April 27, 2015

April 27, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

I am reading one more paper by Emilio Ribes. I don’t think I will read another one of his papers after this one. I remember that he said that it makes no sense to consider verbal and nonverbal behavior separately. Many other behaviorists have said the exact same thing. It seems to me as if he was repeating an old story. However, if we are going to engage in a conversation with each other, of course, we must differentiate between our verbal and our nonverbal behavior. It is because we nowadays seldom talk with each other, that writings like that begun to have a life of their own.


Writing about talking creates the illusion that we are talking, but it doesn’t help us understand the problems we are getting stuck with while we are talking. Ribes and Wittgenstein are people who are stuck and who also get others stuck with words. Unless we reconsider nonverbal behavior separately from verbal behavior, we get carried away by academic, scientific, political, cultural and linguistic jargon. The more we write, the less we talk. 

Today I respond to the paper “What is Defined in Operational Definitions? The Case of Operant Psychology” (2003). This paper by Ribes is about “the operational origin of the dichotomies between respondent and operant behavior, contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior, private and public events, and, verbal and nonverbal behavior.” I skimmed through the paper very quickly and got to the last dichotomy, which is important for how we talk together. 

By mentioning Skinner, who was influenced by Stevens, who promoted Bridgman’s operational analysis as a general methodology of science, the reader is informed about the context of Bridgman’s analysis. Evidently, Bridgman was also impacted by Einstein’s relativity theory. He reasoned that “operational analysis was itself a relativistic enterprise constrained by the limits of human activity in relation to the physical world.” Not the conversation with his wife, children, students or colleagues, but “the conceptual revolution brought about in physics at the turn of the century and into the first quarter century of modern physics” was the context for his operational analysis. 

Let’s contrast this with the context in which I discovered the importance of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). These subsets of vocal verbal behavior began to occur to me because I hated how other people sounded. I got in trouble for addressing this matter again and again. It was initially a process of negative reinforcement, which led me to escape and avoid NVB. Relieved and satisfied to have accomplished that I produced SVB and began to pay attention to the environments in which this could occur. It happened out of necessity. I never choose or planned this. 

SVB only occurs when the contingency which makes it possible is accurately described. It was after many years, after I had stopped having contact with my family, after I had immigrated to the United States, after I had withdrawn from my graduate psychology study (ABD: All-But-Dissertation) that I discovered radical behaviorism and the terminology which explained what I had been going through. By discovering radical behaviorism I found scientific validation. 

Einstein highlighted “the true meaning of a term is to be found by observing what a man does with it, not by what he says about it.” I would say that we should observe, or rather, that we should listen to what a man says about it. I think that we can only find true meaning by what someone says about it. Although this mostly is not the case, I think that what we say about a term can be identical to what we do with it. If what we say about a term is identical to what we do with it, we achieve SVB, but if what we say about a term is different from what we do with it, we will engage in NVB. 

Based on the many seminars I have given over the years I believe that we mainly engage in NVB. Our problem is not that we can’t achieve SVB, but that we keep thinking that talking is not doing. Although Bridgman and Ribes in their writings “explicitly acknowledged that concepts were inevitably linked to human experience”, they consider the operational analysis of concepts as “not related to criteria regarding the public verification of properties or events.” In other words, like ‘true’ academics, they throw out the ordinary conversation.

Stevens who “adhered to the conception of truth by agreement” was into written, but not spoken agreement. Academically speaking (pun intended), the former is presumably more important than the latter. This has many negative consequences. When only in principle “there are no rules for prescribing, selecting and validating operations that identify the properties of objects or events to which concepts are applied”, it becomes difficult to talk about it. Of course, in day-to-day interactions there are rules “for prescribing, selecting and validating operations.” They may not be explicitly stated, but the “properties of objects or events to which concepts are applied” have to be identified. 

According to Stevens “the only difference is that scientist’s standards conform to those of his associates.” It is important to recognize that this so-called conformity only applies to what is written, to de-contextualized language. Thus, discussion between pragmatics and semantics leaves out the unacknowledged fact that, Bridgman and Stevens, like everyone else, mainly engage in NVB.

Indeed, “the operational definitions and the operational analysis of concepts are two different things.” Bridgman’s operational analysis, like my analysis of SVB and NVB, is “a posteriori identification of the physical and or verbal actions involved in formulating and applying a concept.” I can understand where Stevens is trying to go with “public science”, but I also agree with Bridgman that Stevens’ semantic approach is a dead end. Like Bridgman, Ribes and Skinner, I am only interested in the “operations (or physical and verbal actions) taking place when the concept is used.” A priori identification of concepts prevents SVB. Only an operational, but not a “functional analysis of concepts” can deal directly with our way of talking. We need to define concepts according to their use while we talk. As long as behaviorism wasn’t known we were able to avoid this. Skinner complimented Stevens’ writing and called it “a damn piece of nice work” and described it as “the best statement of the behavioristic attitude towards subjective terms now in print.” 

It should be clear here that Skinner was referring to Stevens’ writing as if he was commenting on the fact that Stevens was having SVB with him. If Stevens would have had SVB with him, Skinner might have been alerted to the fact that it had something to do with how we sound while we speak. Skinner’s voice sounds different than others. His vocal verbal behavior had more SVB instances than other scientists. His tone was almost always calm and pleasant. It is not coincidental that he never sounded angry, anxious, frustrated or negative. His knowledge about literature infuriates his opponents. There is reason why Skinner has such a peaceful tone, why Chomsky sounds so incendiary and why Pinker has such a pedantic and annoying voice. 

“Reproducibility of data” which is essential in operant methodology is equally important for SVB as for NVB. The terms SVB and NVB can be added to “reinforcement”, “extinction”, “discrimination”, “generalization” and “chaining”, Skinner’s list, which illustrates “the theoretical functions given to concepts defined as operation-outcome relations.” The two subsets of vocal verbal behavior in humans called SVB and NVB can also be extended to the behavior of nonverbal organisms and constitutes the “laws of behavior.” In nonverbal organisms we should talk about Sound Non-Verbal Behavior (SNVB) and Noxious Non-Verbal Behavior (NNVB). These distinctions will make us recognize that, although only humans have language, non-verbally they are equal to nonverbal animals. This focus on the nonverbal makes possible the much-needed alignment between our verbal and nonverbal behavior.  

April 26, 2015

April 26, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) involves a manner of speaking in which the speaker affects optimal arousal levels for the listener. The arousal level for the listener is neither too high nor too low, but exactly right. Whether or not SVB is produced is determined by the listener. However, the speaker can also be his or her own listener and thus determine if he or she is producing SVB. When the speaker and the listener are one and the same person, it is only for him or for herself and not for someone else that the listener of his or her own speech can determine whether he or she is producing SVB.

As the speaker is capable of discerning he or she is producing SVB, he or she becomes more accurate in discerning if listeners other than him or herself are experiencing SVB. What may be perceived as SVB by the speaker as his or her own listener may be Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) for listeners other than the speaker. SVB occurs when the speaker as his or her own listener as well as the other listeners experience the voice of the speaker in the same positive manner. SVB perceived as SVB by the speaker as his or her own listener, can also first be perceived as NVB by other listeners and later as SVB. This can happen as other listeners are often not listening to the sound of the speaker, but to what he or she says. They often respond to the content of what the speaker is saying. Listeners may say they don’t like what the speaker is saying, but they don’t respond to his or her sound. 

When the listener is focusing on the sound of the speaker, the listener is more likely to perceive the sound of the speaker in the same way as the speaker, but when the listener is not conditioned to listen to the sound of the speaker, disagreement between the speaker and the listener about whether the speaker is producing SVB or NVB cannot be resolved as the attention of the listener keeps going to the content of what is said. If this kind of mediation by the listener happens, the speaker’s attention will very likely be distracted from listening to the sound of his or her voice while he or she speaks. 

If NVB instances happen at a high rate, while SVB instances happen at a low rate, then NVB occurs. If SVB instances happen at a high rate and NVB instances happen at a low rate, then SVB occurs. “When people speak, their speech is not the overt manifestation of an abstract grammar that rules and regulates what can be said or not, or how to say things.” Our speech is not caused by a language acquisition devise and thus the higher or lower rates of NVB or SVB produced by the speaker depend on the conditioning of the speaker's nervous system. Unsafe and threatening environments gave rise to high rates of NVB, the kind of speech in which, speakers and listeners predominantly emphasize the verbal, while escaping from the nonverbal, the environment within the skin. Safe and appetitive environments, on the other hand, set the stage for SVB, the vocal verbal behavior Ribes is referring to when he states “language as actual behavior has no grammar” (1991). 

Although Ribes is right when he states “grammar is not the condition that makes language effective or sound”, he is as verbally fixated as everyone else who was mainly exposed to and conditioned by NVB. It would never  occur to Ribes that only the calm sound of our voice can make our language a “meaningful social practice.” Although our language doesn’t require that it is “ruled by or adjusted to an ideal, abstract grammar”, for it to become more meaningful there must be a continuity of experience of safety and comfort. 

Ribes states “according to what has been said.” without realizing that nothing has been said, only something was written. Like Wittgenstein, he writes about “language as it is spoken in daily life”, but nothing indicates he actually speaks about it. I don’t agree with Wittgenstein who insists that “every sentence in our language is in order as it is.” This illustrates intellectual superficiality, because anyone who engages in conversation with others knows, that most of these conversations go nowhere and can’t go anywhere. Most of our conversations are NVB, which creates, maintains and exploits disorder. 


Only SVB can create order. SVB is not an intellectual accomplishment, but an experiential phenomenon. NVB facilitates the rejection and the abandonment of our experience of well-being. Ribes considers the importance of “language as a medium”, but is too enthralled by Wittgenstein’s “language games” to notice  that language is nothing but a sound produced by our vocal apparatus. He writes about the “acquisition of language” and “understanding and using words (which are tantamount to learning)”, but doesn’t mention the production and the listening to a sound to which we can all be attuned. 

Ribes wants readers to think of “language as an instrument.” He seems to refer to the human voice when he writes “language as an instrument, means effective use in relation to the behavior of other individuals”, but he primarily focuses on “thinking about its functions.” Thus, he only pays lip-service to the fact that “language is the instrument by means of which people relate to each other.” Apparently, Ribes wants the reader to think that “communication is a phenomenon taking place as a special function of language, but not as an equivalent to language,” but no explanation is given anywhere in his writings of an instrument that is producing harmonious positive sounds. 

Before I completed reading the section of the paper “language as a form of life,” I wondered if would contain anything that goes into the importance of sound while speak? The answer, as I expected, was no. Since Ribes is commenting on Wittgenstein’s ruminations about language, he only reiterates his view that “language games not only make up the meaning of words but the meaning of life itself.” What follows is long list of assumptions, but there is no reference anywhere about the important role of the human voice. 

The final section of the paper deals with “language as behavior.” I agree that “Psychology has not recognized that language, although ever-present in human behavior and its context, does not constitute a psychological phenomenon”, but the statement “all of human behavior is linguistic” is mistaken. Only SVB is linguistic, that is, verbal; NVB confines us to nonverbal responding. The fact that in NVB the sound of the speaker’s voice coerces the listener into submission, is not mentioned anywhere. Only something is said about “the groundlessness of believing, especially in small children.” Surely, it is sad that children continue to be conditioned to become adults mainly capable of NVB.      

April 25, 2015

April 25, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing is my response to “Human Behavior as Language: Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein” by Emilio Ribes Inesta (2006). I am, like Ribes, against the “general conception of language” and I absolutely agree that “Human behavior cannot be understood if we separate language and social practice.” I appreciate the quotes by Wittgenstein and Malcolm. The former wrote about “language games” and the latter conceived of a philosophy in which there are no more knots to untie. Since “language without social practice and social practice without language are senseless”, I insist that we should be talking about these matters. I mean this very literally: we must have a different kind of vocal verbal behavior to be able to realize what these authors attempted to ‘talk about’ in their writings. My argument is that “we separate language and social practice” every time we value our written words as more important than our vocal verbal behavior. 

We talk the way we do, because we have learned to give higher value to what is written than what is said. Although we keep buying into this myth, any child can see the emperor is not wearing any clothes, that is, any nonverbal human being can hear the verbal emperor sounds awful. Surely, we don’t pay attention to how we sound while we speak so that we can get away with our big lie, that we are the narrators, the originators of our own lives, that we choose our own words and that we are individually responsible for what we, for better or for worse, claim to be our thoughts, feelings and actions. It is because we keep telling each other that we have an inner self which causes all our actions that we believe we are individually responsible for what we say and how we say it. The verbal lie called the ‘self’ seems to be the truth, because people everywhere keep repeating it.

Although Ribes correctly states “from this perspective, language, as an essential component of social practice, contextualizes every human psychological phenomenon” (Ribes, 2006), he doesn’t mention the more poignant fact that our sound is needed to contextualize what we say about our experiences. Certainly, “the logic of language is grounded in social practice”; French or Chinese sounds which are only produced and mediated by members of those verbal communities. “The fictitious universal logic of a rational or formal syntax or grammar” is based on our agential, that is, on our academic, scientific infatuation with words. Thus, what we say takes our attention away from how we say it. We imagine we sound the same when we speak English, but the fact is that we are not. Unknowingly, we remove ourselves from reality, from ourselves and each other, by how we sound. 

Dissociation from reality produced by the vocal verbal behavior of the speaker is called Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). He or she controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. We are punished by NVB as we get imprisoned by words, which disconnect us from the reality. The way out of our verbal prison is by listening to ourselves while we speak. Our voice is needed to makes sense of what we say. We are able to have vocal verbal behavior in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an appetitive stimulus. This is called Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). SVB has different consequences than the vocal verbal behavior in which the speaker’s voice is an aversive stimulus. Neither Wittgenstein nor Ribes get any closer than stating “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.” 

Nothing imaginary happens when a speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. Only the speaker, who expresses what he or she thinks, feels or experiences vocally, can listen to his or her sound and is able to come out of the ancient prison of words. When we hear ourselves, while we speak, we are sure that our own “form of life” is either negative or positive. If we still doubt which is which, our voice sounds aversive to us.

Ribes writes that “language is not only what people write and speak, but also the means by which this is done.” The means by which people write are different from the means by which people speak. We cannot compare a pen or a keyboard with the feedback that is produced by the sound of our voice. “The sounds spoken” are different from “the signs written or read.” In the latter, we at best imagine a sound. We imagine the sound we are most familiar with. We are most familiar with NVB. The sound we keep imagining doesn’t represent our well-being. Our well-being doesn’t need to be imagined; it is “self”-evident. When speakers produce SVB, they consider this way of talking with others as causing their thoughts, feelings and experiences and the expression of these. NVB is perpetuated as it maintains our bias. SVB is a natural phenomenon, but it will only become apparent while we talk. 

April 23, 2015

April 23, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In an unpublished interview with Ribes-Iñesta (1990), Skinner remarks that he does not regard the orderliness of behavior as an essential assumption. For him behavior is a natural phenomenon, which can be studied by a positive science. Although theories determine the selection of data, he insists and emphasizes that data are independent of theory. Skinner is basically against theory, because he wants to be able to consider all the data. He answers a question about the molar/molecular distinction by saying he is not interested in this distinction. Skinner has also no interest in how the inner organism works, as he is into variation and selection of behavior of the whole organism.  

  

The data regarding how we talk with each other doesn’t depend on theory. Although much has been theorized about how we talk, this hasn’t led to any  kind of improvement. It hasn’t led a science of vocal verbal behavior that is capable of solving our problems like we do in physics or chemistry. The two response classes called Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) are only relevant to the extent that it can make audible new and important data to skilled speakers and listeners. SVB brings into hearing range the voice of the speaker, that is, the stimulus that sets the stage for the listener’s vocal verbal response. The behavior of the speaker, who turns into a listener, is functionally related to the behavior of the listener, who turns into a speaker. This behavior-behavior sequence involves turn-taking. 

Like Skinner, I am interested in the variation and selection of behavior of the whole organism. My focus is whether individuals acquire more SVB repertoire or more NVB repertoire during their life? I am interested in the control of behavior. In my way of talking other communicators will always experience an increase of SVB and a decrease of NVB. I predict this and I achieve this as I have the necessary skills that make this possible. Moreover, I teach these skills to those who are willing to learn from me. SVB signifies an increase of health and relationship, but NVB involves the decline of our health and the destruction of our relationship. Our talking affects many other behaviors and potentially has many positive or negative long-term consequences. We can hear this everywhere around us and we can also see it in our own lives.

I am interested in the effect of vocal verbal behavior on our environment, that is, on each other, because that is where the rubber of human relationship hits the road. Our vocal verbal effect on our environment only becomes clear if we listen to each other and to ourselves while we speak. The speaker must also include his or her own environment, the environment that is within our own skin. The effect of the speaker is understood from the listener’s point of view, because the verbal operant is defined by its effect on the listener. When asked about the contradictions in his theory, Skinner says he is not interested in theory and is unaffected by the occurrence of anomalies.

The lawfulness of our behavior or other natural phenomenon is not altered by our theories. If our theories hold water, they should emphasize the fact that behavior is determined by previous and current circumstances. By rejecting the importance of theories, Skinner shapes a scientific behavior that makes rapid change possible. He urges us to stop wasting time with theoretical superficial controversies. Operant behavior is defined by the probability of a response and not by the response itself. SVB and NVB are subsets of vocal verbal behavior explained by past instances of reinforcement, not by any purposive or imagined future consequence. Our future cannot cause our behavior. 

When a person acquires a verbal repertoire, he or she will in principle be able to analyze the contingencies to which he or she has been exposed and is exposed. This leads to the formulation of rules which enter into the total contingencies affecting our behavior. Most importantly, Skinner states that the formulation of rules as descriptions of contingencies of reinforcement are nothing more than operant behavior, that is, behavior that is susceptible to variation and selection. Like Skinner, my interest is in operant behavior. I focus on SVB, which is operant. My only concern with NVB is to recognize it as respondent behavior and to avoid it as much as possible. Our reflexive, mechanical vocal verbal behavior has had and continues to have devastating consequences and must be identified as our problem behavior. 

My focus is on SVB as only SVB will reliably replace NVB, our problem behavior. I am aware of the constraints which are imposed on the process of operant conditioning by our reflexive behavior. Most people are unaware of the negative consequences which result from their way of talking, that is, from their involvement in NVB. Upon being made familiar with the SVB/NVB distinction, people often still think they engage in SVB, while in fact they are having NVB. This happens all the time. SVB is SVB and NVB is NVB, not because of how we think about these subsets, but because of how we experience the response products of SVB and NVB. Much NVB masquerades as SVB. Even if we rationally know about this distinction, we keep getting it wrong because we focus on what we say and not on how we say it. This requires awareness, which will only be there if it is stimulated by our way of talking. What we say involves one response of behavior, with which we easily get stuck, but how we say it refers to emotion or movement and to novel responses. To stop our war of words, which is as impairing as right-sided paralysis after a stroke, we, the speakers, by listening to the sound of our words, become aware of our body, the environment within our own skin, from which we are disconnected again and again during NVB.

 

Regardless of whether we will find words for our bodily states, private events have a physical, functional independent status. Emotions are real irrespective of whether we learn to accurately express them or not. They are the most important, yet often completely ignored data of human interaction, which exist independent of our theories. Skinner focuses on operant conditioning, because, unlike natural selection and evolution of social environments we call cultures, operant conditioning can be studied experimentally, that is, in the laboratory. 

We have been kicking and screaming and we have been producing more of the same outdated, problematic NVB to prevent the scientific study of our way of talking. SVB requires we create a laboratory in which we study our way of talking experimentally. We are not observing visual data, but we are listening to auditory data. Our reflexive behavior will not be elicited in non-aversive environments. The issue of inhibiting it never arises during SVB. Non-aversive communication laboratory environments, can only be created and maintained after we have if we learned to distinguish between SVB and NVB. 


SVB and NVB are two universal subsets of vocal verbal behavior which are mutually exclusive. We can only capitalize on what we know about operant conditioning if we talk about the behavior-controlling environment. The sound of the speaker's voice is an antecedent stimulus, which sets the stage for the response, which is SVB or NVB. The postcedent events determine whether that response is going to be more or less likely under similar circumstances in the future. We suffer the ubiquity of NVB because we keep reinforcing it. We haven’t been able to capitalize on what we have come to know about operant conditioning, because we haven’t learned how to behave scientifically about our way of talking. Capitalizing on operant conditioning requires that we talk with each other in such a way that we don’t aversively affect each other at all. To explore such a possibility we must create a SVB laboratory.