November 29, 2016

November 29, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my twenty-third response to “The basic emotional circuits of mammalian brains: Do animals have affective lives?” I find Panksepp’s animal research of great importance as it provides neuroscientific evidence why certain stimuli affect humans positively or negatively. I am very interested in the listener’s experience of the speaker’s voice.

“All other mammals learn to vigorously self-inject drugs that are addictive in humans, probably because they produce similar desirable feelings, and this eagerness can be monitored in at least some species of rodents by their enthusiastic euphoric, SEEKING-indicative ultrasonic vocalizations.” Likewise, when people engage in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), they agree with each other that they sound good. Moreover, experience of the SVB speaker is addictive; the more you hear it, the more you want it, as it produces “desirable feelings.”

My goal is to create an addiction for SVB. If we all became addicted to SVB, we would change the world. “Surely we can conclude that the only reasons addictions occur is because drugs produce desired feelings, in both mice and men.” No doubt “the brain mechanisms for psychological experiences are very important guides for what humans and animals do,” but without Panksepp’s electrical brain stimulation or without SVB, these “desired feelings” would not and could not occur.

Panksepp states “The resulting “Law of Affect” is that ‘rewards’ and ‘punishments’ would NOT work unless they changed the way animals feel affectively.” Each time the “Law of Affect” worked properly in our conversation it was because the affect of the listener was changed and improved by the speaker. Thus, the SVB speaker creates an appetitive contingency, but the NVB speaker creates an aversive contingency for the listener. Positive behavioral control can only be achieved with SVB and negative, coercive, punitive behavioral control always involves NVB.