November 6, 2014

November 6, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Again and again and again, this writer is reinforced for his Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Everyone who is reinforcing him is also simultaneously reinforcing him or herself. SVB is based on mutual reinforcement. SVB is the interaction in which we meet each other in peace, respect and sensitivity. Many people think that this is impossible, but this writer knows that it is possible. 

Tomorrow it is full moon. This writer thinks about his friend, far away in the Netherlands, because with him he used to meditate, at night, in a park. They sat near a pond, underneath a big tree. The full moon’s night was cool and warm and it was summer. Sometimes a fox would come and other times an owl was singing. They sat there together for hours and wouldn’t say a word. They met and left in silence and all that was heard were their footsteps on the path. 

This friend is someone with whom this writer could be silent. He appreciated the silence as much as this writer did. Yet, they also always talked a lot. They talked sometimes for as long as the whole afternoon, but when they meditated, they experienced and enjoyed their silence together. They were never serious about it and they would laugh a lot, because there was so much to laugh about. One time, a big branch broke off  and fell with a thundering sound right next to them on the ground. His friend and this writer opened their eyes, smiled at each other and continued to meditate. 

When this writer discovered SVB, he spoke about it with his friend, who immediately acknowledged him and said “yes this is great, keep going.” Because of his approval this writer went on with it, although most people rejected him. His friend came to his early seminars and his presence was a steady ingredient of what this writer had to offer. Their joy in meditation, as well as their way of expressing it, created a peculiar match. 

This writer got such a kick out of his friend. They would walk together around town, they would go to the beach, visit churches and musea, meet in the park in the dark by the light of candle, drink tea and visit all sorts of people. They would either talk or be quiet and alert, but they would never fight or argue and this writer was so happy to always be able to say what he meant and felt. Together with his friend he discovered something about their communication and they were exploring and sharing it. Even when his friend was not up to it, he would urge this writer to continue. It was because of his friend's trust that this writer, in spite of much rejection, was able to keep going with SVB.

In his book “Learning” (2013, p.2) Catania writes about the language of learning and behavior. He makes, as others have done, a big deal about words and about how learning is defined, but he also agrees that “there are no satisfactory definitions.” This author agrees with his reasoning that “we can’t have an adequate neuroscience of learning unless we understand its behavioral properties.” To know what happens during learning, neuroscientists must, at least temporarily, be willing to let go of their physiological focus. To understand learning, they must behave like behaviorologists and focus on the behavioral properties of learning. However, more than a change of words is needed, before neuroscientist will begin to refer to the facts about learning and become capable of addressing why individuals behave the way they do. If “behavior will always be our starting point” not only  behavioral properties of what we say are important, but also how we say it must be considered.

As Catania stated, to understand verbal learning, we first need to know how nonverbal learning works. This is where the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/ Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction comes in. Only during SVB are the verbalizer and the mediator experiencing the alignment of verbal and nonverbal expressions. Only in SVB will communicators be able to identify and let go of their verbal entrapment. Although it is true “every day vocabulary doesn’t equip us well for discussing” why some of us became behaviorologists, while others couldn't, we need an entirely different way of communicating to answer why most of us think we can “stay out of trouble by telling lies.” 

According to this writer, behaviorology requires that we change our way of talking from NVB to SVB. NVB is our old way of talking in which we ignore our nonverbal learning, because we don't describe is accurately during our conversations. SVB must permanently replace NVB; for SVB to be established, NVB must be extinguished. Each time we go back to NVB, it will continue to interfere with our new way of talking. SVB is fundamentally different from NVB in the same way that behaviorological terminology differs from physiological terminology. Catania writes “it will demand new ways of looking at familiar phenomena.” He refers here to NVB, in which we coerce each other. In SVB we don't demand, but we will listen rather than look at familiar phenomena in a new way, because we have attained a new way of communicating. SVB will completely change our perception.

November 4, 2014

November 4, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Today’s writing is a continuation of yesterday’s conversation between the verbalizer and the mediator within one person. It is important to understand this process has nothing to do with “talking with one self”, “being one self” or “coming closer to one self.” Most people who, when instructed to do so,  “listen to themselves”, while “they read this text out loud”, will be inclined to describe this process as “self-listening.” However, as behaviorists, we know that there is no self, there is no agent, who, based upon this text, decides to read out loud and who then, supposedly, is “listening to him or herself.” 

Although part of our environment, the environment within our own skin, is not accessible to others, speaking and listening are operant behaviors, which take place within one environment. The covert private speech, which goes on in each of us, is, of course, a function of our overt public speech. In the early stages of development there is no covert speech. A much better way to talk about the speech which occurs within and without our body, is by using the biological terms proposed by Ferreira (2013):  endo-environment, to refer to what happens within the organism and ecto-environment, to refer to what happens outside of the organism. To become scientific about speech we must view it as a biological process. Whether covert or overt, vocal speech is the process by which the organism interacts with and adapts to its environment. Ecto-speech pertains to the environment outside the organism’s body and endo-speech pertains to the environment inside of the organism's body. 

Emergence of endo-speech in childhood is made possible due to the consequation of peaceful and supportive ecto-speech. Without this, endo-speech problems will begin to occur, which turn the organism’s world upside down. When an organism’s endo-speech results from a hostile, neglectful, negative ecto-speech, what this author calls Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), its ability to adapt to its environment will be gravely impaired. Stated differently, instead of pro-social behavior, anti-social behavior will become more prominent. The organism’s NVB is coercive in nature, in that it primarily consists of attempts to force other organism into submission. This then creates and perpetuates the abusive survival interaction from which mankind has yet to be liberated. 

When the reader reads this text out loud and listens to the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) energy that is produced by him or her self, because he or she receives SVB-ecto-speech from this author, who urges him or her to listen to the sound of his or her SVB-endo-speech, the reader begins to produce as much SVB-ecto-speech as is needed to be able to maintain his or her SVB-endo-speech.

The reader is urged by this writer to create his or her own endo-contingency for his or her own endo-SVB, because the ecto-contingency for SVB doesn’t yet exist. This complicated single-subject multiple baseline experimental design is also known as meditation. The peace we seek outside of ourselves supposedly is only found inside of ourselves. Yet, we can’t help our biological need for relief from aversive environments. Our covert and overt verbal behavior is always a function of environmental variables. That is how our behavior works. We can’t have SVB in a NVB environment and we can’t be happy or at ease in an aversive environment. To proclaim that this is possible is total nonsense. We can close ourselves off from our environment and this is legitimized by our religions, but this doesn’t properly address the covert mediation (known as self-talk) of the overt verbalizer. This process can only as be as good as the overt mediation of the overt verbalizer (you talking with me or me talking with you). In other words, our NVB public speech results in our NVB private speech and only our SVB public speech can result into our SVB private speech.

No matter how much we meditate, non-meditative speech messes up our meditation. Unless we are going speak meditatively, meditation won’t affect our environment or, more precisely, the people in our environment. Only if we are going talk about our relationships, about our communication, can NVB ectovironments be changed into SVB ectovironments. Although meditative people, who habitually dissociate from ectovironment, may tell you otherwise, as SVB-ecto-environments, except for where this author occasionally is able to create them, don’t exist, the reader’s only option is to recognize the interaction between the verbalizer and the mediator within one single organism. 

This author, who has given hundreds of seminars about SBV, knows from his own experiments, that the only way in which an individual is going to be able to learn SVB, is when this person is going to listen more often to him or herself while he or she speaks. Two things are necessary for this to happen: the person must speak and the person must listen. Reliance on others, on environmental support, is going to enhance the exact opposite effect and will only entrench the person more deeply into NVB than before. Since other people are more likely to distract us from SVB than we ourselves will, it is perfectly okay for us to familiarize ourselves with SVB without the aid of others. We need to do this to be able to observe the independent variables in operation, that is, we need to be alone to observe the effect of how we sound on what we say to ourselves and to others. When we speak and listen simultaneously we achieve the behavioral cusp which is called SVB. Only when speaking and listening happen at the same rate and intensity level can and will they become and stay joined. 

During this multiple baseline experiment, the phase in which we become our own mediator is inevitably going to be alternated by the phase in which we will be once more a non-mediated verbalizer. Alone, however, we will begin to notice that the periods of time during which we are able to mediate the verbalizer, become longer and longer. Moreover, we will say very different things, because we express without hesitation or effort our covert speech into our overt speech. This design creates an opportunity for us to be alone, so that we can find out that by listing while we speak, we can create SVB, which is mostly impossible when we are together and keep eliciting NVB.

Once we achieve SVB, we know we have achieved it, because it is strikingly different from the NVB, which preceded it. If nothing happens, the reader should acknowledge that NVB is happening. Once SVB happens, the reader notices a shift from what he or she is saying, to how he or she is saying it or from how he or she is saying it, to what he or she is saying. In each case, there is an adjustment: the verbalizer may be adjusting to the mediator and the mediator is becoming capable of understanding the verbalizer. What matters mostly is that this adjustment can begin to stabilize. The experimenter, that is, the reader, is working on becoming a better listener as well as a better speaker. Overt speech must not recede to a covert level, because adjustments can only be explored and made overtly. The aim of this experiment is to change first our NVB-ecto-speech into SVB-ecto-speech, so that NVB-endo-speech can be changed into SVB-endo-speech. As is always the case in a multiple-baseline design, each subject serves as his or her own experimental control across all phases. 

As this reading continues and as the reader begins to join his or her speaking and listening behavior, he or she will notice, while reading out loud, that repeatedly mediating and verbalizing these words,  brings attention to the vocalization of SVB. Listening to someone else usually doesn’t  result into self-listening. To the contrary, listening to someone else usually means the exclusion of self-listening. Reason for this is that most other-listening is based on NVB. This means that in NVB the mediator is forced to listen to the verbalizer. The NVB verbalizer is mediated by a coerced, aversively-stimulated and eventually a NVB-conditioned mediator, but a SVB verbalizer is mediated by an appetitively-stimulated and eventually SVB-conditioned mediator. Thus, there are two verbalizers and two mediators in each of us. This makes it a bit tricky to whom we are paying attention, but the NVB verbalizer can’t be mediated by the SVB mediator. Likewise, the SVB verbalizer can’t be mediated by the NVB mediator. This experiment teases apart the two verbalizers and the two mediators. Each time the independent variable, our voice, changes, verbalizers engage in SVB or NVB.        

November 3, 2014

November 3, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer wishes to inform the reader about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), which is a different way of talking than Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the way of communicating which we are all familiar with. By reading these texts out loud, the reader engages in a multiple baseline experiment. This makes him or her realize, that he or she is simultaneously the verbalizer as well as the mediator. This particular design is chosen because it demonstrates how the treatment this writer is proposing will lead to an increase of positive emotional behaviors, which the reader doesn’t want to reverse. 

NVB is considered the problem behavior and SVB is the replacement behavior. Once NVB is replaced by SVB, it is important to continue with SVB and to investigate where it leads. SVB is achieved because the reader reads out loud and listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. The calming sound of one’s own voice has an automatic reinforcing effect, which is noticed due to the process of self-listening. As the reader observes the tangible physiological effects of this feed-back mechanism, he or she is bound to notice that each time he or she returns to NVB, he or she in effect reverses the treatment. The reader finds, but will have to continue to verify as often as is needed, that each time he or she inadvertently produces NVB, he or she is no longer listening to him or herself while he or she speaks. The intervention: self-listening, is a methodologically sound verification of whether SVB occurs or not. In the absence of SVB, the reader will always produce NVB and each time the reader catches him or herself not listening, self-listening will re-establish SVB.

In a multiple baseline design the baseline becomes broader and broader, because each phase, that is, each moment of self-listening, sets the stage for the next phase. As one catches oneself more often, one realizes, while shifting back and forth between SVB and NVB, that the sound of one’s voice changes. No matter how often one forgets to implement the intervention, each time one is again self-listening, one is once more experiencing SVB. This tells us that NVB is always only noticed after it has occurred, while SVB only happens consciously. SVB makes us more and more conscious, while NVB makes us more and more mechanical. We are unconscious because of NVB, because of how we talk, and we become and stay conscious because of SVB, a new way of talking. We compare again and again what happens to our voice, while we are and while we weren’t self-listening. This exploration answers our control question: how does our tone of voice effect our communication?  

November 2, 2014

November 2, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

It is amazing to discover how memory works. From today on this author remembers the professor’s name he spoke with last week. Today he met him again. He mentioned something about his family tradition, which emphasizes hard work. He clarified things that were said last week and his questions signified that he had given a lot of thought to what this author had said. He described that when he and this writer were having their conversation last week, someone nearby had been overhearing what they were talking about. A recovering addict, who, after years of sobriety, was still involved in AA meetings, had said to him that this author wouldn't be “able to change anybody.” Intrigued by this author’s insistence on the fact that we don’t cause our own behavior, he had tried to explain to this AA groupie that AA participants surrender to a “higher power”, because they admit that they are powerless against their addiction. Not being a religious person himself, he understood this surrender, which, of course, is aimed at changing the behavior of the addict, is nothing but covert behaviorism. While acknowledging his failed attempt to reason with this religiously inclined recovered addict, he realized how difficult it is to address the actual issue of not being responsible for one’s own behavior. Due to his inability to talk with this zealous AA member, he became convinced of the validity of the behaviorological account, which was reiterated by this author.

 

Another thing happened when this author ran into a chaotic and attention-demanding female, who had been to a couple of his seminars. She was obviously troubled and spoke a hundred miles an hour about problems she was having with the people who live where she lives. This author only felt like agreeing with her, because there was no other way to talk with her. It took her a while to realize that this author was completely ignoring her hyper-verbal behavior, but when she began to notice, she was instantly calm and resolved about the matters she had been feeling so worked up about. It became clear that she kept saying to herself to do this and to do that, but that in reality she seldom acted on anything she said. This author had no doubt she could do what she said she had wanted to do. When she finally began to listen to him, she agreed and said she was going to do what she wanted to do. Her dilemma is everyone’s: in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) we keep saying something different from what we do. Only once we come to know about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) do we do as we say.