November 1, 2015

November 1, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Reader,

Although behaviorism’s understanding of private events of what we think, is slowly evolving, it has yet to acknowledge the behavioral cusp which involves distinguishing Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). A more complete understanding of private events requires deeper involvement in our spoken communication, specifically in how we sound while we speak. In SVB the speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks and in NVB the speaker doesn’t listen to him or herself while he or she speaks. The SVB speaker finds him or herself in a very different situation than the NVB speaker. 

We find ourselves in different situations every time we switch back and forth between SVB and NVB. The more often this switching occurs, the higher our rate of SVB will be and the less often this switching back and forth occurs, the higher our rate of NVB will be. However, we can only notice the possibility of this switching back and forth if we acknowledge the difference between SVB and NVB. We already unconsciously go back and forth between instances in our verbal episodes in which the speaker makes the listener feel safe and at ease and induces positive emotions and instances in which the speaker makes the listener feel stressed and fearful and therefore induces negative emotions. We would go through these changes more consciously if we identified the former as SVB and the latter as NVB. This would once and for all make clear to us that in NVB communication actually stops, while in SVB it continues. In NVB talking may continue, but we don’t communicate. 

SVB can only begin to increase once we have repeatedly observed what is preventing this. SVB is not prevented by NVB, but by our lack of skills.  We so often engage in NVB as we simply don’t know anything better. Once we have experienced SVB we know something better and this motivates us to experiment and engage in SVB more often. In that process it will become evident that going back and forth between SVB and NVB in the past couldn’t result in an increase of SVB as most of our attention was still going to NVB. Increase of SVB only occurs once our attention is naturally and effortlessly drawn to SVB. Acknowledging that due to conditioning our attention was drawn to NVB is a necessary step before we can increase our SVB. By noticing our over-involvement in NVB, we slowly but surely withdraw from the circumstances in which this occurs. Most likely, we stop seeking proximity of those with whom NVB keeps happening. Moreover, we will be experimenting with SVB and NVB on our own, since only few people are capable of increasing our SVB. By talking out loud and by listening to how we sound while we speak, we can join and equalize our speaking and listening behaviors, which become so readily disjointed in our conversations with others. 

Due to self-experimentation (N-of-1) we will familiarize ourselves with the SVB/NVB distinction and then we will be able to recognize how others, like us, also continue to go back and forth between SVB and NVB. Since our self-experimentation will make SVB effortlessly available to us, our attention will no longer mostly be going to NVB, as it does in most of our so-called interactions. Even our engagement in NVB will at some point begin to stimulate us to switch back to SVB and our ability to switch, by changing the situation, will also increase. As the rate of switching between NVB and SVB will increase, our involvement in NVB will begin to decrease and our involvement in SVB begins to increase. 

Self-experimentation, in which we can identify and verify the SVB/NVB distinction, is the solution to the problem of inaccessibility of private events to public direct observation. Although Skinner himself was all about self-experimentation, most behaviorists don’t seem to recognize how crucial this is for the implementation of behaviorism. Behaviorism has yet to be fully implemented and disseminated as most behaviorists rather experiment on others than on themselves. How can behaviorists be sure if private events acquire stimulus functions other than by self-experimentation? It should be a central part of education, but it isn’t. 

Behaviorists mainly write about the world that is within our own skin. They don’t talk so much about it. If they did, they would have to refer to the world which is within their own skin, that is, they would have to stop thinking about the world within the skin of someone else. The fact that an observer cannot establish the same contact with the world within the skin as the individual him or herself, is produced by writing, not by talking. Rather than emphasizing they cannot have contact with what happens within the skin of someone else, why don’t behaviorists emphasize that they can have contact with what happens within their own skin? If they did that, they would have something very interesting to talk about. The world to which each person only him or herself has access only makes sense to the behaviorist to the extent that he or she has access to that world him or herself. It is the world to which only we ourselves have access, which can give us a better understanding of the world to which we don’t have access. Since we are always dependent on verbal behavior which we have learned from the members of our verbal community, there is, as far as how verbal behavior is caused, no real difference between public and private stimuli. Different levels of accessibility to these stimuli is determined by our rates of SVB and NVB.

October 31, 2015

October 31, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Reader,

I have had a lovely sleep because I went to bed early. The cat is sitting on my lap and is purring. She does that every day while I write in the early morning. She looks at me intently and I look at her and we are so happy to have this wonderful moment together. When I get up from my bed, she is immediately there and follows me to the office, where I sit on the floor with my legs crossed. She walks so close to my legs that I have to be careful not to trip over her. After she has sat with me for a couple of minutes, either I or she has had enough. When I say ‘okay’, she immediately jumps off. At other times, like today, she jumps off just before I say that and sits underneath the chair where she licks herself.

The above description involves, among many other things: waking up, movements, seeing, hearing, touching, breathing, key-boarding and, of course, talking, which happens covertly, as the potential observer cannot notice it. The fact that I can describe these behaviors depends on my behavioral history with a verbal community, which taught me how to speak, read and write. Without that ability these descriptions could neither be thought nor written. However, even if all of this is in place, I will still not be able to produce this description, if I don’t attain Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Naturally, I would only be able to acquire such behavior, if my verbal community would reinforce it. To be able to reinforce SVB, it would have to be a peaceful and well-rested verbal community. However, most verbal communities aren’t peaceful at all.

Most of our verbal communities condition high rates of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) and, as a consequence, they can only reinforce low rates of SVB. We don’t realize that our verbal behaviors are response products of our verbal communities, that is, we don’t view what we say to ourselves covertly, during our private speech, as a function of what others have said to us overtly, during our public speech. However, our belief in an autonomous self, which presumably is independent of our external environment, is equally conditioned by our verbal community. 

The distinction between SVB and NVB depends on a social environment which reinforces overt expressions of our covert responses. Although  private speech was and continues to be caused by our public speech, as long as it is excluded from public speech, we are bound to think of it as existing on its own. This self-concept is false and as it is false it causes many problems. In SVB it becomes instantly clear that private speech is a function of public speech. Attainment of SVB is such a relief as it corrects falsehoods that were perpetuated by NVB. NVB conditioned us to consider private speech, that is, our thinking, as separate from public speech. In NVB, by contrast, what we think off as individuals is treated as irrelevant. 

NVB teaches us that if we want to have ‘good’ communication with others, we should keep most of what we think to ourselves. It should come as no surprise that the exclusion of private speech from public speech gives rise to mental health problems.  The opposite is much needed: the inclusion of private speech into public speech is the solution for mental health problems. I have tried this with many clients who were diagnosed with depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder, post-traumatic-stress-disorder, anxiety, bulimia, as well with many others and SVB has always worked. 

Those in the United States who are afflicted by mental health problems  for the most part have been exposed to the social contingencies of reinforcement that make covert responses overt. The problem is not that people don’t have the verbal repertoire which allows them to describe their proprioceptive and interoceptive experiences. What is lacking is an understanding of the SVB/NVB distinction. As we don’t recognize or acknowledge the extent to which private speech is tossed out by NVB public speech, we are continuously conforming to cultural norms and dogma and shooting ourselves and each other in the foot. 

Although this is an empirical matter that must be further addressed, it is apparent to me that in The Netherlands, my country of origin, the rates of SVB are much higher than in the United States. In other words, different cultures have different rates of SVB and NVB. Consequently, the Dutch express overtly more often, but also more accurately what is experienced covertly than most Americans. It is not that Americans can’t do this, they can, but this will only happen if the rates of SVB are increased and the rates of NVB are decreased, or, stated squarely, if the environments in which most Americans communicate can become less aversive. To the extent that this is happening, we can already begin to hear the rates of SVB increasing in the USA. As more people become aware of the SVB/NVB distinction, the shift towards SVB is inevitable. 

The most important aspect of SVB is that it links thinking with speaking.  Many people think that they can speak their ‘mind’, but the fact is that their way of talking determines what and how they think. During SVB we can trace back stimuli of which our verbal interaction is a function. Interestingly, this functional relationship will then enhance many other functional relationships. In NVB, by contrast, we are prevented from tracing back the stimuli which causes our thinking, as private speech is prevented from being part of public speech. Only in SVB can it become apparent that NVB private speech was caused by NVB public speech.

October 30, 2015

October 30, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Reader, 

Today, a lot a waiting took place before I started writing. I didn’t want to write about what I was thinking and waited until thoughts appeared which I found worth my while. Such waiting increases the response rate of SVB, but writing or saying something without waiting would increase the response rate of NVB. I am able to wait as I have engaged in so much SVB that I notice the difference between SVB and NVB, even in my own unexpressed private speech. There was a time, when I needed to first express my negative self-talk before I was able to recognize and acknowledge as such. NVB private speech is of course caused by NVB public speech and SVB covert speech is of course caused by SVB overt speech. I am familiar with these analyses and don’t need to think about them anymore. I have thought about them already and they have been validated by my interactions with others. 

It is a natural aspect of our language development for our public speech to recede to a private level. When we say our first words, like ‘mommy’, ‘pappy’ or ‘doggy’, we are reinforced for our verbal behavior, but once we have learned how to speak, read and write, most verbal behavior becomes private, that is, most verbal behavior occurs silently when we are thinking and covertly talking with ourselves. Ideally such thinking is a function of SVB public speech and results into positive self-talk, but, as we all know, very often our self-talk is negative. An increase of the response rate of our negative thoughts of our covert speech, is always a consequence of our involvement in and exposure to overt NVB speech. 

These contingency relations exist and evolve over time. Our response to a given situation is not necessarily determined by antecedents which are available to us. A person’s history of reinforcement determines the behavioral momentum of his or her habitual thoughts. Thoughts that are a consequence of NVB public speech are mechanical and will go on without any awareness, but thoughts which are a consequence of SVB public speech are conscious and discriminate between SVB and NVB. 

The environmental changes which occur during SVB and NVB are very different. SVB public speech modifies the environment which is within our own skin. It does that because the speaker is listening to him or herself while he or she speaks. Due to the feedback mechanism of the speaker-as-own-listener, the speaker has an entirely different effect on the listener as the speaker, who depends on the listener for feedback.   The NVB speaker demands and dominates the listener’s attention and wants them to listen to him or to her. The listening that is involved in SVB is completely different than the listening that is involved in NVB. In the former, the environment within the skin of the listener is affected by the induction of positive emotions, but in the latter, all attention is drawn to what happens outside the skin of the listener. What happens inside the skin of the listener is of no importance to the NVB speaker. Not surprisingly, the NVB speaker induces negative emotions in the listener. The listener who is made to listen to the NVB speaker is taught to tolerate these negative feelings, by distancing him or herself from his or her private speech. Stated differently, NVB speakers condition the listener to dissociate from what he or she is thinking. Thus, conditioned by NVB, we disconnect from our negative emotions and we use others to experience positive emotions. All of this continues to occur because NVB prevents us from bringing our private speech into public speech.   

In SVB the issue of bringing back our private speech into public speech doesn’t even arise as the two are considered to be functionally related. Moreover, as SVB conditions positive self-talk, the environment within our own skin will begin to modify the environment outside of our own skin. Although we should never lose sight of the fact that public speech causes private speech, private speech of course also affects our public speech. Initially, these temporal effects seem difficult to trace as we are used to and conditioned by NVB. However, when we engage in SVB, it becomes apparent that these effects occur. Oddly enough, as in most of us low rates of SVB were conditioned and high rates of NVB, it may seem to many of us that SVB is the problem. The consequences of SVB certainly don’t reinforce NVB. To the contrary, consequences of SVB decrease our rate of NVB. This is accomplished as NVB is more and more avoided, put on a time out, like I did when I started today’s writing. I so often had SVB that I can wait without getting troubled for the fog of NVB private speech to lift. I know it will lift as it has lifted so many times before. Reinforcement of SVB requires us to avoid NVB as much as possible. B.F. Skinner (1969) was right: reinforcement is always contingent on some properties of responses. If I produce responses which meet criteria for NVB that response class will be reinforced by NVB speakers. “A set of contingencies defines an operant” (Skinner, 1969). By all means, let us verify that SVB and NVB are maintained by “contingencies which are established on particular properties of responses.” Contingencies for how we talk can be detected by listening to how we sound while we speak.

October 29, 2015

October 29, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Reader,

In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) there is a bi-directional relationship between the speaker and the listener as the speaker can become the listener and the listener can become the speaker. This turn-taking is needed to explore the fact that how we talk is determined by others, who are stimuli in both our current and our previous environments. It is evident in the language development of children that they don’t start with words, but sounds. We are born nonverbal and we become verbal during our development. Also in many other species vocalizations play a big role in conspecific communication. Sounds of the members of our group gave rise to language as our vocal cords came under functional control of our environment. In SVB we pay attention to how we sound.

By listening to ourselves while we speak we experience that language is rooted into biology. Absence of aversive stimulation is something we have only temporarily experienced. Most of our so-called interaction is based on aversive stimulation. Most Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is based on hierarchical differences that existed throughout evolutionary history, but which, ever since the arrival of language, began to shift. In different cultures, languages, countries, cities and communities, that is, in different environments, different populations have achieved very different levels of SVB and NVB. Even within environments there are individuals who have higher rates of NVB and those who have higher rates of SVB. We  only have SVB if our survival is no longer threatened. 

The difference between a perceived threat and a real threat cannot be determined as long as we keep having NVB. In NVB, a perceived threat is considered to be just as real as a real threat. In SVB, however, we can finally let go of the perceived threat, which was not real, but stayed with us for so long as it has helped us to survive. In our evolutionary history it was adaptive to act on every notion of threat. The arrival of language must have been made possible as our relative sense of safety, support and community allowed us to begin to behave verbally. This is as true today as it was since the emergence of language. We can only talk with each other as long as we feel safe, but we stop talking the moment that we feel threatened.

That we feel threatened doesn’t all of a sudden turn us again into nonverbal babies (although such effects do occur), but it definitely impairs our ability to communicate. We still talk when we are afraid, intimidated, angered, distrustful, hurt, upset, frustrated, violated and overwhelmed, but such talking falls into the NVB category. During SVB there are only positive emotions and these can continue as there is no aversive stimulation. 

Hierarchical differences among people which we still see and hear everywhere in our world are maintained by NVB and they will be acknowledged, understood, dismantled and prevented by SVB. It is only after we have had enough SVB that we realize how much of our problems were caused and maintained by our involvement in NVB. If you worry a lot about the amount of negativity in this world, this doesn’t and can’t translate into a new way of talking. The shift from NVB to SVB will only be made if special attention is given to how we sound when we create and maintain a safe, supportive environment. 

You are so busy with what you or other people say that you don’t have a chance to connect with your nonverbal experience while you talk.

Lack of connection with and awareness about your voice causes a separation between what you say and how you say it. This separation is apparent when you as a speaker disconnect from what you as a listener experience. Although you don’t pay much conscious attention to this, you always experience yourself while you speak. The extent to which you are aware of this signifies your rate of SVB and the extent to which you are unaware of this signifies your rate of NVB. In SVB, you become a conscious communicator, but in NVB, you are on ‘automatic pilot.’

Three of your habits, which listeners reinforce, are: 1) fixation on words, 2) outward orientation and 3) struggle for attention. You find that your voice doesn’t sound so good when what you say is considered to be more important than how you say it, that is, when you fixate only on the words. You also sound quite horrible, to yourself as well as to others, when you are trying to impress others. Those who are trying to impress you sound just as terrible as you. If we are outward oriented, we want others to listen to us. When others force us to listen to them, their voices grab, stab, pull, push and drain. That is why it is called NVB. 

As we are arguing, as we are trying to win, as we are trying to defend,  as we are trying to distract and as we are trying to ‘play the devil’s advocate’, we struggle to get and hold each other’s attention. Our nonverbal voice sounds demanding, coercive and aggressive when we struggle to score points with our verbal acrobatics. The listener also struggles with the conflicting verbal and nonverbal expressions of the NVB speaker. And, different speakers struggle together as they want to address their different topics. At times it seems as if all of our human interaction is one endless struggle. However, this struggle stops when we attain SVB. In SVB we listen to ourselves and because of that we listen to each other. In SVB we have no problems listening or speaking.