October 17, 2014

October 17, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer is an Associate Faculty at Butte College. He teaches an entry level psychology course called Principles of Psychology. He enjoys teaching since this gives him the opportunity to interact with students and to experiment. One of his experiments is giving students the chance to gain extra credit points by writing a two page thought paper. The paper starts with the verbal instruction “When I listen to the sound of my voice while I speak, then…..” The students like to do this assignment and write the most wonderful papers one can imagine. 

This writer just finished reading a beautiful paper that was written by one of his students. It is so reinforcing to read these papers, because students validate in them so elegantly and elaborately both the workings and the existence of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) as well as Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

The student whose paper this writer just read started out by saying that he is not overly fond of his own voice. In the second sentence, however, he stated that as a child, he was not allowed speak, he was told to keep quiet and that what he said didn’t matter. This sums up this writer’s own behavioral history, which led him to discover SVB. As the student began to listen to himself while he speaks, he realized that listening to his voice made him uncomfortable. It is significant this would be the first thing that he noticed. What is apparent from such a sad, but common statement is that this person was rejected and has been rejecting himself. Oddly, he was so used to rejecting himself that, until he did this exercise, it had never occurred to him that he didn’t like his own voice, let alone, question why that might be the case.  Due to the environmental support which he and other students received from this writer in class, he was able recognize that it was actually quite strange that he didn’t like to hear his own voice. It didn’t take long for him to say to himself that as a child, he was often not allowed to speak and hear himself. What he was saying, and what many others have been saying, was that he was made to listen to others, while he was not allowed to listen to himself. The production of his own sound was not allowed. He believed that nothing he said was worth to be listened to. 

This writer has read hundreds of versions of a similar behavioral history. People continue to engage in NVB because they were conditioned to listen to others and not to themselves. In each paper that was written by this writer's students one can read the same process. First, they don't like to listen to themselves, they fear listening to themselves, they dread listening to themselves, but, because of this assignment, which they must do alone, they listen to themselves and begin to question why it is so strange or hard to listen to themselves? Once this question has been formulated the answer comes out and they let themselves know about how they were coerced to listen to others. Moreover, as they begin to listen to themselves, they fully enjoy doing this and they realize that they have always secretively enjoyed this already.    

October 16, 2014

October 16, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

It dawned on this writer recently that mankind as a whole hasn’t yet become truly verbal. We use words, but how do we speak? With Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) as our main way of communicating, we don’t embody our language. We can’t “find our voice”, let alone “speak with one voice”, as long as the sound of our voice doesn’t get our attention. Many years ago, when this writer first discovered the importance of self-listening, he foresaw that what he now calls Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), would only spread by word of mouth.This writing is not going to change that.

Expressions as “my word of honor”, “words are cheap”, “I’ll give you my word”, “actions speak louder than words”, “he didn’t keep his word” or “he broke his word”, refer to how we sound. Ancient philosophers, like Plato, knew what many seem to have forgotten today: there is a connection between sound and meaning. 

We speak of trust or lack of trust when we say “take my word for it” or “these are empty words.” When we are taking an oath, we swear to speak the truth. And, his relationship is meaningful because “he felt moved by what she said” although “it took a while for the words to sink in.” After his story “had struck a chord” they  harmonized and resonated together. When we say “sounds good to me”, we agree. 

It is no coincidence that NVB is everywhere. Only once in blue moon are we allowed to say to each other “it’s not what you say, but how you say it!” Because we are not used it, we don’t tolerate feedback from others about how we speak.  Consequently, we basically don’t care at all about how we sound and most of our interactions just sound terrible. If it looks and feels bad, if it sounds cold, phony, pompous, pushy, pretentious,  contrived, guarded, saintly, wordy, edgy, arrogant and incendiary, it isn’t communication, but it is domination, exploitation, humiliation, alienation, dissociation, distraction and fabrication. During SVB, by contrast, we sound good, we feel good and we communicate in an effortless manner. We haven’t had very much SVB, because we haven’t been taught to be attentive to how we sound while we talk. The only way in which we are going to achieve, maintain and increase SVB is by listening to ourselves while we speak.

October 15, 2014

October 15, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), which is voluntary behavior, can occur only as long as the verbalizer doesn’t elicit an aversive involuntary response in the mediator. When the verbalizer elicits an aversive response in the mediator, Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which is respondent, involuntary behavior, will occur. Since NVB is more often reinforced than SVB, we have more NVB than SVB. This can be reversed, but this  will only happen when SVB is more reinforced than NVB. 

Another way of describing why NVB is more often reinforced than SVB is that human beings haven yet to become truly verbal. During NVB we are more often than we realize or willing to admit nonverbal. The harder the verbalizer tries to be verbal, the more aversive the nonverbal impact on the mediator will be. 

In SVB, the verbalizer doesn’t make any effort to be verbal and there is alignment between his or her verbal and nonverbal behavior. The ability of the verbalizer to be verbal derives from this alignment. During NVB there is no alignment between the verbal and nonverbal behavior of the verbalizer. Moreover, the nonverbal behavior of the NVB verbalizer is perceived as threatening by the mediator. No matter what is said verbally, when the nonverbal behavior of the verbalizer turns off the mediator, the mediator stops mediating the verbal behavior of the verbalizer. During NVB, the mediator is not really mediating the verbal behavior of the verbalizer. During NVB, the mediator mediates the threatening, hostile, overwhelming, negative and mean nonverbal behavior of the verbalizer. 

During SVB, both the verbal and the nonverbal behavior of the verbalizer are mediated effortlessly and simultaneously by the mediator. The turn-taking, which happens in SVB, changes a mediator into a verbalizer and a verbalizer into a mediator. The new verbalizer has the same effect on the mediator as the old verbalizer. The new mediator also mediates the verbal and the nonverbal behavior of the verbalizer simultaneously and effortlessly. Once this kind of communication happens it is apparent to all the communicators that something completely new is taking place which during NVB was impossible. OUr access to language is possible due to SVB, but is prevented by NVB.  

October 14, 2014

October 14, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Although it may seem capricious, spoken communication, like any behavior, is an orderly process. Regardless of what language we may speak, we talk the way we do because eliciting and evocative stimuli occur.  Without environments in which verbal behavior-controlling contingencies make such stimuli available, language cannot and will not develop. Granted a healthy body and a relatively safe and caring environment, our listening and speaking behaviors develop in sequence; we learn how to speak by listening. That is, listening behavior develops prior to speaking behavior. Without the ability to listen first, speaking will be impaired. 

All of our problems of spoken communication can be explained by two response classes: Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) and Sound Verbal Behavior (NVB). NVB is regressive in that evolutionary more ancient, respondent behaviors constrain learning, which must involve operant conditioning processes. Our ability to listen to, understand and verbally respond to each other is made impossible as long as more primitive behavior keeps being stimulated. This is why We keep having NVB. 

During SVB, because communicators listen to themselves while they speak, operant conditioning processes are made possible by respondent conditioning processes. The safe environment which makes SVB possible evokes synchronization of speaking and listening behavior. During NVB, by contrast, listening and speaking cannot come together and thus the speaker and the listener cannot come together. It should come as no surprise, however, that although it creates disorder, NVB itself is an  entirely orderly process, which continues to deny mankind access to language. 

Stated differently, contingencies that maintain SVB or NVB are incompatible. The conflicts which each individual experiences between his or her own behaviors occur because we are again and again afraid in one environment, but safe in another. 

Our individual oscillation between threatening respondent processes and safe operant processes continues unless we take note of the fact that this is caused by the punitive contingencies, which maintain NVB and make reinforcing contingencies that maintain SVB less effective. Moreover, the aversive contingencies, which elicit NVB, always lead a decreased SVB response rate. 

The aforementioned conflicts that each individual experiences are usually only observed, as Vargas (2013) has argued, by a “public of one.” In part, this is because “covert stimuli occur inside the body where others cannot be privy.” While it is true that a contingency of “a public of others” makes us talk about distinctions such as covert and overt, this does not translate into SVB. To create and maintain the contingency for SVB, we must learn to voice the “public of one.” 

Human interaction has remained problematic, because we try in vain to analyze it from the artificial, scientific contingencies, which emphasize overt, presumably, accessible, observable and measurable responses. Access to each other’s covert behavior is not, as Ledoux (2014) believes, going to be made available by “appropriate physiological measurement instruments.” Supposedly, these instruments would eventually create access to stimuli experienced during “single-observer observation.” However, this self-centered emphasis on covert verbal behavior is part of the contingency for NVB, which, as stated, makes SVB impossible. 

Our assumed need for access to each other’s covert behavior decreases and will completely dissolve in SVB. This fear-based need is only there because of NVB, in which we are threatened and limited in our operant learning by reflexive behavior. The contingencies which maintain SVB become more effective once we recognize that contingencies for NVB also maintain fictitious explanations and thus are anti-scientific. NVB is inherently biased because it lacks subtlety.

It is obvious that SVB and NVB are mutually exclusive, but the environmental stimuli, which maintain these behaviors, will only become visible if we look for them. As long as behaviorologists do not deliberately create and maintain the contingencies for SVB, they too will perpetuate the same explanatory fictions which they say they want to demolish. Even behaviorologists and behaviorists have remained in conflict with themselves and with each other due to their NVB. 

During SVB speakers listen to themselves while they speak. This self-listening makes other-listening possible. In absence of self-listing, other-listening does not occur. NVB is characterized by the verbalizer’s inability to listen to him or herself.  This lack of sensitivity on the side of the NVB speaker elicits respondent behavior in the mediator, who is distracted by the verbalizer’s nonverbal behavior, which is always incongruent with his or her verbal behavior. During SVB the nonverbal behavior of the verbalizer doesn’t elicit negative physiological responses in the mediator because the verbal and the nonverbal behavior of the speaker, that is the speaking and listening behavior of the speaker are synchronized. 

“The Poly Vagal Theory” (2011) by Stephen Porges explains why the activation of the "Social Engagement System" requires that the "Mobilization System", which mediates a mammal's fight-flight responses and the "Immobilization System" which mediates the freeze response, remain deactivated. Although Porges doesn't talk about SVB and NVB, his Poly Vagal Theory of phylogenetically embedded systems shines a bright light on this important distinction. We can still talk and have NVB while the Mobilization and the Immobilization System are activated, but we are unable to produce SVB. 

October 13, 2014

October 13, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

This writer received an appreciative email from the Romanian linguist Cristinel Munteanu, who would like to skype with him. Because he feels reinforced for his writings, this writer immediately feels he wants to write more. Although he was writing something yesterday, he didn’t feel how he feels today and this writing is under stimulus control of the email he just received and in anticipation of the conversation he is going to have with Cristinel.  Because his English is not that good, Cristinel hopes the conversation will help and stimulate him to get better at it. Moreover, he made a special remark about talking with this writer “beyond the exchange of scientific ideas.” This writer looks forward to talking with him. 

This writer was reading about concurrent contingencies in Ledoux’s “Running Out Of Time” (2014). Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) are under control of multiple, concurrent contingencies. SVB and NVB can be under control of different contingencies at different times. Such contingencies may be alternating or, confusingly, occurring simultaneously. One contingency may enhance, duplicate or bring about the effects of another contingency or may work against another contingency or other contingencies. 

One contingency working against another is pertinent to SVB and NVB. Presence of one contingency signifies the absence of the contingency for the other. During SVB, due to the contingencies, only SVB is possible, but during NVB, due to other contingencies, only NVB is possible. SVB happens in the absence of NVB and visa versa. It is not well known that SVB prevents NVB. What most people are familiar with is that NVB prevents and works against SVB. While NVB is ubiquitous and usually prevents SVB, SVB ultimately cannot be prevented by NVB. SVB is at best suppressed by NVB, but it cannot be prevented. SVB is as necessary as sleep, we can have less of it, but this has many negative consequences. SVB prevents NVB not by suppressing it but by exploring and understanding it. SVB or, rather, the evolution of (operant) verbal behavior, has made NVB into a behavioral vestige.