September 5, 2016

September 5, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my ninth response to “Verbal behavior in clinical context: behavior analysis methodological contributions” by Zamignani and Meyer (2007). I have arrived at page ten of the paper, but due to my lack of familiarity with what these authors describe I am no longer as eager to respond. For my taste, their paper is too much about the classic approach and too little about the pragmatic approach. 

I am looking for phrases which make me want to say something about the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). The fact that I can’t find them tells me how far these authors are from being able to discriminate this distinction. 

When they write “frequency of responses,” I am back on track and think of the high rates of NVB and low rates of SVB everywhere. The term “punitive audiences” refers to certain kind of listeners. If the speaker’s speech is under control of a punitive audience, he or she produces NVB, whereas if his or her speech is under control of a positively reinforcing audience, he or she produces SVB. 

It is important to recognize that SVB or NVB are caused by the kind of audience the speaker has. Our common inclination is to think of the relationship between the speaker and the listener in terms of how the speaker affects the listener, instead of the other way around. 

The frequency of SVB responses is so low because it is punished instead of reinforced. If in a verbal episode the frequency of SVB responses is increased this always goes together with a decrease of NVB responses. We are as used to NVB as we are used to our belief in an inner self.

September 4, 2016

September 4, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my eight response to “Verbal behavior in clinical context: behavior analysis methodological contributions” by Zamignani and Meyer (2007). These researchers elaborate on the classic research approach and state “The categorization parting from topographic criteria has as focus similarities in the movement and/or posture and/or appearance of behavior (spatial dimensions of behavior).”

“Topographical dimensions of social behavior” are difficult to determine. Skinner (1957) states “Underneath the level of words lay roots, or, more precisely, the small ‘meaningful’ units called morphemes. Above the words are phrases, idioms, sentences, clauses, etc. Each one of them can have a functional unit as a verbal operant. A particle of behavior as small as a single sound can be under independent control of a manipulating variable. (...) On the other hand, a broad segment of behavior (...) can vary under similar functional unitary control.” (p. 21).

Aversive stimulation changes the sound of our voice. We sound very different in a safe environment. “Contiguous events when responding – immediately preceding and subsequent events – are not sufficient for the identification of a functional class of responses, but make up elements that give context to the individual’s verbalization or action.”

After considering pros and cons of the pragmatic and the classic research approach, the authors conclude that “Such categorization strategy, considering the classification of Russel and Stiles (1979), is between the classic and the pragmatic (as pointed out by Hill, 1986) and involves the estimate of the immediate function of the verbalization parting from the observation of the topography and the immediate context in which the verbalization fits in.” They get close, but not close enough so that the speaker and the listener become one.

September 3, 2016

September 3, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my seventh response to “Verbal behavior in clinical context: behavior analysis methodological contributions” by Zamignani and Meyer (2007). Identification of “functional response classes” during  our interaction is made impossible due to the different status of the speaker and the listener, which causes Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).

The conversation between the therapist and the client is unique in that its objective is to create and maintain Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), which is also described as therapeutic alliance. Another way of viewing SVB and NVB is by recognizing that the speaker and the listener are always separated during NVB, but are experienced as one during SVB.

NVB is a function of the extent to which the speaker is different from the listener, but SVB is a function of the extent to which the speaker is equal to the listener.  Russell and Stiles (1979) wrote about the two research strategies in psychotherapy: “the pragmatic and the classic – by means of which social interaction data could be categorized.”

The pragmatic strategy seems to refer to SVB as it “consisted in the direct inference of the observer about states or characteristics of the speaker (or in the case of the behavior analysis, direct inference of functional relations)” (italics added). This also refers to the listener who speaks and “could allow the study of quite subtle events of interaction,” which “would imply in a great degree of inference.”

The classic research strategy, on the other hand, fits with NVB as “the interpretation about the functional relations would not be done in the moment of register, but afterwards, from the systemization of categorized data which would allow the identification of patterns in the studied interaction.” In NVB the listener is not supposed to discuss the speaker’s dominance. Hierarchical differences remain in place as they are unaddressed as the inferior listener is not allowed to speak.

September 2, 2016

September 2, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my sixth response to “Verbal behavior in clinical context: behavior analysis methodological contributions” by Zamignani and Meyer (2007). The authors state “The categories Information and Feedback do not name a behavior or a relationship between listener and speaker, but, in its substantive form, they give a broad denomination of a purely linguistic product, without context” (p. 76). It is unlikely these disembodied “products of behavior” are overcome by “a greater specification of the criteria for the definition of the categories of a system.” I agree.

Staying true to what actually happens during the therapist-client interaction requires from the therapists who describe such events to their clients not to go overboard on too much terminology. “An excess of specification would make the identification of interaction standards more difficult, because of the excessive dispersion of results.”

The SVB/NVB distinction is such a powerful therapeutic tool as it is so easy to grasp. To “maintain the coherence and the internal validity of the categories’ system: (1) the categories constructed must be exhaustive and mutually exclusive; (2) all the behavior that has been observed and registered must be classified, regardless of the number of events that are categorized in each class; (3) there must be coherence among the categories in the criteria chosen for the classification and in the degree of specificity adopted for the class of events.”

1) SVB and NVB are mutually exclusive; 2) SVB and NVB capture the whole range of human emotion; 3) SVB and NVB are physiological phenomena, which, once discriminated create understanding, clarity and coherence. We need to be able to quantify “when it begins and when it finishes.” When SVB begins, NVB ends and when NVB begins, SVB ends. Bardin (1977) called such a unit “a register unit.” By listening to ourselves while we speak we learn to increase SVB and decrease NVB.

September 1, 2016

September 1, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my fifth response to “Verbal behavior in clinical context: behavior analysis methodological contributions” by Zamignani and Meyer (2007). The behavioral events I call SVB and NVB fit with Danna’s and Matos’s (1999) definition of “an event in a given category” as they must: “(1) be objective, clear and precise; (2) be expressed in a direct and affirmative manner; (3) include only elements that are pertinent to it; (4) be explicit and complete” (p. 134).”

All my students and therapy clients discriminate SVB and NVB. SVB describes that the speaker’s sound is experienced by the listener as an appetitive stimulus, but NVB describes the speaker’s voice is experienced by the listener as an aversive stimulus. The listener’s subjective experience determines if the speaker has SVB or NVB.

Only the listener can say if the speaker has SVB or NVB. Actually, it is only the listener who can become the speaker who is able to say to the speaker whether he or she has SVB or NVB. If the listener cannot really become the speaker, as is often the case in NVB, he or she cannot say to this speaker whether he or she experiences SVB or NVB.

The listener, who cannot become a speaker, who is not listened to as a speaker, who is not allowed to become a speaker, who is ignored as a speaker, will experience NVB private speech. Also, the speaker who cannot become the listener will be experiencing NVB private speech.

In the absence of turn-taking the speaker and the listener will both engage in NVB, but as turn-taking increases their SVB will increase. Although the subjective experience of the listener determines if the speaker is having SVB or NVB, the definition of SVB and NVB is neither “circular” nor “subjective.“ In other words, communicators experience each other’s voice subjectively in similar ways.

The “low agreement among judges” that is found in many studies was not due to the “imprecision of description,” but because these judges were prevented from judging based on their own subjective experience. SVB refers to the objectivity which will be found in our subjectivity.