November 4, 2015

November 4, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Students, 

Today I will respond to “Effectiveness as Truth Criterion in Behavior Analysis” by Tourinho and Neno (2003). I already previously responded to one of Tourinho’s papers and send him some of my writings, but I have not heard anything back. I like to respond to another one of his papers as his writings can shed light on my extension of behaviorism:  Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

The authors explore similarities between behavior analysis, founded by B.F. Skinner and the pragmatic philosophy of William James. They seem to be attracted to these two great thinkers for the same reason that I am. Tourinho is a giant in his own right, who makes these thinkers understandable to me. The systems created by James and Skinner have “effectiveness as a truth criterion” in common. My distinction between SVB and NVB also has “effectiveness as a truth criterion.” Many of Skinner’s concepts seem to have been inspired by James’ “pragmatic approach.” However, according to the authors “effectiveness” described by Skinner’s radical behaviorism and James’ pragmatic philosophy is not enough. In order to understand James and Skinner, they argue, we must pay attention to ““prior assumptions or beliefs”– coherence – and to their successful working” – effectiveness.” Due to his empirical work, Skinner insists, more so than James I would say, that “the pragmatic truth criterion requires, preliminary, agreement with its basic beliefs concerning behavior.” Coherence is equally fundamental to the SVB/NVB distinction and I agree 100% that “more consistent results may be achieved if the requirements of coherence are observed.”

Let me unpack these words for you. We cannot have SVB, if we don’t know how NVB works. Basically, we keep having NVB since we don’t know how it works. Once we know how it works, that is, once we have discriminated NVB, we will be able to have SVB.  “Beliefs” about interaction always result into NVB, but SVB makes beliefs unnecessary. In the same way that my heart in my chest is not a belief, SVB is not a belief. SVB and NVB involve different kinds of reasoning. In SVB we, the speaker and the listener, will achieve peace with ourselves and with each other, but in NVB the speaker is always dysregulating the listener. 

We don’t really need to know how SVB works.  Although most people don’t know about the SVB/NVB distinction, everyone has their assumptions about the ‘correct way’ of communicating. When people for the first time explore the distinction between SVB and NVB, they find to their own amazement that knowledge about SVB is not all that important. Knowing how NVB works, however, is of great importance, as that allows them to have SVB. Without that knowledge they can’t have SVB. 

The distinction between SVB and NVB is “effective” in the Skinnerian sense as it assists “the scientist in dealing with behavior in a productive way.” The distinction is valid as it is an explanation of “behavioral regularity” that supports the experimenter “in solving the same kind of problems efficiently.” Even if the experimenter is by him or herself, he or she can verify whether the SVB/NVB distinction has any effect on his or her behavior. Skinner wrote back in 1945 “The ultimate criterion for the goodness of a concept is not whether two people are brought into agreement but whether the scientist who uses the concept can operate successfully upon his material –all by himself if need be. What matters to Robinson Crusoe is not whether he is agreeing with himself but whether he is getting anywhere with his control over nature.”  

  

One can experiment with the SVB/NVB distinction by speaking out loud and by listening to one’s own sound. When, as a speaker, one’s voice is experienced by oneself as a listener as an aversive stimulus, one says very different things to oneself as when, as a speaker, one’s voice is experienced by oneself as a listener as an appetitive stimulus. In the former one engages in NVB and in the latter one engages in SVB. After exploration of why this happens, one finds that each time one engages in NVB, one was not really listening anymore to one’s own sound, but one got carried away by words. In SVB, by contrast, one is intimately aware of one’s voice and one is conscious about one’s verbal behavior. 

Attention for your sound keeps you conscious as the production of your sound and listening to your voice happen in the here and now. Since speaking and listening happen simultaneously in SVB, you notice that they are disjointed during NVB. This is discovered after you were able to stop NVB and have SVB. While you were having NVB, you were unconscious. Only when you are conscious, do you realize that you were unconscious. Nobody needs to validate it; it is validated when you synchronize your speaking and listening behavior. As you attain moments of SVB on your own, you realize you instances of SVB in your conversations with others as well. Moreover,  you will find SVB is easier to maintain on your own than with others. In your self-experimentation you find out why that is the case. Listening to yourself while you speak with others is difficult as others are usually not listening to themselves while they speak with you. It would be easy for you to listen to yourself if others did the same. If all the speakers would listen to themselves while they speak, we would all effortlessly engage in SVB. You become pragmatic based on your knowledge of NVB; you can now predict, control and verify the outcomes of your interactions.