October 8, 2015

October 8, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is my twelfth response to “The Unit of Selection: What Do Reinforcers Reinforce?” by J.W. Donahoe, D.C. Palmer and J.E. Burgos (1997). Public ‘listenings’, not observations of SVB as well as NVB, will make us realize that these response classes occur in every language. It is only when we shift our attention from seeing to listening, that we can validate the SVB/NVB distinction and become aware of what happens at the level of the organism, that is, what happens to our own body when we speak and listen simultaneously. Skinner’s position was that such “principles [of public observation] are validated by independent observations at their own level of analysis, and, when validated, are said to explain the observations.” I claim, however, that observations are not helping us to improve our relationships. I insist that we must focus our attention on listening.  “The principles themselves are” NOT “explained” either “by observations at levels lower than those at which the principle was formulated.” We only make sense with what we say to each other by how we are saying it. In SVB the speaker speaks and takes turns with the listener, but in NVB the coercive speaker speaks at the listener and never really gives him or her the opportunity to speak.

There is nothing “circular” about the fact that NVB will make us look for something that can only be found if we listen more closely.  Once we do this and have verified the existence of these two response classes (SVB and NVB), we will realize how much of our “reductive reasoning” is based on NVB and how little it is based on SVB.  I agree with Skinner that “The unending nature of reductive scientific explanation is not a source of embarrassment; it is simply the way science proceeds”, but I have good reason to believe people will feel embarrassed once they find out about the SVB/NVB distinction. When scientists don’t realize that their NVB is unscientific their endeavors are fruitless.

Sadly, “in behavior analysis, the levels-of-analysis issue most often surfaces in the context of the molar–molecular debate.” This “debate”, like any other debate, is based on NVB and continues to create division in the behaviorist community. SVB, on the other hand, dissolves this division, which is artificial as the distinction between the environment within or outside of the skin. The authors agree that although “orderly relations exists between variables defined over appreciable intervals of time” these orderly relations also “exist between individual events within the session.” In other words, “Order exists at both levels simultaneously; which orderly relation is most useful depends on the question at hand.” This either/or dichotomy is maintained by NVB and dissolved by SVB in which we accept both levels. SVB is a fine-grained way of talking in which things can be expressed which cannot be expressed as long the speaker doesn’t listen to him or herself while he or she speaks. The way of talking in which behaviorists agree that “There are no inherently molar or molecular levels of analysis; these are relative terms, either of which can be applied to the very same observation depending on the frame of reference at that moment”, has to be different from the way of talking in which they are only talking about one or the other. The latter is an example of NVB, but the former is an example of SVB. Thus, the authors have given a verbal description of SVB. The question remains, however, if there are behaviorists who have enough SVB in their behavioral history to be able to talk about it.

I just finished reading a paper by A. Neuringer “Self-experimentation: A Call For Action” (1981). Without now going into that paper, I think that Neuringer would understand me. SVB is a form of self-experimentation. One can sit by oneself and speak out loud and figure things out about relationship and interaction, which are almost impossible to find out while we are talking together. Establishment of speaking and listening behavior that occurs at the same rate is easily disturbed by those who are not familiar with it, which is most of us. I have found SVB while I was alone and also had to go back to it again and again by being alone. 

Returning to the “Unit of Selection”, it needs to be made clear that in SVB the speaker and the listener are experienced and understood as  one, by both the speaker as well as by the listener. Other authors have formulated this differently as they never engaged long enough in SVB which would have allowed them to formulate it how I describe it. Their account is very far-removed from day to day human interaction and consequently “Even if an adequate molar principle of choice were formulated, it would, at most, ‘‘govern’’ the behavior of the scientist, not the subject. A molar choice rule may be a valid induction from observations of behavior, but the moment-to-moment contiguities of environment, behavior, and reinforcer are the events that make contact with the organism (Galbicka; Hutchison; Marr; Vaughan). In SVB “the moment-to-moment contiguities of environment, behavior, and reinforcer are the events that make contact with the organism.”

When I first discovered SVB I called it ‘the language that creates space.’ As anyone who engages in SVB agrees, this space-creating dimension is also experienced as freedom, relief, unburdening, opening up, calming, understanding, revealing and validating the communicator’s individual behavioral history. Things can be said because they can be said. The speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks and cultivates awareness about NVB, in which many things cannot be said. Likewise, in SVB feelings are felt and expressed and thoughts are articulated, because they can be felt and because they can be thought and they can be expressed. The difference between SVB and NVB introduces the speaker to the silence which comes with this novel way of talking. The more we have SVB, the more we become silent and peaceful. This silence is qualitatively different from silence that was imposed. It is caused and maintained by our SVB expressions. We express hesitatingly but with increasing confidence the noise that bothers us as our NVB private speech is included once again into our public speech. As we can all hear and agree that our NVB private speech is and was part of NVB public speech, it will transform into SVB public and private speech. 

October 7, 2015

October 7, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is my eleventh response to “The Unit of Selection: What Do Reinforcers Reinforce?” by J.W. Donahoe, D.C. Palmer and J.E. Burgos (1997). To hammer home my message that we, no matter how much we talk, to our own detriment, ignore auditory stimuli, how we sound, but get carried away by visual stimuli, by what we say, here is another one of Skinner’s statements, which clearly indicates that he, like most of us, was conditioned by NVB: “I am not overlooking the advance that is made in the unification of knowledge when terms at one level of analysis are defined (‘‘explained’’) at a lower level.” (underlining added by me). Skinner, who is known to choose his words very carefully, didn’t and couldn’t write: ‘I am not deaf to’ the “advance that is made in the unification of knowledge”. Although he surely had a lot of SVB, he apparently had not enough of it to be able to write about the great importance of the sound of our voice in “the unification of knowledge.”   

I think that Skinner would agree with me that the SVB/NVB distinction is worth exploring. He stated “I agree with Carmichael [1936] that those concepts which do not make physiological formulation impossible and which are amenable to growing physiological knowledge are preferable, other things being equal, to those that are not so amenable (p. 440).” SVB does “not make physiological formulation impossible.” Moreover, is makes physiological experience possible. In SVB, the speaker obtains physiological, that is, experiential knowledge, which is both shared and agreed upon by the listener. Skinner is referring to this bi-directionality when he states that “neuroscience benefits from a science of behavior at least as much as a science of behavior benefits from neuroscience.” I like to rephrase that into ‘the speaker benefits from the listener at least as much as the listener benefits from the speaker.’ We can have SVB.

Instead of lamenting about the “potential benefits of the integration of behavioral and neural observation”, I propose the integration between the speaker and the listener, while we speak, because only that will make this “the integration of behavioral and neural observation” into a reality. Stated differently, due to the ubiquity of NVB, we haven’t been able to make much progress with the unification of the sciences. This is not at all surprising since scientists are mainly involved in writing and reading, but not in talking and listening. In other words, scientists as well as academicians and scholars are almost never astounded by what anyone says. They seem to have lost the ability to be amazed. However, behaviorists should take note of the fact that “Prior behavioral work had indicated that, in addition to temporal contiguity, putative reinforcing stimuli were effective only if, speaking nontechnically, the reinforcer was ‘‘surprising’’ (Kamin, 1968; Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) (underlining done by me). I find it fascinating how these authors are struggling trying to write something which obviously needs to be said.

Lack of surprise is characteristic for NVB, but SVB will once again fill us with wonder. SVB too can be defined as “surprise” and “may be given” the same “technical definition at the behavioral level as a discrepancy between the response evoked by the reinforcing stimulus (the unconditioned response, or UR) and the level of that same response in the environment in which the operant and reinforcer occur (the conditioned response, or CR) (cf. Vaughan).”  Described here is that the voice of the speaker can induce positive affect in the listener’s body. Although many words are spoken this is a nonverbal phenomenon. The “surprise” experienced by the listener, is absence of NVB, that is, the induction of negative affect. In SVB there is attunement between the speaker’s experience and the listener’s experience; they experience the same response. Thus, SVB can also be explained as an experience in which the environment within the skin of the speaker is understood to be one with the environment that is within the skin of the listener. The oneness of the natural world can finally be accurately expressed in SVB.

Although behaviorists agree that “a putative reinforcer strengthens environment–behavior relations when there is a contiguous CR–UR discrepancy (Donahoe, Crowley, Millard, & Stickney, 1982; cf. Rescorla, 1968), problems have remained with “measurement of the CR and UR.” I think that this is caused by NVB. It can and it will be solved by SVB.  Rather than correlating behavioral measures to “the underlying neural activity that mediates conditioning”, we can correlate SVB and NVB with sets of our own experiences which are either positive or negative. In SVB we have no complete, but definitely an increased access to our personal history of reinforcement which “mediates” our “conditioning.”

“General principles arise as inductions from the experimental

analysis of particular public observations.” I think behaviorists need to make inductions that are based on public listenings rooted in SVB, in which speakers listen to themselves while they speak. To make this happen, they must put a moratorium on their biased emphasis on public observations. In other words, behaviorists must stop visualizing.  

October 6, 2015

October 6, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is my tenth response to “The Unit of Selection: What Do Reinforcers Reinforce?” by J.W. Donahoe, D.C. Palmer and J.E. Burgos (1997). I am, of course, in agreement with these authors behaviorist’ premise: “We believe that we are justified in considering covert events

. . . in our interpretation of complex behavior provided that we do not introduce ad hoc principles that are not founded in the experimental

analysis of overt, measurable, quantifiable behavior. . . . Inferences about covert events should follow from behavioral laws, not serve to

mask their inadequacy. (LCB, pp. 275–277).” As I have stated, Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) covert speech is a function of SVB public speech. Likewise, Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) private speech is a function of NVB public speech. It can’t be otherwise; what we say to ourselves is determined by how we have talked with others. If others talk at us, we will be talking at ourselves, but if others are talking with us, we will we be talking with ourselves. In talking at each other and at ourselves there is always a separation between the speaker and the listener, but in talking with each other and talking with ourselves the speaker and the listener are experienced as one. Like these authors, I am also not much interested in “ad hoc principles that are not founded in the experimental analysis of overt, measurable, quantifiable behavior.”

The listener’s auditory distinction between the speaker’s public speech, SVB or NVB is not an inference of the listener’s covert event, but is based on the lawfulness of overt behavioral laws. However, it should be clear to the reader that these verbal response classes are quantifiable only by means of conversation and cannot be measured while we are only involved in reading and writing. Analysis of SVB and NVB makes no sense in written form. Our demand for this written form represents our bias toward visual stimuli. These words and sentences are visible, but they have no sound. 

The authors mention “four reasons for integrating the experimental analysis of behavior and neuroscience”, and insist “that distinctions

between different levels of analysis—or, better perhaps, different scales of measurement (Philip Hineline, personal communication)—are epistemological, not ontological. That is, the distinction is between

different ways of studying the same nature, not different natures.” Yet, they don’t consider talking as one of those “different ways of studying the same nature.” Their NVB way of talking doesn’t permit it and they have no idea that another way of talking, SVB, would. Not surprisingly, they remain busy with “observations at finer levels of analysis, whether microbehavioral or neural” (underlining added by me). Even at these neuroscientific “finer levels of analysis” their visual bias continues, but in real conversation (SVB) “finer levels of analysis” involves listening.

These scholars worry about “Some antecedent–behavior relations” that seem to “exemplify nonlinearly separable functions—such as the XOR problem in artificial intelligence (viz., Hutchison)—that require the introduction of mediating events if ad hoc formulations are to be avoided”, but they don’t mention anything about the affect-inducing speaker. Moreover, since the listener, who, as we all know, mediates the speaker, is either positively or negatively affected by the speaker’s voice and in principle can talk about that, since the speaker-as-own-listener bridges the environment within and outside of the skin, there is really no reason for the “introduction of mediating events.” If these authors are “motivated by a simple curiosity about the processes underlying the functional relations between the environment and behavior’’, why don’t they acknowledge the simple fact that they, like everyone else who learned a language, are affected by auditory stimuli?

In NVB the speaker is not aware of how he or she sounds while he or she speaks. Consequently, he or she forces others to listen to him or her. In SVB, the speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks.  Thus, in SVB, the speaker is not aversively stimulating the listener. The listener, who can be the speaker, listens effortlessly to the SVB speaker. 

Although Skinner wrote Verbal Behavior (1957), he also remained unaware of the SVB/NVB distinction and gave priority to visual stimuli. Had he known this distinction, he would never made the statement: “The physiologist of the future will tell us all that can be known about what is happening inside the behaving organism. His account will be an important advance over a behavioral analysis, because the latter is necessarily ‘‘historical’’— that is to say, it is confined to functional relations showing temporal gaps. . . .What he discovers cannot invalidate the laws of a science of behavior, but it will make the picture of human action more nearly complete (Skinner, 1974, pp. 236–237).” To “tell us all that can be known about what is happening inside” the physiologist would still have to achieve SVB, but as long as he or she engages in NVB, he or she will be biased. Remarkably, Skinner considers behavioral analysis as “necessarily historical – that is to say, it is confined to functional relations showing temporal gaps.” Anyone who has explored SVB knows that such a statement derives from NVB. The functional relations that bring forth SVB can immediately be explored, verified and agreed upon, by talking.  In SVB the speaker’s immediate positive impact on the listener is tangible and the speaker and the listener are conscious. In NVB, by contrast, there is no way in which the impact of the speaker on the listener can be addressed. Therefore, in SVB these “temporal gaps” don’t even occur.  I disagree with Skinner that the physiologist’s account “will make the picture of human action more nearly complete” (underlining added by me). There is no picture or puzzle to be completed, but there is definitely a way of talking in which we don’t listen as what we say is presumably more important than how we say it. Only if NVB is recognized as such can it be stopped. When NVB is stopped we will have SVB. It is necessary for NVB to be addressed first, before we can have SVB. Therefore, the speaker’s voice in NVB is called Voice 1 and the speaker’s voice in SVB is called Voice 2.  “Temporal gaps” in the behavioral account of human interaction come down to missing frequencies in the production as well as the reception of sound. Sounds which we don’t produce, we also don’t tend to hear.

October 5, 2015

October 5, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is my ninth response to “The Unit of Selection: What Do Reinforcers Reinforce?” by J.W. Donahoe, D.C. Palmer and J.E. Burgos (1997). I agree with the authors who write that “Our subject matter—behavior—is not defined by its magnitude or by the ability of observers to agree on its occurrence. Rather it is any activity of the organism that can enter into orderly relationships with environmental events.” I invite these authors to have a conversation with me in which they can finally discriminate between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) as well as Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). If they would talk with me, they would agree that only SVB enters into an “orderly relationship with environmental events.” Although NVB is as predicable and as “orderly” as SVB, it shouldn’t be described in that way as it creates nothing but chaos.

In NVB the speaker verbally abuses the listener. Indeed, there is no order at all in the hierarchical relationship which is enforced by the intimidating NVB speaker. The reason that people have accepted such speakers is because they were unable to analyze such speakers in terms of how they sounded. Only the SVB speaker sounds good, but the NVB speaker sounds terrible. The NVB voice is described as authoritarian, forceful and also aggressive, because the NVB speaker speaks at the listener, not with him or with her. The “eye blink is an overt behavior”, which can be “measured, recorded and agreed upon by disinterested observers”, but the sound of the speaker can also be listened to and categorized as SVB or NVB. It should be noted that the authors give an example of a visual stimulus, but not, as I do, an auditory stimulus. As stated, visual stimuli, such as graphs and pie-charts, are common to scientific publications, but auditory stimuli, produced by listening while we speak, are lacking. Yet, we can hear the difference between SVB and NVB and “The probability of overt responses is altered by contingencies of reinforcement only because the nervous system is.”

Yesterday, I was participating in a leadership seminar. It was boring. The seminar leader did most of the talking and all the participants were ready to go home. The presentation had lots of text-slides and video footage. Although he spoke in a friendly tone, he was still having NVB. However, when he explained the term ‘paradigm paralysis’, he caught my attention, because as he spoke, he repeatedly made references to visual stimuli, such as: ‘let’s take a look at’; ‘the way we see the world’; ‘people were blind-sighted by the fact that the market had changed’ and ‘they didn’t see it coming’. He gave examples of companies whose stock value had tanked as they ‘saw things in a habitual way’ and lost the competition. He then showed slides with a single number on it and asked us to add them without writing it down. First slide 1000, second slide 40, third slide 1000, forth slide 30, fifth slide 1000, sixth slide 20, seventh slide 1000 and eight slide 10. Most people had added these numbers to 5000, but that answer was wrong, because it adds up to 4100. Why did we make this mistake? Presumable it was because of ‘paradigm paralysis.’ I remarked that this so-called paralysis is caused by conditioning processes and if these numbers had been given to us not and as visual, but as auditory stimuli, it would probably not occur.

I will test this hypothesis with my students.  Although he praised me for my remark, the presenter didn’t interact with me. He only superficially talked about the importance of listening as a way to dissolve ‘paradigm paralysis.’ Special attention had to be given to our self-talk, which, according to him, contains our ‘hidden beliefs.’ He summed up ways of ‘distorted thinking’, known in cognitive behavioral therapy as ‘cognitive distortions’: all or nothing thinking, over-generalization, mental filter, disqualifying the positive, jumping to conclusions, magnifying and minimizing, emotional reasoning, should statements, labelling and mislabeling and personalization. He spoke of the inner causation of behavior and was obviously ignorant about radical behaviorism.  He asked: why is it so difficult to listen? I agreed with him that our culture conditions us ‘not to believe what comes out of our mouth’. However, we don’t live in a ‘post-trust-era’, but we repeatedly engage in NVB. Our presumed ‘paradigm paralysis’ is maintained by a way of talking which biases us against auditory stimuli. In NVB we are punished for paying attention to auditory stimuli. Thus, NVB is maintained by visual stimuli, that is, by the speaker’s and the listener’s fixation on words.

The presenter was just as visually biased as these behaviorist authors. My reference to this seminar is related to their paper. Let’s follow their text minutely and focus on their overemphasis on visual stimuli. “The environment only sees the overt response, and so can arrange contingencies of selection only for the eyeblink.” Even the distinction between overt and covert responses itself is based on visual stimuli.  “However, the enduring changes brought about by the contingency surely happen at [motor neurons], and elsewhere in the network. The probability of overt responses is altered by contingencies of reinforcement only because the nervous system is.” The notion of overt and covert behavior is maintained by NVB, but would change once we are introduced to SVB. In other words, the environment does not only see the overt response, but it also hears the overt response. Therefore, the environment not only arranges contingencies of selection for the eye-blink, but it also arranges contingencies of selection for the sound of the organism’s voice. Our response to overt auditory stimuli, that is, the listener’s response to the sound of the speaker’s voice, tells us a lot about what we say to ourselves covertly. What we can see is as real as what we can hear, but as long as we remain obsessed only with what we can see, we will not recognize this fact and our rate of listening cannot increase. What we say is as real as how we say it.

“The overt response is no more the ‘‘real’’ response than its neural precursors are. . . . We believe that we are justified in considering covert events . . . in our interpretation of complex behavior provided that we do not introduce ad hoc principles that are not founded in the experimental analysis of overt, measurable, quantifiable behavior. . . . Inferences about covert events should follow from behavioral laws, not serve to mask their inadequacy” (LCB, pp. 275–277).  SVB covert speech or positive self-talk, has to be a function of SVB overt speech.