February 9, 2016

February 9, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), Skinner writes “The only hope is planned diversification, in which the importance of variety is recognized (p. 162).” This cannot come about without recognizing the interaction which sets the stage for this. Without Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) there can be no “planned diversification.” 

Absence of SVB means presence of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).  NVB prevents “planned diversification.” The world we live in is mainly determined by NVB.  Unless we change, as Skinner suggests, the reinforcers, we cannot create environment in which SVB will occur.

I disagree with Skinner on how new contingencies come about. The change of reinforcers will come about due to how we talk with each other and not, as Skinner and behaviorists have believed, due to what we write and read. The statement “the problem is to design a world which will be liked by people not as they now are but by those who live in it (p. 164),” is made without any awareness about SVB. 

While unknowingly responding to the ubiquity of NVB Skinner seems to assume that we cannot talk about these problems.  Due to NVB the world is not liked by people as “they now are,” but due to SVB the world would be liked by people “as they now are.”  Moreover, SVB is made possible because the contingencies of reinforcement can be adjusted and attuned by how we speak. Thus, a man would only “deliberately go mad to prove his point (p.165)” during the kind of spoken communication in which the negative contingencies are forced on him. “Out of control behavior” is not to be taken as if “madness were a special kind of freedom or as if the behavior of a psychotic could not be predicted or controlled (p.165),” but should be considered as a form of NVB. Similarly, NVB, which  is about negative emotions, is also described by “the bitterness” with which the “libertarian discusses science and technology of behavior.”

February 8, 2016

February 8, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Read the book Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) by B.F. Skinner, as it will help you to understand my insistence on the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/ Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction.  When people talk excessively about their feelings (like I used to do before I learned about behaviorism), they are basically trying to do the best they can in saying what is wrong about the contingencies.  As long as they experience aversive environments, they will inevitably engage in NVB, but once they experience people, who create sensitive, supportive and reinforcing environments, they naturally engage in SVB. Skinner is right “behavior can be changed by changing the conditions of which it is a function (p.150).” 

SVB and NVB are functions of different environments, which are created by people, who have been reinforced for different vocal verbal behavior.  I disagree with Skinner, who states “We have the physical, biological, and behavioral technologies needed “to save ourselves”; the problem is how to get people to use them (p. 158).” We lack the technology about how we talk.  The SVB/NVB distinction is unknown even to behaviorists. People will not be using behavioral technologies as long as NVB is the behaviorist’s main way of talking. One of the problems Skinner identifies is that scientists must start with simple experiments to be able to advance to complex problems. 

“Our progress often does not seem rapid enough.” Skinner argues that “early physicists, chemists and biologist enjoyed a kind of natural protection against the complexity of their fields.” Unlike the modern behavioral scientists, they didn’t have to fight back against the “well advanced” formulations.  We only simplify by increasing our SVB and decreasing our NVB. This is needed to break down our communication problems and to solve them in a pragmatic manner.

February 7, 2016

February 7, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In the final paragraph of “Beyond Words: Human Communication Through Sound” (2016), Kraus & Slater, without knowing it, describe Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB. “An important aspect of synchrony is that it is a natural signature of emotion, since the potent neural chemistry of emotion can trigger activation across multiple brain regions within a very short space of time (Scherer, 2013).” This describes SVB. Since “synchrony” refers to absence of activation of “basic signaling mechanisms underlying flight or fight behavior”, this latter part is a description of NVB. 

“Interpersonal synchrony” always builds on SVB as it “implies shared emotion.” Certainly, the “social bonds between individuals”, which are made possible by “blurring the boundaries between self and other (Tarr et al, 2014), is what communication is all about.” Thus, as long as we remain engaged in NVB, our “words” merely “scratch the surface”, but only in SVB will the sound of the speaker be able to “move” the listener “beyond words.” In NVB, by contrast, the speaker’s voice is experienced as an aversive stimulus by the listener. 

One of the “future issues” which is suggested by these authors is “identification of distinct components of rhythmic processing” to better understand “connections between music and language skills.” However, only SVB is one of the “components of rhythmic processing.” In NVB, the link with between music and language is lost as the speaker’s voice pushes, pulls, punches, suffocates and drills the listener. Their suggestion is most needed: “Further investigation of dynamic synchrony, for example, two people speaking in unison, may help reveal predictive mechanism important for speech.” The SVB/NVB distinction is necessary as it is precisely about how we are actually affecting each other while we speak. Let’s listen to that

February 6, 2016

February 6, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In “Beyond Words: Human Communication Through Sound” (2016)  Kraus & Slater write “A recurring theme throughout this review is that our experience of sound is rooted in the physical world, that sound is rooted in movement, and that our motor systems play an essential role in our perception of the inherent structure of sound.” It seems that these cognitivist researchers reach a behaviorist conclusion! 

“The sophisticated systems of modern communication are rooted in our more ancient relationship with sound.” They propose our brains have evolved to seek out patterns “as we try to make sense of the sounds that we hear.” Furthermore, “these patterns also provide a framework for communicating with others and there is close integration between our ability to produce as well as perceive communication sounds.” They have gathered evidence that “the same neural networks involved in generating the movements to produce sound are also intimately involved in the perception of underlying patterns. Therefore, communication is not simply the transfer of sound signals from one person to another but rather is an interaction between physical entities.” Interestingly, they abandon an information-processing cognitive interpretation for an inclusive and more parsimonious behaviorist functional relationship. 

Indeed, we either reinforce each other’s Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) or each other’s Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). “Evidence indicates that when two individuals synchronize their movements, this increases affiliation between them and promotes bonding.” These authors describe SVB (not NVB) when they conclude that “From the dyadic exchange between mother and child, to conversational turn-taking and improvisational jazz, these patterns in time not only streamline information processing, they also help us to connect.”  

February 5, 2016

February 5, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In “Beyond Words: Human Communication Through Sound” (2016) Kraus & Slater write about those who have better “pre-reading skills”, which should perhaps better be called pre-verbal skills.  “The ability to make use of rhythmic cues when perceiving speech has been linked to reading skills.” Those who have this skill are said to be better at “synchronizing.” Before we are able to “separate words into their individual sounds”, however, we must first be able to pay attention to someone’s voice.  Our ability to orient to someone’s voice depends on the conditioning effect of the voice of those who spoke with us when we weren’t able to speak. To the extent that they spoke with us with a soothing, resonant voice, which made us feel safe, accepted and supported, we learned to pay attention to such voices later on, but to the extent that we were exposed to someone who sounded impatient, demanding or angry, we were conditioned, pre-verbally, to adjust to and endure such threatening stimuli. 

In the light of this inevitable conditioning effect of how we sound, it is interesting to consider the relatively high response rate of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) and the relatively low response rate of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). In NVB, the speaker doesn’t listen to himself, but forces others listen to him, while in SVB, each speaker listens to himself, due to which there is a total absence of aversive stimulation.  Although SVB has been part of it, a lot of pre-verbal learning has taken place with NVB. Moreover, our ability to align our verbal and nonverbal expressions, to synchronize what we say with how we say it, depends on the joining of our speaking and listening behaviors. Only when our speaking and listening happen at the exact same rate can we produce SVB, but when there is more speaking than listening or more listening than speaking, we inevitably produce NVB.