December 22, 2014

December 22, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

The main reason discrimination failures occur so often in spoken communication and why people fail to differentiate between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), and have relationship problems, is because of the lack of opportunity to learn it. Nowhere in our lives are we taught there are basically only two ways of communicating: we either talk with each other or we talk at each other. In the former, we have SVB, but in the latter, we push each other around and we dominate and coerce each other. We cannot and do not know what was never taught. 

During simultaneous discrimination training a person may be presented with two pictures of different objects, for instance one of a chair and one of a table. When shown the picture with the chair, the person is then reinforced for saying 'chair' and when shown the picture of the table, the person is reinforced for saying 'table'. However, when the picture of the chair is shown, the person is not reinforced for saying 'table', nor is the person reinforced for saying 'chair' when the picture of the table is shown. During such an experiment, the picture of the chair or the table does not always appear on the left side or on the right side, so that the person doesn’t get conditioned to tact or name the picture on the right or the left side as a chair or a table. In a similar way, we need to go back on forth between SVB and NVB and be taught which is which.  

  

During discrimination training in which we identify SVB and NVB, we need to be individually presented with various trials, in which we must decide whether it is SVB or NVB. When SVB or NVB are tacted accurately, this writer provides reinforcing consequences. It is needed to know both and one is not  more important than the other. Besides, by knowing one, one knows the other. During this phase of the learning process, it is necessary to keep focusing on this one specific skill, so that one becomes capable of separating SVB from NVB and doesn’t get side-tracked. As long as one still gets side-tracked, this is a sign that one is not yet capable of discriminating between SVB and NVB. Of course, many other things can be said about our spoken communication, but this wouldn’t and couldn’t result in discriminating SVB and NVB. It is impossible to learn about SVB without also first learning about NVB and since they will, especially in the early stages of learning, follow each other in rapid procession, successive discrimination training is needed.  

Especially in the beginning, when we are first presented with what seems to be the illusive difference between SVB and NVB, they alternate quickly without us taking note of it. At any given moment, what was SVB turns again into NVB. This is because the contingency changes. While we speak, we have the tendency to pay more attention to the environment outside of our skin, to the ecto-environment, than to the environment within our own skin, to the endo-environment.  Our ecto-bias is caused by the aversive stimulation from NVB, which we have gotten used to and have been conditioned by. When we fail to notice any endo-environmental differences, that is , when we don’t realize what happens within our own body, while we speak, we produce NVB.  As we learn to pay attention to these endo-environmental events by expressing them, we attain SVB. Stressful and anxious endo-events cause us to have NVB, but describing these makes us acquire SVB. 

During the preliminary stages of discriminative learning, participants are often dumbfounded or frustrated by their inability to detect SVB from NVB. Fact is, when they don’t know if they are having SVB or NVB, they are always having NVB, but when they are having SVB, they know that they are having SVB. When such prompts have been given a couple of times, they begin to evoke the correct classification and the prompts can be faded. During this part of the process participants often ask questions to which they themselves have and find an answer. For instance, they ask “so, are you saying that when I talk like that, I am producing NVB?” This author then says to them “I am not saying it, you are saying it” and then they suddenly get it. At this stage, the previously discussed simultaneous procedure, in which SVB and NVB were simultaneously discussed, has changed to a successive procedure, in which SVB is experienced for a longer period of time.  Errorless learning now begins to occur, as the participant becomes capable of having more and more SVB. As the SVB increases in strength, attention for NVB is becoming less and less. 

As our SVB is reinforced ecto - and endo – environmentally, errorless learning begins to occur and hardly any mistakes are made. When participants are told to listen to themselves while they speak, they also become more attuned to other nonverbal social cues, such as facial expression and body language. Correct discrimination makes them better at communicating and makes them enjoy their communication more. They are motivated to maintain SVB and avoid NVB. Correct discrimination of NVB is reinforcing, because it opens the door to SVB. It is all about feedback, which comes from both the environment outside of one’s body, the ecto- environment as well as the environment inside of one’s body, the endo-environment.

December 21, 2014

December 21, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

When the verbalizer and the mediator are one and the same person, a unique phenomenon can  occur as our speaking and listening behavior happen at the same rate and intensity level. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) occurs when two or more verbalizers create the interaction in which each verbalizer is able to realize that he or she is also the mediator of his or her own verbal and nonverbal expression. The situation in which verbalizers and mediators are unable to perceive themselves as one and the same person, is one in which we engage in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). The absence of turn-taking is a characteristic for NVB. In other words, the contingency for NVB requires that the mediator doesn’t verbalize or that the verbalizer doesn’t mediate. 

What is commonly known as ‘thinking’ is a naturally occurring private neural behavior, which happens covertly, sub-vocally, within the verbalizer’s own skin. However, such ‘thought’ is only possible to the extent to which the verbalizer is able to become his or her own mediator. In other words, there is a public as well as a private version of turn-taking. Moreover, in NVB, due to the absence of public turn-taking, there cannot be a private version of turn-taking. As our private speech is a function of our public speech, NVB public speech results in NVB private speech.  Verbal behavior only stimulates more verbal behavior, if the mediator mediates the verbalizer.

Regardless of whether the mediator is him or herself the verbalizer or whether someone else is the verbalizer, we can learn verbal behavior only to the extent that it is consequated. What this means is that nothing can be done about what a person says to him or herself privately, unless something is done about what the verbalizer says to the mediator publicly. The conditioning of our private verbalizing behavior and our private mediating behavior depends on the public verbalizing and the public mediating behavior that we are and have been exposed to. 

In SVB, human interaction occurs naturally and automatically; SVB public speech causes and includes our SVB private speech. However, nothing is natural about NVB, in which our pathological private speech is presumably excluded from our rigid public speech. Of course, our negative self-talk always spills over into our negative public speech, but during NVB we simply don’t pay any attention to any of this. During NVB, a person’s negative private speech is not seen as functionally related to his or her public speech, but rather it is attributed to personality.  

To reiterate, lack of turn-taking in our overt public speech translates into lack of turn-taking in our covert private speech.  Stated differently, problems with ‘thinking’, with private verbal behavior, are caused and maintained by our NVB public speech. How can we have what we in NVB consider to be ‘our own thoughts’, the thoughts which are reinforcing to us, if our covert verbalizations are not mediated, but are constantly ignored, neglected, unattended and distracted from?  It will not occur, because it cannot occur. In SVB, by contrast, in which our bodies have been changed by different stimuli, by different sounds, by circumstances in which we experienced safety and care, control of our public speech originates in our private speech. In SVB thinking is not done, it simply effortlessly happens, but in NVB thinking appears to be an arduous, effortful process. 

In NVB it is difficult to keep our thoughts focused on what is said, as nonverbal stimuli take our attention away from the verbal.  Because the verbal stimuli presented by the NVB verbalizer remain incongruent with his or her nonverbal expressions and because the nonverbal stimuli of the verbalizer attract more attention than what the verbalizer is saying, the attention of the mediator moves away from the verbal, that is, he or she becomes preoccupied with his or her own nonverbal behavior, because this is more reinforcing. Another way of viewing this is that to the extent that the mediator has only experienced a modicum of love and care, he or she will not be reinforced by the verbal behavior of any NVB verbalizer. Such a mediator invariably turns to the soothing effects of his or her own private speech. Rather than viewing the mediator’s lack of attention as a function of the verbalizer’s NVB, we say that the mediator has attention deficit disorder. 

During SVB, the mediator’s thoughts effortlessly focus on what verbalizer is saying, because the verbalizer doesn’t aversively affect the mediator with the sound of his or her voice. In SVB, the private speech of the mediator is under discriminative control of the verbal and the nonverbal behavior of the verbalizer. Multiple control of the mediator’s private speech keeps not only the thoughts of the mediator ‘focused’, but also keeps the mediator attuned to the verbalizer. Since it is equally reinforcing for the verbalizer and the mediator to hear their own sound, in SVB, the mediator listens to the verbalizer as if he or she is listening to him or herself. As one body transfers positive energy to another, SVB triggers energy that was stored in the body, which changes the body so that it can now produce the antecedent stimuli for SVB. 

As we are fixated on what we say, we don’t pay attention to, we don’t discriminate, the situation in which we say what we say and in which we talk the way we do. If we would experiment, we would find, by letting go of ‘our way’ of communicating, which most likely is NVB, that we attain SVB, a better way of communicating.  If  we refrain from doing what we usually do, from saying what we usually say, from talking the way in which we usually talk, we are likely to produce SVB. This has been proven by this author over and over again. The reader may not want to believe it, but this writer does not want the reader to believe it. He stimulates the reader to verify whether what he writes is true. 

If we would listen to how we sound while we speak, we would immediately discriminate that we all have basically only two sounds, simply called Voice I and Voice II. One exercise in discrimination training would be enough to reveal the low probability of reinforcement for novel verbal behavior with Voice I and the high probability of reinforcement for genuine human interaction with Voice II. Absence of reinforcement for authentic verbal behavior in NVB is not, as is believed, somebody’s fault or someone’s doing. We cannot reinforce SVB with NVB. Unless we change the situation, we will continue to get better, that is, worse, with our NVB. People who suffer from depression have nervous systems which are conditioned to be depressed. People who predominantly have NVB, find themselves mostly in in environments in which they are expected to dissociate from what they think and feel. As discussed, such NVB covert speech creates huge problems with our public speech. 

The mental health problems which so many people are suffering from are in fact communication problems. We don’t discriminate them as such, because it hasn’t been pointed out to us that NVB is reflexive, respondent behavior, while only SVB is operant behavior. Voice II sets the occasion for SVB, whereas Voice I elicits NVB. If SVB is reinforced following the appearance of Voice II, this  increases the likelihood that it will occur again. 

The point of this writing is to bring the attention of the reader to the need to be in an environment in which Voice II can be heard. Voice II will not be heard in an environment which gives rise to NVB. The environment in which Voice II is verbalized, or rather vocalized, mediated and reinforced, in which we all agree that we are having SVB, is one without any aversive Voice I stimulation. Thus, social behavior or group behavior is primarily maintained by nonverbal cues, by how we sound.

December 20, 2014

December 20, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

In Red Bluff, one has to slow down one’s speed to 25 miles an hour when one drives along the school, but once one has passed this speed zone, the road signs indicate it is okay to increase one' s speed again to 45 miles an hour.  This example demonstrates that we must behave differently under different situations or our driving behavior will lead to what is called positive punishment, a speeding ticket. 

The behavior of driving within the speed limit is negatively reinforced, since we avoid getting a speeding ticket by slowing down.  Our driving behavior is controlled by the situation; within the speed-zone, we slow down, but outside the speed-zone, we may go a little faster again. Once in a while, we see cars that are being stopped by the police for speeding and we want to avoid being stopped like that.  Repeated exposure to this stretch of road has made us familiar with the situation. Someone from out of town may not be as familiar with the situation as we are. It wouldn’t surprise this writer that more speeding tickets are written for such outsiders, who are without stimulus discrimination and may overlook these signs to slow down.

Discrimination between the two opposing ways of communicating, Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), requires that we detect the two situations in which they occur as being very different. In one situation, we must have SVB, but in the other, we must have NVB, otherwise we get in trouble. In other words, we need to be able to recognize when we can have SVB and when we can’t have it and must produce NVB. Generally speaking, we engage in superficial conversation with someone who is not really listening. If, on the other hand, someone is genuinely interested in what we are saying, we notice this and we are able to express ourselves better. Besides other nonverbal behaviors, such as the way in which we move, the discriminating stimulus for how we talk is how we sound. 

Given a particular sound, we will communicate in a particular kind of way. That is, during SVB, the sound of our voice is the discriminative stimulus, which predicts certain consequences, such as good relationship, friendship, safety and trust. During NVB, by contrast, the sound of our voice signals the exact opposite: we are separate, we have to fend for ourselves, we have to be on guard and we can’t trust each other. 

The strengthening or the weakening of these two sets of behaviors, are consequences, which are associated with how we sound while we speak. The behaviors which are reinforced during SVB are not reinforced during NVB and the behaviors which are reinforced during NVB are not reinforced during SVB. Discriminating these two categories is important because they are mutually exclusive.  

Even though what is written here, is about listening to the human voice, reading about the sound of our voice is, of course, not the same as actually listening to it. Like a speed-sign, one sound, Voice I, signals the availability of reinforcement for “X”, a set of behaviors, such as doubting, defending, fighting, fleeing and freezing behaviors, while another sound, Voice II, indicates the availability of reinforcement for “Y”, a set of behaviors, such as conversing, connecting, relaxing, sharing, playing, supporting and loving.  Thus, in the presence of Voice I, “X” is more likely be reinforced, but not “Y”. Likewise, in the presence of Voice II, “Y” is more likely reinforced than  “X”. That is, in the presence of Voice I, there is high probability that reinforcement for set “X” is available and in the presence of Voice II, there is high probability that reinforcement for set “Y” is available. Although we may, in due course, discriminate the difference between Voice I and Voice II, the fact that we do doesn’t explain SVB or NVB. 

What matters in this reading is that the reader becomes informed about functional relations. SVB and NVB are explained by antecedent events, discriminative stimuli, such as Voice II or Voice I, respectively, which set the stage for certain responses, such as set “Y” and set “X”, which are correlated with certain kind of consequences. 

In the speed-zone, the sign to slow down to 25 miles an hour, is a discriminative stimulus indicating the punishment and extinction of driving behavior above 25 miles an hour. Likewise, Voice I is a discriminative stimulus predicting punishment and extinction of set “Y” behaviors and Voice II predicts the punishment and extinction of set “X” behaviors. These functional relations, between how we sound (antecedent discriminative stimuli), how we communicate (responses) and how behaviors in similar occasions, in the future are likely increased or decreased (due to reinforcement, punishment or extinction) explain why we talk the way we do. 

 

Most of our interaction is NVB, because it takes place in aversive environments, which causes us to produce Voice I, the antecedent stimulus, which elicits set “X” behavioral responses, which are followed by reinforcing consequences, which strengthen Voice I as well as the behaviors to which it generalizes. Consequently, we live in a world in which most of us experience relationship problems, because we  little SVB. If we have SVB, it is in an accidental, momentary way, in what we usually describe as a ‘spontaneous’ moment. Under such unstable circumstances, behavior is only temporarily under stimulus control of a different contingency than the one we are used to, familiar with, conditioned by and expect, the contingency for NVB. This rare occurrence is not sufficient to maintain SVB and because we don’t know the three-term contingency, which explains to us when SVB can occur, we  adhere to superstitious behaviors, that is, the behavior we happened to be involved in on these rare occasions. Rather than calling it addiction, we are referring to changes of our nervous system, which was conditioned to behave in a certain way under certain circumstances. Another situation is the cure for our addiction. Different antecedent environmental stimuli, a different contingency, can evoke novel operant repertoire.  

December 19, 2014

December 19, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) happens at a low rate of responding because it is not often reinforced. One has to know about it to be able to reinforce it. Most of us don’t know about it and therefore are unable to reinforce it, even if it is happening. We all know SVB from moments in which we had authentic human interaction. We felt safe, open, respected, listened to, understood, validated and positively affected by such conversations.  However, no matter how plentiful and rich our experiences of SVB have been, unless we take conscious note of it, it can’t increase.  Consequently, we see an increase of our Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), but a decrease of our SVB. 

Unless SVB becomes our target behavior, it can’t be reinforced. To make SVB our target behavior, we must focus on NVB, our problem behavior. Our SVB is going to replace our NVB, which happens everywhere, twenty-four-seven, because it is reinforced all the time and under many different circumstances.  Circumstances in which SVB can be reinforced require conscious and deliberate attention for the way in which we speak, that is, since SVB only happens, when we listen to our voice while we speak. The opportunity to reinforce it is limited to those rare occasions in which this happens. Unless we create these situations more often SVB cannot and will not increase. Increase of frequency of SVB will only happen if we learn to discriminate the great difference between SVB and NVB. We need initial hints from caring others, who tell us when SVB is happening. We can’t tell ourselves SVB is happening unless others have kindly prompted us first that it is happening. Unless others repeatedly told us “yes, good, you are having SVB, continue!”, we cannot reinforce ourselves. It is very awkward that the sound of our own voice, which notably represents our sense of well-being, is so strange to us.  

At best, only aspect of SVB were prompted during our childhood by our parents, who told us to be calm, polite, kind, emphatic, truthful and respectful.  This author, who has taught hundreds of seminars with participants from all over the world and every walk of life, is still amazed by the fact that nobody seems to know about SVB as much as he does. 

In recent times, because he became a psychology teacher, he has been able to experiment longer with the same group. Students are in his class for the duration of a whole semester. This has provided more opportunity to prompt, reinforce and fade the prompts. Since most students have only few of the components for SVB in their repertoire, many had to start from scratch and were reinforced for their successive approximations of SVB in both their spoken and their written language.  

Many of the components of NVB and SVB had to be explained, demonstrated and verified multiple times, before they could be linked together. Once some students, who already had the behavioral history to be able do this, began to chain these components, they played a powerful role in shaping the behavior of the rest of the class. In a period of weeks an entire class was capable of understanding, explaining and enjoying the novel behaviors that were emerging from SVB.   

Most interestingly, many papers contained detailed and accurate descriptions of SVB and NVB. Not all students consequated the distinction between SVB and NVB by speaking about it and many learned by writing about it.  Even though they may not have said a lot during class, they were all in support of it and their elegant, elaborate and deeply personal writings were the evidence of how much they appreciated to learn about SVB. Many of these writers expressed the wish to learn more about it in the future. Their writings created a new verbal foundation for how they view their relationships with others. To witness the workings of SVB in his student’s writings is especially pleasing to this writer, whose own writing is also steadily becoming more reinforcing to him.