February 25, 2015

February 25, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In the dream he was having before he woke up, this writer was surrounded by hostile people. They spoke in a threatening manner and he pretended he didn’t understand them and needed more explanation. However, he knew it was them who didn’t understand him and who aggressively asked him all sorts of questions. The more questions they asked, the more frustrated they became. Since his answers were not satisfying, this writer eventually pretended that he didn’t know the answer. After he had been giving them many answers, they noticed he was no longer answering them and stopped asking him. By this time, they had literally gotten on top of him. When they stopped pounding him with questions, he was able to get up. They then walked along the edge of a cliff. The bottom was so deep that it couldn’t be seen and they were moving cautiously. When he said something, the next person would whisper it to the next person and so on, until the last person in line had heard it. They moved along the edge as one unit and when he stopped, the next person would stop and then the next and then the next. Sometimes he would wait for the  others who were still in the process of stopping, at other times, although they were still in the process of coming to a halt, he already begun to move again. Different persons at different places in the line were affected differently. Sometimes, like this writer, they waited for others to catch up, at other times they were asked to move the moment they had stopped. At times like that it seemed as if they were pulled in both directions, but the only instruction came from this writer, who told the person behind him to tell the next in line to move forward. They moved together along the edge, slowly and carefully. 

This dream reminded this writer of a wild game he used to love as a child. About ten kids on the school yard would hold hands and started running together as a long chain. The person in the front decided the direction in which they were going. If you were at the end of this chain you were pulled by the others with great force and you had to run so fast that your legs could hardly carry you. It was almost impossible to remain at the end of the line and many kids would fall, let go or run away. Only daredevils  who could run fast enough could stay attached. The moving screaming chain of kids worked like a whip and the last one in the line received this powerful energy. It was incredibly exciting to do this. 

The dream was also about a chain of people who were moving like one body. Instead of being at the end the chain, this writer was now at the beginning of the line. As a child, this writer was running wildly, but in his dream, he was an adult and walking carefully. As a child, he enjoyed the momentum unleashed when kids hold hands and run together, but as an adult, his behavior is more adjusted to others and to the dangers of life. This writer is now a leader, who knows the workings of the whip. As a child, the line would often break or kids would fall down and this would temporarily mean the end of the game. Since many kids liked to run, a new line would soon be formed with kids challenging each other to be at the beginning, the middle or the end. If you happened to be in the middle of this swirling line, you had to be able to withstand the pull. Those who weren’t strong enough selected themselves out. 

This writing is under discriminative control of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) as two subsets of verbal behavior. SVB refers to the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with positive reinforcement. On the contrary, NVB refers to the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. As the example of the human whip and the dream-line illustrate, verbal behavior only pertains to the latter. In the former, kids nonverbal behavior directly affect the next one in line, but only in the latter can one notice the indirect effects of the reinforcement through another organism’s verbal behavior. Stated differently, the verbal message, send down the line, keeps the line moving without breaking. In the example the human whip and the dream-line, the reader differentiates between nonverbal and verbal effects. It is always nonverbal behavior which causes the breakdown of vocal verbal behavior.

By focusing on words, on what we say, and on others, who reinforce or punish us, we engage in NVB, but we remain unaware of the struggle  that is caused by the direct effects of our nonverbal behavior. The special attention this writer gives to our vocal verbal behavior is because of its important role in human interaction. We communicate not only verbally, but also non-verbally. The directly occurring effects which happen during interactions are always caused by our nonverbal behavior. It is only when we understand that that we can figure out that our verbal representations of our nonverbal experiences are inaccurate and only become accurate to the extent that we focus on the nonverbal instead of on the verbal. In other words, unless we pay attention to the speaker’s direct effect on the listener and open up to the listener’s view of the speaker, we will continue to remain trapped by NVB in which there is no congruence between what is said and how it is said. Direct participation in vocal verbal behavior is needed to find out this can't be accomplished by writing, reading, texting, face-booking or watching and listening to conversations of others on TV or in movies. This writer advocates for the restoration of human interaction.

Nonverbal behavior needs to be distinguished from nonverbal verbal behavior. In nonverbal behavior our behavior results from reinforcers which become available due to the direct effects of our behavior on the environment. For example, the phone rings and we pick it up and we can talk with the person who is calling. Thus, picking up of the phone is reinforced by our conversation with the person who is calling. In this example, our nonverbal behavior precedes and gives access to our verbal behavior. In the case of our nonverbal verbal behavior, if we consider the tone of our voice, which also precedes and gives access to certain verbal behavior, we realize the direct nonverbal effect we have on the listener.

This effect becomes more apparent if we replace the word ‘speaker’, who supposedly ‘decides’ to speak in a certain way with ‘verbalizer’ and the word ‘listener’, who supposedly is either ‘willing to listen or pay attention’ to what we say, or ‘pre-occupied’ or ‘distracted’ by one thing or another, with the word ‘mediator’. The verbalizer verbalizes verbally as well as nonverbally and the mediator also always simultaneously mediates verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Skinner argued that the verbal-nonverbal distinction is irrelevant in a functional account. However, due to NVB conditioning this led to overemphasis on the verbal, what this writer calls verbal fixation. It is consequently often falsely assumed that our verbal behavior is generally occurring under non-coercive contingencies. This writer insist the opposite is true: most verbal behavior is NVB, because it occurs under nonverbal coercive contingencies. The continuation of NVB and SVB depends on the existence of another body, which either mediates directly and indirectly. Moreover, we have more in common with each other in our nonverbal than in our verbal behavior. Once this commonality is understood in its direct effect on what we say, we see how it facilitates or hinders mediation.