB the issue of bringing back our private speech into public speech doesn’t even arise as the two are considered to be functionally related. Moreover, as SVB conditions positive self-talk, the environment within our own skin will begin to modify the environment outside of our own skin. Although we should never lose sight of the fact that public speech causes private speech, private speech of course also affects our public speech. Initially, these temporal effects seem difficult to trace as we are used to and conditioned by NVB. However, when we engage in SVB, it becomes apparent that these effects occur. Oddly enough, as in most of us low rates of SVB were conditioned and high rates of NVB, it may seem to many of us that SVB is the problem. The consequences of SVB certainly don’t reinforce NVB. To the contrary, consequences of SVB decrease our rate of NVB. This is accomplished as NVB is more and more avoided, put on a time out, like I did when I started today’s writing. I so often had SVB that I can wait without getting troubled for the fog of NVB private speech to lift. I know it will lift as it has lifted so many times before. Reinforcement of SVB requires us to avoid NVB as much as possible. B.F. Skinner (1969) was right: reinforcement is always contingent on some properties of responses. If I produce responses which meet criteria for NVB that response class will be reinforced by NVB speakers. “A set of contingencies defines an operant” (Skinner, 1969). By all means, let us verify that SVB and NVB are maintained by “contingencies which are established on particular properties of responses.” Contingencies for how we talk can be detected by listening to how we sound while we speak.