January 16, 2015

January 16, 2015

Written by a locus called Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Finally, this writer has started reading Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1957). Last night, he had a dream in which he was reshuffling his notes. Interesting, how antecedent verbal stimuli could evoke such response, which was consequated by Ernest Vargas, whose foreword spoke to him and then led a response and more writing and a great conversation with Laurel about the importance of the verbal community, without which consequation is impossible. Also, Arturo returned from the jungle and had a short and reinforcing conversation with this writer. He told him he had a high fever and was bitten by some bug. They decided to talk more on Sunday.

  

What follows are this writer’s thoughts about the first three pages of the book Verbal Behavior (Skinner, 1957). This writer will use this book to write about both Skinner’s work as well as his own work. His own work is explained by Skinner’s work. This writing is primarily about this author’s work. Skinner’s work is used to elucidate this author’s work.

Skinner starts with “Men act upon the world, and change it, and are changed in turn by the consequences of their actions. Certain processes, which the human organism shares with other species, alter behavior so that it achieves safer and more useful interchange with a particular environment.” (p.1) From the very beginning he focuses the reader’s attention on what is going to happen after he or she has read what he has written. They will be changed by the consequences of their actions, that is, by their verbal behavior. Moreover, they will be changed, they will have to be changed, in very specific ways. The change he refers to is selection by consequences. The safety and survival of human beings depends on whether they will be able to view each other as part of the great web of life and connected with other species with who they share their environment. Skinner’s operant conditioning paradigm invites the reader to try out and verify the predicted consequences of moving away, from agential, pre-scientific, self-centered and destructive explanations of behavior to the natural effects of environmental variables. 

Likewise, this writer wants the reader to read out loud so that he or she can hear the sound of his or her voice while he or she speaks. While reading this text out loud, speaking and listening will become joined and the reader will be able to explore Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), the spoken communication in which we speak with a tone of voice which is experienced by the listener as reinforcing. If the reader is alone, he or she will have his or her first taste of SVB by him or herself, but if others are present, they will be affected by the change, which occurs in the sound of the voice of the reader as a consequence of this reading. 

As the sound of the reader’s voice becomes more enjoyable to him or herself as well as to others, the reader will experience the shift from what this author calls Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) to SVB. During NVB we are not aware of how we sound, and, consequently, we communicate in a mechanical, unconscious fashion. Attention for our sound, which is produced in the here and now, requires us to listen in the here and now. In SVB we are not trying to sound in any particular kind of way, our sound is what it is, but we are aware of it, which, as stated, in NVB we aren’t. In NVB our voice is experienced as an aversive stimulus by the listener, which can also be the speaker as his own listener. In SVB, by contrast, our voice is having a reinforcing effect on ourselves and others. 

The way we act upon the world with SVB and how we are changed by the consequences of SVB is very different from the way in which we act upon the world with NVB and how we are changed by the consequences of NVB. Only with SVB will we be able to achieve a “safer and more useful interchange”. However, such an interaction gets disrupted by NVB, in which communicators are insensitive to each other. In NVB people dominate, exploit, coerce, distract and manipulate each other, whereas in SVB we help, enhance, energize, join and enjoy each other. 

Skinner writes “When appropriate behavior has been established, its consequences work through similar processes to keep it in force.” This writer considers SVB as “appropriate behavior” and acknowledges that its “consequences work similar processes to keep it in force.” Only SVB will lead to the bodily changes needed to keep it going, but NVB will lead to other bodily changes which will make us more prone to having stress responses.

Skinner writes “If by chance the environment changes, old forms of behavior disappear, while new consequences build new forms.” Skinner views behavior as selected by consequences. If, and only if, we really  experience positive consequences such as “safety and more useful interaction” we want to achieve and maintain those reinforcing circumstances again, but if we keep experiencing a lack of safety and are bothered by useless and meaningless interaction, we have no other choice than to struggle, argue and stand our ground. In the former we achieve SVB, but in the latter we have NVB.

Skinner explains the direct effects of our behavior when he writes “behavior alters the environment through mechanical action, and its properties or dimensions are often related in a simple way to the effects produced.” No other person is needed to mediate our behavior, when we pick up an apple and eat it. “Much of the time, however, a man acts only indirectly upon the environment from which the ultimate consequences of his behavior emerge. His first effect is on other men.” Here Skinner refers to reinforcement mediated by others. When we ask “can you pass me the sugar?” we produce “a certain pattern of sounds”, which makes another person hand us the sugar. Verbal behavior acts indirectly on our environment; it requires reinforcement that is mediated by others. In NVB there are always problems with this indirect aspect of our verbal behavior. Why does that occur? The direct, aversive, nonverbal effect of the voice of the speaker distracts the mediator from the indirect, reinforcing, verbal effect on the speaker. Thus, in NVB, mediators reinforce demanding and coercive verbalizers.

In SVB and in NVB a verbalizer’s mand is reinforced by a mediator’s behavior, however, in SVB the mediator can also mand the verbalizer, whereas in NVB he or she can’t, isn’t allowed to, and, supposedly, isn’t supposed to. Stated differently, in NVB the mediator is forced to mediate the verbalizer. Whenever a mediator has the audacity to mand the NVB verbalizer, he or she will immediately elicit and an even harsher mand, which is meant to coerce the mediator into obeying the verbalizer’s order not to mand. Thus, NVB verbalizers and NVB mediators always together maintain NVB.

Only in SVB are speakers considerate about the effects they have on the listener. Only in SVB do communicators return the favor of manding. Collaboration, togetherness, trust and dependence will continue to require SVB and is only be possible with SVB. However, such social benefits are forgotten due to our imaginary independence, our disconnected paranoia, our agentloneliness and our self-glorification, which are created and maintained by NVB. The shouting down of “the walls of a Jericho”, the grandiose “command to stop the sun” or the manic prayer for “the waves to be still” are historical records of NVB. Skinner is correct in stating that “The consequences of such behavior are mediated by a train of events no less physical or inevitable than direct mechanical action, but clearly more difficult to describe.” (p.2) 

  

The fact that behavior “is effective only through the mediation of other persons” requires “special treatment” because SVB exists. It is SVB, not language per se, which distinguishes humans from nonverbal organisms. It comes as no surprise to this writer that Skinner on the second page of his book introduces “verbal behavior” by emphasizing its relation to the “individual speaker.” (p.2) His use of words, “whether recognized by the user or not, specifies behavior shaped and maintained by consequences” perfectly dovetails with this writer’s distinction of SVB and NVB, which must be made on an individual basis. Skinner admits that his definition of verbal behavior needs “certain refinements.” The SVB/NVB distinction ought to be considered as such a refinement. Interestingly, he also concedes that his term “verbal behavior” “does not say much about the behavior of the listener.”  . 

SVB is a refinement of verbal behavior, as it emphasizes the mediator’s perspective of the verbalizer. When Skinner states “there would be little verbal behavior to consider [for the listener] if someone had not already acquired special responses to the patterns of energy generated by the speaker”, he unknowingly seems to refer to SVB. For someone (most of us) who grows up in an environment in which there is mainly NVB, there is a lot to be re-considered for both the listener as well as the speaker. As stated previously “the patterns of energy generated by the [NVB] speaker” are very very different from those that are generated by the SVB speaker. The sentence “an adequate account of verbal behavior need cover only as much of the behavior of the listener as is needed to explain the behavior of the speaker” thus characterizes SVB, in which the mediator doesn’t say anything different to him or herself as the verbalizer says to him or to her. In NVB, the mediator’s private speech is different from the verbalizer’s public speech.

This writer agrees with Skinner, who writes “The behavior of the speaker and the listener taken together compose what may be called a total verbal episode. There is nothing in such an episode which is more than the combined behavior of two or more individuals.” (p.2) However, in NVB the behavior of the speaker and the listener are not taken together. These behaviors are only taken together during SVB. Stated differently, NVB is an incomplete way of communicating in which only the verbalizer matters. 

Skinner’s elaboration on “a total verbal episode” continues with “Nothing “emerges” in the social unit. The speaker can be studied while assuming a listener, and the listener while assuming a speaker. The separate accounts which result exhaust the episode in which both participate.” (p.2). Verbal behavior, like any other behavior, is a lawful natural process. What is believed to “emerge in the social unit” is a product of NVB. During SVB, our NVB suddenly doesn’t look so strange anymore when the comparison between SVB and NVB wasn’t and couldn’t be made. However, “the separate account” from the NVB speaker could only inform us about the NVB listener, while “the separate account” from the SVB speaker could inform us about both, the SVB listener as well as the NVB listener. Likewise, the NVB listener could only tell us about the NVB speaker, but the SVB listener could tell us about both the SVB and the NVB speaker. Again our all-inclusive Skinner, seems to be referring to SVB; he is definitely not into exclusive NVB.

As Vargas explains in his foreword, in Verbal Behavior (1957, pxiii), Skinner applies the concepts which he already worked out experimentally. It is amazing that he would come to these “fresh formulations” which “revealed a new level of order and precision” (p.3) and that this writer’s concept of SVB  overlaps with Skinner’s operant views. Skinner states that “Much of the experimental work responsible for this advance has been carried out on other species, but the results have proven to be surprisingly free of species restrictions.” (p.3). This writer too has done experimental work, not with other species, but with humans. The universality of SVB has been proven by the fact that people from every possible background have validated it. Regardless of what language people speak, they engage in SVB or NVB. Since there are no species restrictions, nonverbal versions of SVB and NVB can be seen in nonverbal animals and nonverbal children. Skinner places the word “understanding” of verbal behavior in quotation marks, because he wants to alert the reader that there is nobody to understand, there is only conditioning. SVB too “is something more than the use of a consistent vocabulary with which specific instances may be described.” (p.3)

SVB “is not to be confused with the confirmation of any set of theoretical principles.” (p.3). Those who try to understand SVB, prevent themselves from experiencing it. Skinner explains “The extent to which we understand verbal behavior as a “causal” analysis is to be assessed from the extent to which we can predict the occurrence of specific instances and, eventually, from the extent to which produce or control such behavior by altering the conditions under which it occurs.” The change from SVB to NVB and from NVB to SVB involves a change in the sound of the voices of those who are talking. The specific sound which predicts SVB can be called Voice II and the specific sound which predicts NVB can be called Voice I. These voices have been given these numbers, because unless we first identify Voice I, we will not and cannot identify Voice II. Although we are able to produce Voice II,  we keep missing out on Voice II, because we haven’t identified Voice I.

Skinner asks “How can the teacher establish the specific verbal repertoires which are the principal end-products of education?” (p.3) This writer, who, like Skinner, is a teacher, answers: with SVB. Skinner asks “How can the therapist uncover latent verbal behavior in a therapeutic interview?” This writer, who, was trained as a therapist, answers: with SVB. Skinner asks “How can the writer evoke his or her own verbal behavior in the act of composition? How can the scientist, mathematician, or logician manipulate his verbal behavior in productive thinking? This writer, who likes to write, who is a behavioral engineer, who loves math and logic and who is inspired by Skinner’s productive thinking, answers: with SVB. With SVB we will be able to solve all sorts of practical problems. With SVB, we will be able to recognize that NVB was indeed a big, but unknown problem. NVB has prevented us from finding out solutions which are available to us only when we know how to maintain SVB. The understanding and proper expression of Skinner’s verbal behavior as SVB is essential for applying behavioral analysis.