August 13, 2016

August 13, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my fifteenth response to the paper “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). With regard to “teaching machine programming”, Day writes “It generally requires very subtle environmental engineering to make it highly likely that the experimental student will emit the desired response.” 

I teach Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) or conscious communication. If the emission of the student’s desired response is requiring such subtle environmental engineering, it should be clear here that only the most subtle and lively environmental engineering will reliably produce SVB.

The subtlety of the environmental stimulation received by the student is dependent on the sound of the teacher’s voice. Without attention for the sound of our voice SVB cannot be accomplished. The teacher must make the student aware of his or her sound, but also of their sound. 

The teacher’s voice must be perceived by the student as an appetitive stimulus. If this is not the case the teacher conditions the student with a forceful sound which maintains Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

Unfortunately, most students are taught with NVB. This is, however,  not because anyone decides to have NVB, it is because we don’t know how to create and maintain the environments in which SVB will reliably occur. 

Once we know how to create and maintain the environments in which it can happen, we will have ongoing, effortless, energizing and enjoyable SVB. 

If SVB can happen it will happen. I am particularly interested in the environmental variables that affect the behavior of the listener. 

The difference between SVB and NVB is heard in the voice of the listener, that is, when the listener speaks and the speaker listens. 

“Whatever is done by way of any manipulation inevitably consists of some change in the environment of the person whose behavior is to be affected, and one has little reason to expect a manipulation to be successful unless it reflects some functional relation between behavior and the relevant environmental change.” 

The manipulation of the environment by the speaker that I am referring to is one in which he or she instructs his or her listeners to listen to his or her sound rather than to what he or she is saying. 

The verbal instruction to listen to oneself while one speaks describes how the speaker is affected by his or her environment, by the listener. 

The speaker and the listener always together either engage in SVB or in NVB, but in SVB they are joined, while in NVB they are set apart.

Manipulation does NOT involve a speaker who tries to produce the sound of SVB in an attempt to affect the behavior of the listener. 

The speaker is observing, listening to him or herself while he or she speaks and describing as accurately as possible what is happening. 

The speaker tells the listener how he or she is affected by the listener, but he or she also refers to the feedback that he or she is receiving from the listener about how the listener is affected by him or her. 

The speaker describes how he or she is affected by the listener and expresses how he or she thinks he or she is affecting the listener.

The accuracy of the description of the relationship between the speaker and the listener is determined by its bi-directionality. 

Only a speaker who is stimulated by the fact that he or she listens to him or herself while he or she speaks can describe bi-directionality.

Only a speaker who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks is able to respond to what he or she feels within his or her own skin.

Only a speaker who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks is able to express the connection between the speaker and the listener.

Only a speaker who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks is a conscious speaker, who addresses the oneness of speaker and listener.

Only a speaker who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks is able to determine whether he or she or others engage in SVB or NVB.