July 5, 2016

July 5, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my twentieth response to “Epistemological Barriers to Radical Behaviorism” by Donohue et al. (1998). “There is nothing explicit or implicit in cognitive psychology (or in its offspring, cognitive therapy) to suggest that human behavior should be captured by a limited set of principles, many of which are shared by nonhuman animals.” However, once we consider the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), we realize that we have stumbled upon an overlooked, but obvious principle of our spoken communication.

My students like knowing about the SVB/NVB distinction and they tell me that there is SVB and NVB in every culture. Furthermore, it is apparent to everyone who has experimented with this distinction that SVB only occurs in the absence of aversive stimulation, which means when no fight, flight or freeze response is triggered, while in NVB such responses are always elicited. Although animals as dogs or cats have no verbal behavior, they have many behaviors which are similar to humans.

Cats and dogs are mammals and their autonomic responses are much like ours. The SVB/NVB distinction makes us realize the nonverbal basis of our verbal behavior. Whether verbal behavior is a function of us experiencing a threat or safety makes an enormous difference. This can only be sorted out if we listen to how we sound while we speak.

Once the distinction between SVB and NVB has been pointed out there is agreement on whether a speaker produces SVB or NVB. Such verbal agreement is based on nonverbal, neurobiological attunement. In SVB we become accurate in verbally expressing our nonverbal experience.

The SVB/NVB distinction is parsimonious. It identifies whether a speaker induces negative or positive affect in a listener and allows the communicators to explore the role of their sound in their interactions. Thus, the SVB/NVB distinction is a listener’s view of the speaker.