August 11, 2016

August 11, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my thirteenth response to “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). Day raises the important question “Even in circumstances where the behavior of immediate interest is preserved intact, as in the verbal protocols used in content analysis, how frequently is the experimenter himself in the position to observe the specific stimulating conditions under which the behavior has been emitted?” He is talking about the position of participation. 

In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) we either participate as a listener or as a speaker, but in SVB we participate as both the listener and as the speaker. NVB, which separates the listener from the speaker, inside and outside the skin, is a coarse-grained behavior which prevents  awareness of “the specific stimulating conditions under which behavior has been emitted.” SVB, by contrast, is a fine-grained behavior in which speaking and listening happen at the same rate and are joined. 

Absence of aversive stimulation makes us realize that we often mistake coercion, intimidation, domination, exploitation, oppression, alienation and dissociation as communication. SVB is communication, but NVB is not. Day wonders “Without the most skillful practices of observation on the part of the experimenter himself, why should one expect a relation between stimulus and response ever to be perceived?” 

SVB, in which the speaker realizes that his voice occurs in the here and now and his listening to his voice also occurs in the here and now, is conscious communication. Indeed, SVB stimulates “The most skillful of practices of observation on the part of the experimenter himself.”

Day makes a very interesting point. He is not against “the conventional experimental method”, but he wants psychologists to “take advantage of the opportunity to inspect both behavior and its controlling stimulation as closely as the might.” Unfortunately, inspection doesn’t get as close as the SVB/NVB distinction. Visual stimuli distract us from the controlling stimulation of our vocal verbal behavior. 

“Cumulative records are valued by Skinner precisely because he feels they make certain interesting changes in behavior conspicuously visible” (italics NOT added). Although this is true, only the distinction between SVB and NVB can make certain changes in our vocal verbal behavior conspicuously audible. Neither Skinner nor Day was aware or became aware of these two important subclasses of vocal verbal behavior. 

It makes no sense to make visible what we hear if this procedure makes us overemphasize seeing over listening. As long as the radical behaviorist “merely hopes that what he sees will come to exert an increasing influence on what he says” he is on the wrong track. It is not going to happen, it hasn’t happened and it couldn’t happen. 

What one hears will come to exert an increasing influence on what one says only as one pays more attention to how one speaks, that is, to how one experiences one’s own sound. In other words, one will say different things because of how one speaks. Therefore, one doesn’t “hope” for this controlling effect to occur, one simply knows it will occur and others agree with us when this is the case. In SVB communicators agree they have SVB, but in NVB they don’t agree they have NVB. 

“The radical behaviorist feels as free to observe or otherwise respond to his own reactions to a Beethoven sonata as he is to observe someone else.” In this auditory example Day’s words are incongruent with what he is describing.  He should have said he feels as free to listen to and to talk with his own reactions to a Beethoven sonata as he is to listen to and talk with someone else. However, such freedom is only available in SVB, in which listening to oneself makes listening to others possible.