January 17, 2015

January 17, 2015

Written by the locus Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

The first chapter of Verbal Behavior (VB) by B.F. Skinner (1957) has been read and this writer will continue to explain how Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is an extension of this work. In spite of Skinner’s excellent book and the many other authors who have elaborated on it, even in 2015 “the subject here at issue has not been clearly indentified, nor have appropriate methods for studying been devised.” (p.4) The reason for this is that the distinction between SVB and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) has yet not been made. 

Something has always “taken precedence over the study of the individual speaker” (p.4) (italics added), because such a study would necessarily involve the task of having to look into how we ourselves talk. According to this writer, written language doesn’t and can’t provide the stimuli that are needed to make the reader aware of how he or she talks. 

As “someone is simply a locus at which a certain type of behavior takes place” (Forword II, Vargas, p.xxii), we must talk in order to be able to investigate ourselves, as individual speakers and as listeners. In spoken communication, “men act upon the world” (p.1) as single organisms, alone. With “causal analysis” of VB as his goal, Skinner reminds his readers to keep “certain specific engineering tasks in mind” (p.3), but his list doesn’t include the important question: How does the speaker speak, who listens to him or herself, while he or she speaks? The answer is: in ways which are completely different from the speaker who doesn't listen to him or herself. The speaker who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks is a conscious speaker, but the speaker who doesn't listen to him or herself while he or she speaks is an unconscious speaker. This difference is of utmost importance.

 

This writer agrees with Skinner that “the techniques necessary for a causal analysis of the behavior of man thinking” (p.4) must be developed, but he insists that “an effective frontal attack, a formulation appropriate to all special fields” requires spoken instead of written communication. Furthermore, the spoken communication which he is referring to has to be completely different from the one which didn’t and couldn’t produce these refinements. 

Refinements, necessary to be able to speak and think about “an adequate science” of VB, are only produced during SVB, but will not and cannot occur during NVB. Once we are engaging in the conversation in which SVB and NVB can be discriminated, it will be clear that only SVB can give us the power to divorce from our unhappy marriage with “special interests” (p.5). This writer agrees that “The final responsibility must rest with the behavioral sciences, and particularly with psychology” (p.5). However, once we are familiar with SVB, we recognize, we have individual responsibilities, which cannot be institutionalized. 

In the experience of this writer, who has been teaching SVB for more than 20 years, professionals who still believe in “explanatory fictions”, are just as open to SVB than radical behaviorists or behaviorologists. Upon discovering radical behaviorism and behaviorology, which explain SVB, this writer had assumed that adherents of the science of human behavior would be more open to SVB than those who still believe in a behavior-causing selves. He turned out to be wrong. Knowledge about behavioral science doesn't make behaviorists and behaviorologists one bit more capable of having SVB than those who are uninformed about this science. 

“What happens when a man speaks or responds to speech is clearly a question about human behavior and hence a question to be answered with the concepts and techniques of psychology as an experimental science of behavior” (p.5). We definitely need an environment in which we can become rational about our own way of communicating. 

Although Skinner put a lot of self-observation in his observations of others, he defines VB as the study of others. Indeed “there has never been a shortage of material (men talk and listen a great deal)” (p.5), but since our focus never becomes the study of ourselves - as speaker and as listener - directly, that is, while we speak, what continues to be “lacking is a satisfactory causal or functional treatment.” (p.5). That “collected facts” have “failed to demonstrate the significant relations which are at the heart of a scientific account” is due to the ignored ubiquity of NVB. The much-lamented continuation of “fictional causes” is maintained by how we speak, by NVB. Also, the attribution of “events taking place inside the organism” could never be dismantled, because of how we continue to talk. Stated squarely, we endlessly beat around the bush with our NVB. Skinner, therefore, is absolutely wrong when he states “we shall not arrive at this “something” even though we express an idea in every conceivable way.” (p.6). We haven't even expressed "an idea in every conceivable way." And because of that we haven't noticed the difference between how we express ideas in either a SVB or in a NVB way. If we would talk more and listen to ourselves while we speak, we would arrive at this "something" with SVB.

As long as we don’t differentiate between SVB and NVB, we have no clue as to how we are differentially affected by antecendent verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Skinner, who doesn’t do this, writes “When we say that a remark is confusing because the idea is unclear, we seem to be talking about two levels of observation although there is, in fact, only one. It is the remark which is unclear.” This writer would consider this a perfect example of NVB. The speaker wasn’t mediated by the mediator, or, rather, the mediator mediated his or her trouble understanding the speaker. It is not the remark, which wasn’t clear, but it was the NVB of the verbalizer, which wasn’t clear. However, the reader would have to talk with this writer to acknowledge this.

It happens all the time and it often goes unnoticed, that verbalizers and mediators, due to their different behavioral histories misunderstand each other. The mediator who is having more SVB repertoire than the verbalizer is having problems understanding this verbalizer, who is perceived by the mediator as having NVB. Likewise, the verbalizer, who has more SVB repertoire than the mediator, is bound to feel not listened to and misunderstood, because the fact is that he or she is often not listened to and is often misunderstood.

The mediator who listens to the verbalizer who has more SVB repertoire than him or her, could learn from this SVB verbalizer, but this can and will only happen if this verbalizer is able to focus the mediator’s attention on his or her SVB, that is, on the sound of his or her voice. As this seldom happens and as, like in Skinner’s example, both the mediator and the verbalizer are more inclined to focus on the content of the conversation, nobody pays any attention to how this content is actually communicated. Thus, even the verbalizer who has more SVB repertoire than the mediator, can be perceived by that mediator as producing NVB, which to him or to her is a way of communicating which is too different from his or her way communicating to be listened to and to be understood. This difference, which perpetuates NVB, is not going to be bridged by more information, knowledge or facts. Only when the verbalizer and the mediator find a similar way of communicating, can and will this difference be bridged. This way of communicating is SVB, which can only be taught by those who have more SVB repertoire than others.

When Skinner writes “It is the function of an explanatory fiction to allay curiosity and to bring inquiry to an end” (p.6), this writer reads this as saying that interaction, that is, SVB, has come to an end. The reason we keep getting carried away by “idioms and expressions” (an “idea”, a “meaning” and “information”), which are so common in our language that it is impossible to avoid them” (p.7) is because of NVB, which should also be characterized as disembodied communication. Since NVB dissociates us from what happens within our own skin, it inevitably disconnects us from our environment outside of our skin. Consequently, the belief persists as if language “has an independent existence apart from the behavior of the speaker.” (p.7) And, “although the formal properties of the records of utterances are interesting, we must preserve the distinction between an activity and its traces. In particular we must avoid the unnatural formulation of verbal behavior as the “use of words”.” (p.7) Our verbal learning is based on and made possible by our nonverbal learning. If we pay attention to how we sound while we speak, that is, to the nonverbal aspect of our verbal expressions, we can trace back our words to our body, which was changed and which will continue to change by the environments in which we either have SVB or NVB. As one “has not accounted for a remark by paraphrasing “what it means”” (p.9), focus on content and arguments about “meaning” or the “intention of the speaker” (p.9) will only condition us to have more NVB. Thus, this writer has found that the rejection of “the traditional formulation of verbal behavior in terms of meaning” (p.9) is not a prerequisite for SVB. Indeed, he discovered SVB without knowing anything about operant conditioning, which explains it.

However, this writer, like Skinner, proposes a “new formulation” (p.10). His  emphasis is on the spoken and not the written description of verbal behavior. Like Skinner, he asks “what conditions are relevant to the occurrence of the behavior – what are the variables of which it is a function.” (p.10). SVB can only occur in an environment in which there is a total absence of aversive stimulation. The environment in which NVB takes place is always perceived as hostile and threatening by the mediator. The variables of which SVB or NVB is function are Voice II and Voice I, two different sounding voices.

By joining and synchronizing our speaking and listening behaviors, which only happens in SVB, we will “complete the account of the verbal episode.” (p.10). Skinner is right that his formulation of VB “is only the beginning”. He refers to having an actual conversation when he writes “a host of new problems arise from the interaction of its parts. Verbal behavior is usually the effect of multiple causes.” (p.10) The problems, which we are all very familiar with, occur only during NVB and are solved and absent during SVB. 

If “a speaker is normally also a listener” (p.10) (italics added), then abnormality signifies the situation in which a speaker is not also a listener, could not also be a listener or was not allowed to also be a listener. Such a situation describes NVB. This writer believes that Skinner, much more than most other people, was aware of being his own listener while he speaks. He defines SVB when he says “a speaker is normally also a listener.” SVB is also described by “parts of what he says is under the control of other parts of his verbal behavior.” (p.10) However, the absence of such an interaction between a person’s public and private speech characterizes NVB again. 

The match between a verbalizer’s public speech and a mediator’s private speech signifies that we understand each other and is an example of SVB. “As another consequence of the fact that the speaker is also the listener, some of the behavior of listening resembles the behavior of speaking, particularly when the listener “understands” what is said.” (p.10). In SVB private speech and public speech are perceived as one and private speech can at any time become part of public speech. However, this is not the case in NVB in which private speech is excluded from public speech. Moreover, in NVB, a person’s private speech is not seen as a natural consequence of NVB public speech, but is considered agentially, as that person’s own way of dealing with things. In SVB, by contrast, it is apparent that SVB private speech always originates in SVB public speech and only occurs in this way. 

The correct and therefore healthy relationship between an individual’s public speech and private speech, which maintains our sense of normality, is also involved in the fact that “the speaker and the listener within the same skin engage in activities which traditionally are described as “thinking”.” (p.11). Indeed, the ability of the speaker to “manipulate his [verbal] behavior” (word added), to “review it, reject it or emit it in modified form” (p.11) signifies a person’s mental health. Absence of this ability to think signifies mental health problems. “The extent to which he does so varies over a wide range, determined in part by the extent to which he serves as his own listener.” (p.11) To the extent that a person is stopped from being his or her own listener, there is no editing option. As long as people prevent each other from listening to themselves while they speak, they create psychopathology with their NVB.