March 7, 2015

March 7, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

The distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is especially apparent when one considers how each subset of verbal behavior immediately impacts the environment. In SVB and NVB communicators respond very different. Moreover, these responses produce different stimuli. Most importantly, response products of SVB and NVB sound different. SVB is called SVB because everyone agrees that SVB makes our voices sound pleasant, while NVB is called NVB, because, when we listen to it, everyone also agrees our voices sound terrible. 

During SVB our responses produce positively reinforcing stimuli, but during NVB we generate punishing stimuli in each other's body. Although there is also a great difference in the content of SVB and NVB, in this writing the reader focuses on the fact that we sound different. In SVB, the verbalizer’s voice mainly evokes the mediator’s response, but in NVB, the verbalizer's voice mainly elicits the mediator’s response. As SVB involves absence of aversive stimulation and NVB is exemplified by threats and intimidation, SVB is mainly operant behavior, while NVB is mainly respondent behavior. 

Movements of this writer’s fingers on his keyboard produce words, which are read by the reader. These response products explain the difference between SVB and NVB. However, if this writer would talk with the reader, “certain changes in his vocal musculature would result in changes in the air-wave patterns that function as auditory stimuli, especially for others (Ledoux, 2014, p. 447) (italics added). Explanations which can be read are different from those which are heard. The latter contains more response products than the former. This can have a confusing or positive effect. 

SVB evokes many more response products than NVB, because NVB narrows things down to that which is only important to the verbalizer. In SVB, by contrast, responses of the mediator matter. Moreover, mediators are invited and stimulated by the verbalizer to verbalize . Thus, in SVB a learning environment is created in which information, which is talked about by verbalizers and the mediators, is disseminated faster and easier. In NVB, by contrast, in which verbalizers aversively control the mediator’s response, a situation is created, which, in its most extreme form, is like an army drill. Army recruits are screamed at, because they are ordered to do things, which they would otherwise not be likely to do: kill people. This coercive example of NVB and its response products hopefully makes clear to the reader that NVB involves a  different sound of our voice than SVB. 

This example emphasizes it is only the drill sergeant, the verbalizer, who matters and the army recruits simply have to do whatever they are told. The recruit is not supposed to speak with the sergeant. He or she is only expected to say “yes sir” and “no sir” and then to immediately execute the action which he or she was ordered to do. If he or she waits or hesitates, he or she will be immediately screamed at. Army recruits are almost constantly punished for behaving verbally and ordered and conditioned to act nonverbally. In military training, combat-situations are simulated with man-shaped targets suddenly popping up. The verbal orders given by the drill-sergeant condition the recruit to respond to these eliciting stimuli with instant, deadly force. Targets fall down upon being hit, providing immediate reinforcing feedback. Such a mechanism is also used to sell millions of computer games. Reinforcement is given when targets are hit, but after a miss, social punishment follows such as peer pressure, retraining and postponement of graduation from boot camp. Recruits are desensitized by uni-directional NVB to do the unthinkable and kill. 

The exact same quick-shoot-reflexive or respondent behavior occurs in NVB and is audible in the sound of our voice while we speak. Just as the realistic targets in army training camps become conditioned stimuli, which are more likely to be hit, we have been conditioned to achieve our goals by means of NVB. In the process of having things their way, NVB verbalizers basically kill or neutralize the mediator, that is, they prevent the mediator from having his or her say. Even if mediators are allowed to have their say, the verbalizers are not really listening. This deceptive move, in which the verbalizer pretends to be listening to the mediator, who is supposedly allowed to express his or her opinion, has been going on for so long for a reason, which has remained unobserved. Although the mediator is eager to speak, he or she is tricked into the idea that he or she will be listened to, while the verbalizer, who pretends to listen, is in reality actually incapable of listening. In other words, the drill-sergeant is equally conditioned by NVB to be a drill-sergeant as the recruit. Stated differently, both, the drill-sergeant as well as the recruit, are reinforced by NVB. 

It should also be mentioned here that classical conditioning, the pairing of stimuli, plays a huge role in the conditioning of both SVB and NVB. How else would it be possible that so many people find violence entertaining and associate many of their consumptive and sexual behaviors with it? Just as sounding good will be automatically reinforcing for verbalizers who have been conditioned to have more SVB repertoire, sounding intimidating and aggressive will be automatically reinforcing for verbalizers who have been  conditioned to have more NVB repertoire. As NVB gave only verbalizers more power and as SVB gave verbalizers and mediators peace, support and togetherness, but less power, struggle for dominance is at the core of NVB. Only when SVB responses outweigh our NVB responses, will we have reached the tipping point from where our relationships can improve.

March 6, 2015

March 6, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

It is only in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) that the verbalizer’s behavior evokes the mediator’s response that provides the reinforcement for the verbalizer’s behavior. In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), on the other hand, elicitation of the mediator’s response also reinforces the verbalizer, but since this involves the verbalizer’s aversive control of the mediator, it doesn’t fit with Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior. 

In a later refinement, Skinner specified that verbal behavior required not just any person, but someone whose way of behaving was shaped by a verbal environment or language (Skinner, 1986, p.121). In SVB and in NVB, the consequence, reinforcement, occurs through the mediation of another person, but only in SVB the verbal behavior of the verbalizer is shaped by a verbal environment or language. In NVB, by contrast, verbal behavior is shaped and maintained by a nonverbal environment. Moreover, SVB is behavior that is shaped and maintained by a positive reinforcing nonverbal and verbal environment, but an aversive nonverbal environment sets the stage for aversive verbal behavior or NVB. 

Presence of the mediator, an audience, makes SVB possible, but absence of an audience makes NVB necessary. Absence of an audience here is defined as the inability of the mediator to become a verbalizer. As long as the mediator is not in the position to verbalize, they are not mediating. As long as mediators protest their inability to verbalize, they will produce NVB and the initial verbalizer will not be mediating them. Thus, in NVB, there is an absence of turn-taking between verbalizer and mediator. Lack of turn-taking also causes the discrepancy between private and public speech. Although in NVB private speech is separated from public speech, NVB, besides being a function of NVB public speech, is also a function of NVB private speech and makes public speech agreement is impossible. 

In NVB, absence of an audience, that is, lack of positive reinforcement by a mediator, establishes negative automatic repertoire in private speech, which becomes worse and worse over time, unless it is counteracted by the presence of a positively reinforcing audience. However, the positively reinforcing, overtly expressed mediating effects of SVB that took place during the conditioning of our speaking repertoire, in spite of the many challenges and adversities, remains with us at the covert level and reinforces us even in the absence of an audience. 

Just as the presence of an audience stays with us our entire lives, the absence of an audience also continues to have its effects over the course of our development. NVB is ubiquitous because most of us grew up with a  relative absence of an audience. The common absence of an audience signifies that many parts of our verbal repertoire are actually missing. If these parts were present, they would control our behavior in the absence of an audience. We would be able to produce different verbal behavior on different occasions as we already had acquired the repertoire and verbal stimuli would still evoke in us these audience-controlled responses.  

The levels of NVB stay pretty much the same during a person's lifetime, regardless of the place or the situation, because we lack verbal behavior that helps us to adjust. Although NVB, like SVB, is of course a function of environmental variables, since these variables, due to conditioning have changed our neural behavior and exist within our own skin, we don’t realize the extent to which our private speech, our thinking, estranges us from our body, our immediate environment. NVB is best described as a disembodied spoken communication, while embodied spoken communication only happens in SVB, when we sound good and feel good. Moreover, due to NVB people can’t feel safe even when the situation is safe. The sound of our voice not only signifies that we speak the proper language, it also indicates whether we are nonverbally adjusted to our environment.

March 5, 2015

March 5, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

Our overt verbal behavior depends on the presence of an audience.  The verbalizer’s verbal behavior is controlled by mediators and only makes sense in context of the kind of mediators that mediate how and what he verbalizer verbalizes. Although they are coerced into it by the verbalizer, the vast majority of mediators reinforce the verbalizer who aversively controls their behavior. That very few mediators reinforce the verbalizer who controls the behavior of the mediator with positive reinforcement, is because only a few mediators have been conditioned to do this. In NVB everything looks like a nail because our only only tool is a hammer. 

The reality is that most of us have been conditioned to behave more NVB repertoire than Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) repertoire. How else can we explain the obvious fact that in most of our vocal verbal behavior we try to dominate, exploit, manipulate, distract, alienate, intimidate and dis-regulate each other? Only during SVB do we co-regulate each other.

Only during SVB do we and can we bi-directionally reinforce each other, because only in SVB do we take turns. In other words, only in SVB is the mediator stimulated and given the opportunity, by the verbalizer, to also become the verbalizer. Moreover, only in SVB is the verbalizer stimulated by the mediator, after he or she has become a verbalizer, to be and  perhaps even to remain a mediator. Those who do all the talking during NVB, talk less in SVB, but those who talk very little or not at all in NVB, talk a lot in SVB. NVB is mechanical, predetermined and repetitive, because there is no turn-taking. The dependent variable, an episode of vocal verbal behavior, is caused by the dependent variables, how we sound, that is, by our relative rates of SVB and NVB. 

The presence of an audience of mediators who have been conditioned to behave more SVB than NVB repertoire is different than the presence of an audience of mediators, who have been conditioned to behave more NVB than SVB repertoire. As stated, the latter is much more common than the former. Thus, the perpetuation of NVB or change of our vocal verbal to SVB depends on the kind of audience, on the situation. That is, mediators who have more NVB than SVB cannot function as a function-altering stimuli and thus cannot play any role in improving our vocal verbal behavior. Such mediators have made and will continue to make things worse. 

Only those, who behave more SVB than NVB can function as a function-altering stimuli for those who have more NVB than SVB. In the same way that asking someone to open the door, because one is carrying shopping bags, only makes sense in the presence of another person, the presence of someone with more SVB repertoire is needed to improve our vocal verbal behavior. All our relationship problems are caused and maintained by NVB. 

Of course, doors can also be opened by slaves and no emperor needs to ask any slave to open the door. This hierarchical difference is an example of how NVB make makes language meaningless or unnecessary. The nonverbal aversive presence of the emperor makes the slave behave. Also the quality of the behavior of opening the door is entirely different if the person for whom this is done is loved and revered. Then, the opening of the door is a function of being respected and reinforced, but the slave’s opening of the door is a function of humiliation, oppression and intimidation. 

The presence of the emperor always requires the same obedient behavior of the slave. This is precisely what happens during NVB. In terms of our vocal verbal repertoires, we seem to have been born and raised to only talk like slaves. Even at a covert level, we automatically reinforce NVB. Stated differently, NVB public always determines how we end up talking with ourselves. Due to our exposure to NVB, the covert speaker will act like an emperor, while the covert listener is only allowed to act like a slave. This kind of private speech or thinking is based on struggle and separation.    

March 4, 2015

March 4, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

During Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) the functional role of mediating reinforcement upon the vocal verbal behavior by the verbalizer is very apparent, but in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) it is not clear at all. In the latter, in which the verbalizer aversively controls the behavior of the listener, the verbalizer sees him or herself as an agent of free will, who decides how he or she will interact with the listener. However, in NVB, the verbalizer is able to believe that he or she is in charge as a function of the mediator who believes him or herself to be someone who is on the receiving end of someone who is apparently is doing something to him or her. In this follie-a-deux, called NVB, both verbalizer and mediator are involved in a process of make-belief. Only in SVB it is clear that neither the verbalizer nor the mediator is deciding to verbalize or to mediate. 

In SVB the verbalizer and the mediator are tuned in to each other’s vocal verbal behavior. In NVB, by contrast, the verbalizer and the mediator mainly attend to nonvocal verbal behavior.  NVB couldn’t enhance our understanding about the functional role of reinforcement by the mediator and thus couldn’t deliver us from the fiction that we are the doers of our own actions, because it mainly emphasizes nonvocal verbal behavior, but it de-emphasizes and often totally ignores the importance of our vocal verbal behavior.  

SVB restores the ancient significance of our vocal verbal behavior. It is true that without an audience, that is, without a mediator, no overt verbal response will occur, but it is equally true that different audiences will mediate different forms of verbal behavior for different verbalizers. If a NVB-inclined verbalizer would be mediated repeatedly by a SVB-inclined audience, he or she would be conditioned to become a SVB-inclined verbalizer.

March 3, 2015

March 3, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

During Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) the phylogenetically determined neural musculature of a speaker makes production of sound possible, which we shall call Voice I, which is reinforced by listeners, whose bodies have been conditioned so that they mainly reinforce and maintain NVB. In NVB, the listener’s neural behavior, activates  private speech or thinking, which, to the extent that the listener was conditioned by Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), distracts from the speaker’s public speech. In NVB, the listener will only be permitted to speak, to the extent that he or she reinforces the speaker, that is, when he or she produces SVB. However, this SVB of the listener, who becomes a speaker, is not and cannot be reinforced by the speaker, who was mainly conditioned by NVB. To the contrary, SVB of the listener, who is only occasionally is allowed to become a speaker, is only tolerated because it is reinforcing or ‘enabling’ the NVB speaker. 

SVB is only possible for us to the extent that our bodies were changed by it. Since we produce mostly NVB, it is evident that we have been mainly exposed to and conditioned by NVB. The different neural behavior of SVB speakers is audible in the sound of their voice. In SVB speakers speak with a voice which we shall call Voice II. This sound can only be reinforced by  listeners whose bodies have been conditioned to do so. Thus, SVB fits with the refinement of the definition of Verbal Behavior as “Behavior that is reinforced through the mediation of other people, but only when the other people are behaving in ways that have been shaped by a verbal environment or language.” (Skinner, 1986, p. 121). It refers to the listener who speaks! 

Speakers and listeners only interact to the extent they can take turns. In NVB turn-taking happens at a minimum, whereas in SVB turn-taking happens at a maximum. Any conversation consists of a proportion of positive and negative exchanges. Any verbal episode can be considered as more or less noxious or as more or less sound. The conversation in which speakers and listeners voluntarily take turns, is one in which speakers will speak with Voice II. Such an episode consists mainly of SVB instances. 

Speaker’s and listener’s repertoires are learned at different times and under different circumstances, in other words, they are functionally different and analytically separate repertoires (Ledoux, 2014, p. 446). In SVB speaking and listening happen at more or less a similar rate, but in NVB speaking and listening happen at very different rates. Speaking and listening are only “virtually inseparable” during SVB. The “neural behavior of verbal thinking” or the “simultaneous speaking-listening” (Ledoux, 2014, p.446), only occurs due to SVB. In NVB, by contrast, the listener’s covert speech contradicts the speaker’s overt speech and to the extent that the listener can become a speaker (after first being affected by the speaker’s antecedent stimulus, Voice I), to the extent that the listener's covert speech becomes overt, that listener who became a speaker will also distract the NVB speaker. This will even be more the case if the listener who became the speaker experienced more SVB than the NVB speaker. 

By calling the speaker the “verbalizer” and the listener the “mediator” Julie and Ernest Vargas (1990) intended to “better address the nonvocal forms of verbal behavior.” Nevertheless, this change of name has only strengthened the already existing focus on what is now called the verbalizer. It couldn’t and didn’t bring any attention to the sounds of SVB and NVB, two universally occurring subsets of vocal verbal behavior. This writing is addressing the important issue of how mediators are stimulated to become verbalizers, which will enhance SVB and replace NVB.