May 18, 2015

May 18, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

Today’s writing is inspired by the paper on “Behaviorism and the Stages of Scientific Activity” by J. Moore (2010). In the abstract Moore tells the reader  that he will be ‘discussing’ a “three-stage progression”, which “starts with a) identification of basic data, then moves to b) description of relation among those data, and ultimately concludes with c) the deployment of higher order concepts in statements about organizations of data.” Moreover, Moore views “theory and explanations as examples of verbal processes at the later stages, guided by stimulus control from the earlier stages.” His main point is that “many mentalistic assumptions about causal entities and relations” give rise to theories which lack “the benefit of suitable stimulus control from the earlier stages” which is essential to a behaviorist account.  

Although Moore emphasizes that much of the behavior of scientist is verbal and that “the artifacts in question are verbal products”, he doesn’t mention anywhere in his paper that scientist talk with each other. This fact seems to be unimportant to him, because only “the common terms associated in doing science” supposedly matter. His “analysis of the underlying verbal processes as they have played out over time”, doesn’t contain any remark about the datum scientists used to talk about, but nowadays only seem to write about. When one thinks about how these “first laws and theories of a science were probably rules developed by artisans and craftsmen who worked in a given area”, one envisions people talking with each other. Someone who is good at, and reinforced by his skill, is likely to pass on his trade lovingly and thankfully, to the next generation. 

In this scenario much more is going on than merely some “descriptions of the effect brought about by relevant practices” which “were then codified in the form of verbal statements that functioned as verbal stimuli.” Indeed, the aforementioned romantic picture is drastically changed, when Moore adds that the purpose of these verbal stimuli is to “occasion effective action, if only among subordinates.” Verbal stimuli that only serve the purpose to get someone to do as they are told, that is, to only follow orders, are aversive. 

In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the speaker aversively controls the behavior of the listener. In the example in which the listener is expected to do as he or she is told, as he or she is ordered, the verbal behavior of the speaker results in the nonverbal behavior of the listener. In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), by contrast, in which the hierarchical, predetermined role division between speaker and listener is absent, the verbal behavior of the speaker, evokes and invites the verbal behavior of the listener. In SVB, in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an appetitive contingency, the listener becomes the speaker, but in NVB the listener is confined to remaining the listener, by behaving, by obeying, nonverbally. 

The only verbal behavior which occurs in the listener during NVB is private speech, which is anxiously kept out of public speech. Since this NVB covert speech is kept out of public speech as much as possible, it is difficult to trace it back to its origins, which is, coercive, punitive public speech. Thus, the trade that was passed on with love and care led to a different kind of verbal behavior than what was taught in an aversive manner. The former led to SVB, the latter led to NVB. Since the NVB hierarchical way of talking dominated mankind’s history, even today most of our conversations fall into this subset of vocal verbal behavior. Although the goal of NVB is to basically enslave the listener and to make him or her do nonverbally what the speaker wants, this is always achieved by the emphasis on “verbal statements, often taking the form of maxims or other informal expressions (e.g. rules of thumb)”, which would then supplement or replace “private or idiosyncratic forms of stimulus control.” 

As subjective, private speech was to be kept out of supposedly objective public speech, so that “verbal stimuli” could become “public property”, mankind, in the name of scientific progress, maintained the hierarchical structure which causes NVB. Moreover, because we have yet to become scientific about talking, we have with NVB maintained a culturally sanctioned belief in an inner self. 

With the SVB/NVB distinction it becomes easier to see how all sorts of verbal acrobatics are deliberately used to exploit people their nonverbal work. The rules, sanctified now as scientific rules, definitely give us a sense of order, but this is not, in my opinion, the order which Skinner was thinking about when he wrote “Walden II”.  In “Science and Human Behavior” (1953) Skinner writes “ [Science] is a search for order, for uniformities, for lawful relations among the events in nature. It begins as we all begin, by observing single episodes, but it quickly passes on to the general rule, to scientific law…” A different kind of order emerges in speakers and listeners who take turns, whose conversation is based on reciprocal reinforcement. In SVB, the well-being of the speaker and the listener are guaranteed.  'Order' created by NVB and kept in place by coercion, is not scientific. Forcefulness with which this order is superimposed on nature is reminiscent of an angry god-figure, who demands to have things his way. The verbal demands placed on us have been so overwhelming, that we haven’t even started “observing single episodes” of SVB and NVB, because that involves a shift from our verbal to our nonverbal behavior, while we speak. Only if we listen to ourselves while we speak can we identify SVB.

In this writing I am talking with the reader about Moore’s paper. I only talk about Moore or Skinner because behaviorism can explain SVB and NVB. There is a great difference between these subcategories of vocal verbal behavior, which have not yet been mentioned anywhere. I claim that only SVB is scientific and that NVB is always biased. Our way of talking matters a great deal for how science is done and what we are doing with science. We must consider Skinner’s pragmatism. In “Contingencies of Reinforcement” (1969) he writes “Scientific laws also specify or imply responses and their consequences. They are not, of course, obeyed by nature, but by man who deal effectively with nature.” Skinner was not talking about one man obeying another man, but he was speaking about man obeying nature, in order to deal effectively with nature. He stated “Science is in a large part a direct analysis of reinforcing systems found in nature; it is concerned with facilitating the behavior which is reinforced by them…The point of science…is to analyze the contingencies of reinforcement found in nature and to formulate rules or laws which make it unnecessary to be exposed to them in order to behave appropriately.” In my view Skinner was indicating SVB, which is behavior which is reinforced by “reinforcing systems found in nature.” NVB, by contrast, is reinforced by one man’s ability to oppress other men, or by men obeying other men and, most importantly, by continuously demonstrating this by the way in which we talk.      

May 17, 2015

May 17, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

Although many people probably may think I that am crazy for making such a big deal out of it, the difference between writing and reading and speaking and listening are completely ignored and this has many negative consequences. This distinction ties in with learning, or rather, with the conditions which make learning possible. If behavior is to be our starting point, we must accept the fact that writing and reading are entirely different behaviors than speaking and listening. Speaking and listening are crucially important in the process of learning how to read and write, but writing and reading are of no help to us when it comes to speaking and listening. To the contrary, writing and reading keep taking our attention away from speaking and listening.

If we refocus again on speaking and listening, which is one of the main goals of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), we would discover that a different way of looking at the world instantaneously becomes possible because we are letting go of our infatuation with words, which presumably are the most important aspect of our verbal behavior. By becoming familiar with SVB, we effortlessly discern that our sound plays a crucial role in our vocal verbal behavior, that is, in our interactions with others. Whether or not we pay attention to our sound, while we speak, creates an entirely different way of talking. Only if we listen to ourselves while we speak can and will we achieve SVB, but if we are oblivious about the sound of our voice, while we talk, which is most of the time, we end up having Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), in which the speaker aversively controls the behavior of the listener. 

When Catania (2013, p. 4) refers to the long-standing “debate between those who call themselves radical behaviorists and those who call themselves cognitivists or mentalists”, he adds “to a large extent it has been about how we talk.” I disagree with this point of view, which obfuscates the fact that these debates are not about people who are talking with each other, but are mainly about scholars who merely write and read papers. “The behaviorist”, who supposedly “argues that, "because behavior is all that is available to measure, the language of mental events can be misleading”, is referring to the language which is used and not to how something was actually said. 

It never was “a mentalistic account” which was “accepted as explanatory”, which supposedly discouraged “further inquiry”, but it was lack of vocal verbal behavior, that is, the lack of actual conversation between behaviorists and mentalists, which continued to perpetuate this unnecessary standoff. If more effort would go into how we actually talk with each other, we would have to pay attention to how we sound and then we would find something that would get us out of this stale mate. However, Catania states “For the behaviorist it isn’t enough to say that someone did something because of an idea, a feeling or a hunch” (italics added). Here is an example of someone who writes about what we say as if writing is more or less the same thing as saying it. No doubt Catania would be speaking like that if he would say something, but imagine how off-putting that is, that speaking is never quite enough and that the contingencies controlling speaking and listening behaviors can only be found if we “look further, to these past experiences or, in other words, to past behavior.”

Interestingly, Catania states “If we are successful, we may also have something useful to say about the origins of our ideas, feelings and hunches.” In other words, what we are feeling and experiencing in the moment is not important, but only our past behaviors, which causes what we are feeling, are “useful” because they originate them. From this it is also evident how “the behaviorist doesn’t dispute the existence of ideas, feelings and hunches, but rather criticizes them as causes of behavior.” Thus, in ordinary conversation, the behaviorist basically dismisses the possibility of having a conversation which is under stimulus control of the sound of our voice.  

   

When comparing apples and oranges or cognitivists and behaviorists, it is,   important to recognize that “this dispute stems as much from different ways of talking about behavior as from differences in research findings.” Indeed  “behaviorists and cognitivists are often interested in very different types of questions” and “behaviorists tend to deal with questions of function and cognitivists with questions of structure.”  However, this doesn’t answer the question about why they never talk with each other. The fact that they are interested in different questions could actually enhance their conversation, but this would only be the case if behaviorists and cognitivists learned about SVB. Currently, both are mainly involved in NVB and neither one even knows it as their different ways of ‘talking’ are in fact only different ways of writing.   

May 16, 2015

May 16, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Learning about behaviorism is similar to learning about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), as both involve acquiring a new way of talking, which in turn demands a new way of looking at the reality.  In the beginning of his book “Learning” (2013, p.4) Catania points out that “If we want to talk about these events in new ways, we must take care not to confuse our new ways of talking with the old ways. We’ve all spend most of our lives talking about what we do, but those familiar ways may interfere with our new ways of talking, so we must be aware of language traps.” (underlining added). He is talking about experiences he has had and he seems to be referring to matters which are quite common. Problems with “language traps” are apparently so profound and widespread that a special warning is needed.  

From the statement above it is clear, however, that Catania doesn’t give much weight to the difference between written and spoken verbal behavior. He uses words like “talk about these events”, without specifying that “these events” only refer to actual talking behaviors and are not identical with his writing behavior. Although he may have felt he was talking while he was writing and although the reader may feel he or she is listening to someone who was speaking, this “language trap” is evidently not worth Catania's consideration. Like any other non-behaviorist writer, Catania assumes the role of speaker and the reader is expected to assume the role of listener. In reality neither speaking nor listening is happening. There is only Catania who writes about talking and then the reader is reading about talking. 

      

Yet, Catania’s writing refers to talking, to speaking behavior and to listening behavior. If we reread the first sentence, we find out why it is so easy to “confuse our news ways of talking with the old ways [of talking]” (underlining and words added). If we keep making the same mistake, we repeat our old ways of talking, that is, in our old ways of talking we keep writing and reading about talking and we keep thinking that we are talking, while in reality, we are only writing and reading. Even when we talk, we don’t really talk as long as we mainly talk about what we have written. 

The longer our writing and reading are considered as if we are speaking and listening, the less we will be inclined to speak and listen and the more we will be inclined to write and to read. Actually, it is more likely that we will end up reading rather than writing, because only a small portion of writers are read and can realistically be read. Nevertheless, this is where we are today: writing and reading are considered to be much more important than speaking and listening. As far as there is any similarity between writing and reading and speaking and listening, we could say that the writer is more important than the reader, in the same way that the speaker is more important than the listener. It could also be argued that in the same way that the reader must pay the writer to read, the listener must pay (attention), in NVB, to the speaker. 

Of course, our speaking and listening still matters, it matters more than ever, but the problems which occur during our speaking and listening have not, could not and will never be solved by writing and reading about them. If writing is going to be helpful in solving problems pertaining to our speaking and listening, it must discourage the reader from reading and encourage him or her to become involved in speaking. Moreover, since the speaker who is not listening to him or herself forces the listener to listen and will talk at the listener, the speaker must listen to him or herself, while he or she speaks, so that he or she is perceived by the listener as someone who is talking with, rather than talking at him or her. Whether or not the speaker is listing to him or herself while he or she speaks makes a big difference for the listener, as the listener is stimulated to also become a speaker in the former, but is prevented from becoming a speaker in the latter.  

Catania is writing about the way of talking in which the speaker talks at the listener. I call that way Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). In NVB the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. Catania may have new behaviorist content to convey, but his way of talking is as outdated as anyone else, because he elevates writing and reading above speaking and listening. In other words, when Catania writes “If we want to talk about these events in new ways, we must take care not to confuse our new ways of talking with the old ways”, he is only writing about the importance of using the proper terminology, but he is not even writing about talking. Simply stated, he only insists that we must know Chinese to be able to talk Chinese.

Catania states “We’ve all spend most of our lives talking about what we do, but those familiar ways may interfere with our new ways of talking, so we must be aware of language traps.” We used to talk much more, but we don’t talk very much anymore. “Our new ways of talking” refers to the fact that nowadays we mainly write about talking and we talk less and less. Obviously, our old ways of talking interfere with our supposedly new ways of talking. Whether we use proper behaviorist terminology or not, our old ways of talking are our only attempts to talk with each other, whereas these so-called new ways of talking have replaced our talking with writing and reading. What a great progress! 

How is it even possible that our old ways of talking interfere with our new ways of talking? There must be something not quite clear about our new ways of talking. Nobody would still believe that the earth is flat or that it is the center of the universe. Such an old way of thinking would never make its way into our new scientifically-informed educated way of thinking. Why does someone like Catania write about our old ways of talking which interfere with our new ways of talking? It is definitely our old ways of talking which keep the superstitious belief in our behavior-initiating agent going and such talk is incompatible with the science of human behavior. However, how behaviorists stop such talk?  

Behaviorists who have tried to speak about behaviorism haven’t said much that could stop our old ways of talking. In spite of empirical evidence, our old ways of talking have continued. It appears as if our old ways of talking are immune to science. However, according to me this is not the case. Science is capable of changing our old ways of talking, but for that to happen, behaviorist must begin to talk about talking and stop writing and reading about talking and only talk about what they have written and read. Behaviorists must leave behind the illusion that people abandon their old ways of talking by replacing it with a new way of talking, which isn’t talking, but which is only new terminology presumably to be able to talk about talking. To implement this terminology and to reach those who are still unfamiliar with it, behaviorist must be willing to talk first how people usually talk and then to introduce their new terminology. 

Our usual way of talking is NVB. Only if that is clear can we introduce SVB,  which would have been the behaviorist way of talking if behaviorists had paid attention to how Skinner sounded. It was assumed that someone who knows behaviorism knows how to talk about it, but that was a wrong assumption.      

May 15, 2015

May 15, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

I am interested in the bigger picture. Why do many people still believe in a higher power? Why is radical behaviorism, which teaches there is no self, not accepted, let alone, known as a science? There is a reason why in spite of all our scientific progress mankind has remained immune for scientific evidence. However, the problem is not and has never been religion or our so-called belief in a higher power. The problem is and has always been with our belief in an inner self. Due to our belief in an inner self our way of talking is distorted.

As long as people believe their behavior is caused by an inner agent, their way of talking will instill fear. This way of talking didn’t come out of the blue and has been going on for eons of time. Those who keep making others afraid were themselves made to feel afraid. Our way of talking will only transform when fear is not elicited. This happens occasionally, but not consistently, predictably, deliberately and skillfully. Once it happens, however, there will be nobody to be convinced about anything anymore. When talking makes us feel safe, there will be nothing to do for a higher power or an inner self.  

Conversations that stimulate and maintain feelings of safety and well-being are different from those in which these positive emotions don't happen. There are two ways of talking: in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) the speaker influences the listener in a positive manner and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) the speaker influences the listener in a negative manner. In SVB, the sound of the speaker’s voice is experienced by the listener as an appetitive stimulus, but in NVB, the voice of the speaker is experienced as an aversive stimulus. We respond to the each other’s sound while we talk. We fear aversive stimulation.

One of the tasks of behaviorists is to develop parsimonious explanations for why people talk the way they do. Under the contingencies of naturalism, behaviorists, like other scientists, adhere to the simplest of explanations and terminology that pertains to their field. Scientific language is different from ordinary language, because describing, explaining, predicting and controlling a complex process such as our vocal verbal behavior or our way of talking requires a terminology which accurately captures what is actually going on. 

Although many behaviors have been explained by behaviorist terminology (e.g. stimulus, response, reinforcement, etc.), analysis of the interaction between speaker and listener has been limited, as the sound of our voice while we speak has not been given enough consideration. The distinction between SVB and NVB allows for a level of analysis, which hasn’t yet happened. This is an  in-vivo analysis, that is, one which only makes sense during our interaction. Behaviorist terminology must be expanded with these two subsets of our vocal verbal behavior, so that, at long last, behaviorists can have the conversation which isn’t biased by inner agents. Yes, behaviorists who engage in NVB are just as troubled by non-existing inner agents as those who believe in them.

SVB is the vocal verbal behavior in which there is no inclination to refer our so-called inner self, as nothing stimulates it. In NVB, on the other hand, we constantly refer to our inner selves, presumably out of need, despair, danger,  neglect, oppression, anxiety, stress, anger, disrespect, out of whack, out of tune, out of our body, out of revenge and out of aversive stimulation. NVB doesn't and can't fulfill our needs or resolve our fears, stress, anger and confusion. Scholarly papers make it seem as if we have transcended these negative effects. Behaviorists write, but don’t talk about Motivating Operations, which increase or decrease the effectiveness of consequent stimuli. It is during our vocal verbal behavior, during parenting or teaching, that the establishing operations increase the reinforcing or punishing qualities of a stimulus. 

The stimulus mentioned in the establishing operation is heard and felt only while we talk. Indeed, the listener directly experiences the speaker’s voice as a reinforcing or punishing stimulus. Since nonverbal organisms have similar responses as verbal organisms to what they perceive as aversive or as appetitive sounds, it is evident that humans as verbal organisms, can also be deprived or satiated from unconditioned reinforcers or can be deprived or satiated from conditioned reinforcers. Thus, the belief in a behavior-causing self could even persist in those who had a behaviorist scientific education, as the ongoing experience of safety which can only be maintained by SVB was hardly ever there. The concept of SVB and NVB takes us out our reading-seat and puts us with both of our talking-feet on the ground, because it relates to our biology. Our phylogenetic endowment determines that certain stimuli, certain sounds, are experienced as aversive. This isn’t changed by the fact that people can be coerced to listen to aversive-sounding speakers in NVB.

SVB and NVB are neither metaphors nor hypotheticals. SVB is called that way as we are aware of our sound. By contrast, in NVB, we are not aware of our sound. As we don’t listen to ourselves while we speak, we produce a sound which is noxious. Thus, lack of self-listening sets the stage for NVB. Naturally, self-listening refers to the speaker as his or her own listener. It is apparent to the speaker that there is no self when he or she listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. It can be verified while talking that identification with a self occurs during NVB, but dissolves in SVB. People from all walks of life have acknowledged the existence of and the difference between SVB and NVB. 

Once the distinction between SVB and NVB has been made, it is impossible to not know about it anymore. It is possible due to the prevailing contingencies to produce NVB, but once NVB has been recognized as NVB, the contingencies will be changed to make SVB possible. This process will continues as SVB is so very beneficial. The more success one experiences in creating the contingencies for SVB, the more motivated and capable one will be to stop NVB and discriminate it as such. Lack of success at contingency management is due to our overemphasis on written verbal behavior. Our ability to change the contingency would improve if we focused on our vocal verbal behavior. 

Although during SVB we will effortlessly transcend our belief in a self, which presumably caused our behavior, we neither challenge ourselves nor each other about what we believe. The change which occurs in how we sound is sufficient to dissolve our assumptions about ourselves and each other. Only while SVB is experienced can the understanding and interpretation of its importance reveal itself. We need to talk with each other to understand SVB and reading about it will not evoke that experience. Unbelievable as this may sound, the change of any kind of belief about our self will reliably happen as we engage in SVB. Unless we achieve SVB, we will not be able to acquire the analytical sophistication that is needed to understand our thoughts, our private speech, which is a function of the public speech which we were repeatedly exposed to and involved in. Only to the extent that we have been involved in and conditioned by SVB will we be able to have positive thoughts and feel no urge to hang on to our unfulfilled, needy, demanding, but imaginary self.