June 16, 2016

June 16, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

If what I do in this writing was done while I was speaking, there would be no need to repeat things so often as the listener would experience the nonverbal stimulation that comes from the speaker’s voice. Right now you don’t hear my voice, you only read about it. Hearing someone speak is entirely different from reading what someone has written. 

We believe it is more important to read than to hear someone speak as we have become more accurate in our textual verbal behavior than in our vocal verbal behavior. The scientist’s insistence on written words, on accurate definitions of dependent and independent variables, was a consequence of the inability to accomplish this while they were talking. 

Distractions occurring while talking have incorrectly been believed to be insurmountable and thus writing and reading have become elevated above our speaking and listening.  As science has progressed, the discrepancy between written and spoken words has become only bigger.

The gigantic gap between our textual and our vocal verbal behavior can only be bridged by something which they have in common. Although written words are often not sounded out, they can in principle be spoken out loud and be evaluated to the same level as spoken words. 

If you read these words out loud, you will hear and become aware of your own sound. The production and observation (or listening) always happen in the here and now and make you into a conscious speaker. Conscious speech can only be achieved through the continuous activation of the speaker-as-own-listener. The speaker who speaks and listens simultaneously engages in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), but the speaker who is either focused on speaking or listening engages in NVB.