December 22, 2014

December 22, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

The main reason discrimination failures occur so often in spoken communication and why people fail to differentiate between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), and have relationship problems, is because of the lack of opportunity to learn it. Nowhere in our lives are we taught there are basically only two ways of communicating: we either talk with each other or we talk at each other. In the former, we have SVB, but in the latter, we push each other around and we dominate and coerce each other. We cannot and do not know what was never taught. 

During simultaneous discrimination training a person may be presented with two pictures of different objects, for instance one of a chair and one of a table. When shown the picture with the chair, the person is then reinforced for saying 'chair' and when shown the picture of the table, the person is reinforced for saying 'table'. However, when the picture of the chair is shown, the person is not reinforced for saying 'table', nor is the person reinforced for saying 'chair' when the picture of the table is shown. During such an experiment, the picture of the chair or the table does not always appear on the left side or on the right side, so that the person doesn’t get conditioned to tact or name the picture on the right or the left side as a chair or a table. In a similar way, we need to go back on forth between SVB and NVB and be taught which is which.  

  

During discrimination training in which we identify SVB and NVB, we need to be individually presented with various trials, in which we must decide whether it is SVB or NVB. When SVB or NVB are tacted accurately, this writer provides reinforcing consequences. It is needed to know both and one is not  more important than the other. Besides, by knowing one, one knows the other. During this phase of the learning process, it is necessary to keep focusing on this one specific skill, so that one becomes capable of separating SVB from NVB and doesn’t get side-tracked. As long as one still gets side-tracked, this is a sign that one is not yet capable of discriminating between SVB and NVB. Of course, many other things can be said about our spoken communication, but this wouldn’t and couldn’t result in discriminating SVB and NVB. It is impossible to learn about SVB without also first learning about NVB and since they will, especially in the early stages of learning, follow each other in rapid procession, successive discrimination training is needed.  

Especially in the beginning, when we are first presented with what seems to be the illusive difference between SVB and NVB, they alternate quickly without us taking note of it. At any given moment, what was SVB turns again into NVB. This is because the contingency changes. While we speak, we have the tendency to pay more attention to the environment outside of our skin, to the ecto-environment, than to the environment within our own skin, to the endo-environment.  Our ecto-bias is caused by the aversive stimulation from NVB, which we have gotten used to and have been conditioned by. When we fail to notice any endo-environmental differences, that is , when we don’t realize what happens within our own body, while we speak, we produce NVB.  As we learn to pay attention to these endo-environmental events by expressing them, we attain SVB. Stressful and anxious endo-events cause us to have NVB, but describing these makes us acquire SVB. 

During the preliminary stages of discriminative learning, participants are often dumbfounded or frustrated by their inability to detect SVB from NVB. Fact is, when they don’t know if they are having SVB or NVB, they are always having NVB, but when they are having SVB, they know that they are having SVB. When such prompts have been given a couple of times, they begin to evoke the correct classification and the prompts can be faded. During this part of the process participants often ask questions to which they themselves have and find an answer. For instance, they ask “so, are you saying that when I talk like that, I am producing NVB?” This author then says to them “I am not saying it, you are saying it” and then they suddenly get it. At this stage, the previously discussed simultaneous procedure, in which SVB and NVB were simultaneously discussed, has changed to a successive procedure, in which SVB is experienced for a longer period of time.  Errorless learning now begins to occur, as the participant becomes capable of having more and more SVB. As the SVB increases in strength, attention for NVB is becoming less and less. 

As our SVB is reinforced ecto - and endo – environmentally, errorless learning begins to occur and hardly any mistakes are made. When participants are told to listen to themselves while they speak, they also become more attuned to other nonverbal social cues, such as facial expression and body language. Correct discrimination makes them better at communicating and makes them enjoy their communication more. They are motivated to maintain SVB and avoid NVB. Correct discrimination of NVB is reinforcing, because it opens the door to SVB. It is all about feedback, which comes from both the environment outside of one’s body, the ecto- environment as well as the environment inside of one’s body, the endo-environment.