February 27, 2016

February 27, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In “Verbal Understanding and Pavlovian Processes” by Tonneau (2004) the author states that “Verbal understanding has not been explained convincingly with Skinner’s (1957, 1969) traditional operant framework.” Indeed, Skinner never mentioned what will one day be considered the two most important response classes: Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB)! These universal response classes have not been accounted for, because “verbal understanding, which concerns the behavior of the listener (Parrot, 1984, 1987)has been neglected or addressed in a deficient fashion.” 

When we are being told that “swimming in the river is dangerous” or “the pie is delicious”, we may “avoid swimming” or “order a slice” because “exposure to an organized set of verbal stimuli (including words such as “river” or “pie”) later leads to a change of behavior with respect to their nonverbal referents.” As we can tact the words “river” and “pie” the aforementioned remarks effortlessly lead us avoid danger and order that delicious pie. We are familiar with such immediate changes in nonverbal behavior due to verbal messages. 

Since we don’t know the terms SVB and NVB, we don’t pay attention to how good it feels to have SVB or how terrible it feels to have NVB. The reason we don’t differentiate between these response classes is because we don’t listen to how we sound while we speak. If we would listen to how we sound while we speak, SVB and NVB would become apparent. The purpose of this writing is to make us listen to how we sound while we speak. The instruction is repeated a couple of times as this will shape the behavior of speaker-as-own-listener. 

Tonneau states“There is a great difference between “directly reinforced” and “derived behavioral functions.” He writes “until recently, basic behavior-analytic research dealt almost exclusively with the former case, the study of which (Skinner, 1938) was taken as a model for the explanation of verbal behavior (Skinner, 1957).” 

Considering the aforementioned difference that Tonneau is trying to address it is no wonder that the distinction between SVB and NVB was never mentioned in behaviorist literature as most behaviorists have mainly focused on “directly reinforced” behavioral functions. 

As SVB and NVB are best explained by Pavlovian processes, they fall into the category of “derived” behavioral functions. More precisely, “The response distribution observed conditionally on A arises from reinforcement in the presence of stimulus B distinct from A (and entertains no formal similarity with A)(italics added).” In other words, the “response distribution observed conditionally on A arises from reinforcement in the presence of stimulus B distinct from A” as it can be traced back to the history of the nonverbal stimuli that were experienced by the listener during his or her spoken communication. 

We accept NVB as normal since we were often in environments in which it was reinforced, but we will consider it as abnormal once we have been more often in environments in which SVB is reinforced.

Once we can tact these universal response classes, we can finally call a spade a spade as we then differentiate between genuine and pretentious communication. When we have been introduced to the SVB/NVB distinction we realize that SVB is “functionally equivalent” to the communication in which the speaker has an appetitive effect on the listener and NVB is “functionally equivalent” to the interaction in which the speaker has an aversive, coercive effect on the listener. 

I have pointed out this distinction to all of my students and can tell you without any trace of doubt that “the functional equivalence between verbal stimuli and their referents” is as solid as a rock. Students tell me again and again their exploration and knowledge of the SVB/NVB distinction has positively changed and continues to change their lives.  The construct gives meaning to experiences they previously couldn’t understand. Like Tonneau, I think that Pavlovian conditioning can answer the important question “what produces the functional equivalence of verbal stimuli and their referents?” Verbal stimuli of the speaker have a sound that always affects the listener. 

The speaker who induces SVB in the listener has a voice which is distinctively different from the speaker who induces NVB. The stimulus which sets the stage for SVB is Voice II and the stimulus which sets the stage for NVB is Voice I. Unless we are able to discriminate, decrease and, ideally, completely extinguish the latter, we cannot explore the former. As this was never our objective, we have not been able to achieve this. However, with the SVB/NVB distinction in place, this is an achievable, replicable and tremendously enjoyable objective. 

The functional equivalence of SVB and Voice II and NVB and Voice I  becomes apparent when speakers are stimulated to listen to their voice while they speak. When this happens, Voice I is described as threatening or imposing by the listener, but Voice II is experienced as comforting and soothing. Of course, each listener is changed by the extent to which he or she has been exposed to Voice I or Voice II.

“Another way to develop a non-mediational, Pavlovian account of verbal understanding is to adopt a direct-memory standpoint (e.g. Marr, 1983) and replace covert mediators by features of the environment defined over an extended time scale (Tonneau, 2001, pp. 21-23)”. “Understanding a language” not only “requires a history of correlation, however indirect, between components of this language and the nonverbal world”, it requires in my opinion SVB. “Absent such grounding, no verbal understanding would be possible (Staats & Staats, 1959.” I insist that our NVB always impairs and in the worst case, completely prevents our language development. 

“Extending behavioral effects from one stimulus to another (or promoting functional equivalence) is basically what Pavlovian conditioning does.” We have yet to acknowledge that in NVB the listener will pair the noxious-sounding speaker with the unequal, uni-directional relationship in which the speaker forces the listener, while in SVB, the listener will pair the good-sounding speaker with equal, , bi-directional relationship in which the speaker takes turns with the listener. NVB and SVB are described by the listener as the difference between when the speaker is talking_at or talking_with the listener. 

  

Tonneau states that “A Pavlovian account of verbal understanding must assume that human behavior is sensitive to pairings between verbal and nonverbal stimuli, but also to pairings between verbal stimuli and relational properties of the environment (such as the property to-the-left-of), and to pairings between syntactical relations among words and such environmental properties.” I urge people to focus on the pairings between how they sound and what they say. The former is a nonverbal stimulus and the latter is a verbal stimulus. 

This paring of stimuli is apparent in SVB as the pleasant-sounding voice of the speaker goes together with a sense of wellbeing that can only be experienced when verbal and nonverbal stimuli are aligned and when there is a connection between the speaker and the listener which is maintained by turn-taking. In NVB, by contrast, a very different kind of pairing occurs. In NVB, the noxious-sounding voice of the speaker is paired with the absence of turn-taking and the lack of contact between the speaker and the listener due to the separation of the speaker and the listener. Indeed, the NVB speaker presumably is hierarchically above the listener and such a speaker’s voice is always paired with the experience of social inequality. 

When the listener is given permission to speak by the NVB speaker, he or she is only allowed to do so with a submissive sound. The NVB speaker immediately shows the listener, who becomes a speaker, his or her place, when such a speaker speaks in what is called a wrong, impolite or disrespectful tone of voice. The argument that operant processes are more complex than respondent processes is false. This becomes especially clear when we explore the SVB/NVB distinction. 

We can engage in SVB only as long as the speaker’s voice is not perceived as an aversive stimulus by the listener. SVB is a much more complex and refined phenomenon than NVB. The bluntness of NVB is paired with a certain tone of voice, while the fine-grained precision and focus of SVB can only be achieved and maintained by a voice that sounds good to the listener. “The complexity of a phenomenon is no argument against its being governed by Pavlovian processes.”

Tonneau writes “Clearly, words and their nonverbal referents often fail to be functionally equivalent. Yet, the most central features of verbal understanding seem to require function transfer from nonverbal to verbal stimuli and vice-versa.” Lack of such “transfer from nonverbal to verbal stimuli and vice-versa” is due to NVB, the way of talking which can’t facilitate such a transfer. Only the SVB speaker moves flexibly between nonverbal and verbal stimuli. 

NVB speakers are always fixated on verbal stimuli. Moreover, they force the listener to disconnect from their nonverbal experience. “It should be possible to increase the degree of functional equivalence between words and objects by providing behavioral supports and manipulating contextual stimuli.” SVB does exactly that; what we say is easier to be understood due to how we say it. It is the voice of the speaker which provides behavioral support for the listener and thus increases “the degree of functional equivalence.” 

In NVB there is no support for the listener coming from the speaker. The NVB speaker owns the contingency and forces the listener into submission. Thus, meaning is dictated by the NVB speaker. It should be noted here that the NVB speaker doesn’t even have the skill to “explain how verbal stimuli themselves acquire meaning.” The NVB speaker is per definition completely oblivious of how his or her own verbal stimuli correlate to the nonverbal environment, to the listener, as he or she is NOT listening to him or herself while he or she speaks. 

Without “Pavlovian processes verbal stimuli would be meaningless”, but as long as NVB continues, the issue of meaning remains out of our hearing range. My response to Tonneau should make behavior analysist think about why they “spent an enormous time studying operant reinforcement”, but have ignored non-operant reasons? Due to NVB, which is as high among non-behaviorists as behaviorists, behaviorists adhered to “a science of behavior” that “is like a one-sided coin”; radical behaviorism only “focuses on the maintenance of responding by its consequences, but does not examine the provenance of the responses that reinforcement maintains.” 

The SVB/NVB distinction, which, once acknowledged, will reliably increase SVB and decrease NVB, allows us to explore and explain “complex behavioral phenomena, such as verbal understanding,” which “require complex principles of induction.” Without knowing what sets the stage for SVB and NVB, we could not make progress in our investigation of “principles of behavioral induction that address the origins of novel environment-behavior relations (Stemmer, 2002).” 

This lopsidedness of behavior analysis, to primarily focus on operant processes, comes as no surprise to me. I have argued all along that if the SVB/NVB distinction is acknowledged then behaviorism will gain a more scientific status. Although Skinner has talked about “ostensive learning” (Skinner, 1957) most behavior analysists tenaciously steer away from the Pavlovian processes. However, Skinner never pointed out that if we listen to ourselves while they speak then we achieve SVB, but if nothing stimulates us to listen to ourselves while we speak, we are bound to engage in NVB. The high response rates of NVB account for the behaviorist’s denial of the place of respondent processes in verbal behavior. There is a logical reason for that. 

When someone like me points out the difference between SVB and NVB behaviorists take this personal as it is personal. The SVB/NVB distinction can be pointed out only in a genuine conversation and most behaviorists have no time for that. The acknowledgment that the Pavlovian processes may play a bigger role in the conditioning of verbal behavior than previously thought threatens existing beliefs. 

The SVB/NVB distinction exposes the fact that even most behaviorists unfortunately engage in coercive NVB public speech. How can we acquire a satisfactory account of our verbal behavior if we don’t even know that we as speakers aversively affect the listener? All the things associated with SVB and NVB, such as positive and negative emotions, jump at us once we begin to listen to ourselves while we speak. If students in my college class can do this, there is no reason why behaviorists can’t do it and improve their verbal understanding.

February 26 , 2016

February 26 , 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Today’s writing concludes my comments on Skinner’s book “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” (1971).  Since I know about the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction, I don’t find it “hard to imagine a world in which people live together without quarreling, maintain themselves by producing food, shelter and clothing they need, enjoy themselves and contribute to the enjoyment of others in art, music, literature, and games, consume only a reasonable part of the resources of the world and add as little as possible to its pollution, bear no more children than can be raised decently, continue to explore the world around them and discover better ways of dealing with it, and come to know themselves accurately and, therefore, manage themselves effectively (p. 214).” 

It amazes me Skinner is not more adamant about changing the way in which we talk.  How else could we accomplish any of the things he mentions? Fact is, we couldn’t and we haven’t.  The assumption that it would be “hard to imagine” is based on NVB. Someone who is familiar with SVB would never say that.  Although he unknowingly referred to it, Skinner didn’t know SVB.  When the “experimental analysis shifts the determination of behavior from autonomous man to the environment – an environment responsible both for the evolution of the species and for the repertoire acquired by each member”, there must occur a change in the way we talk together. 

We are each other’s environment and regardless of what we say, we influence each other positively or negatively.  When we talk about the environment, we are inclined to think of weather or the forests, but we don’t consider ourselves as the most important part of the environment on which everything else depends. As long as we keep influencing each other negatively, we set the stage for NVB, but to the extent that we influence each other positively, we create and maintain a new environment in which SVB is possible. “Early versions of environmentalism were inadequate because they could not explain how the environment worked, and much seemed to be left for autonomous man to do (p. 215).” Indeed, NVB was the real reason that the issue of our identity was never properly discussed. 

There is no need for “autonomous inner man” to be abolished as our inclination to hang on to such an imaginary construct was a function of an aversive environment.  By listening to ourselves while we speak we change the environment in such a way that the speaker and the listener will be experienced as one. The oneness of our environment can be communicated accurately only during SVB. Man “is indeed controlled by his environment, but we must remember that it is an environment largely of his own making.  The evolution of a culture is a gigantic exercise in self-control (p. 215).” 

We either contribute to SVB or to NVB. In the former, we manage ourselves and each other with love and care, but in the latter we force ourselves and each other to do all sorts of things. Obviously, we do to others what we do to ourselves, but what we do to ourselves was done to us by others. Nobody is to be blamed for his or her NVB or is to be praised for his or her SVB. When we have SVB, we all participate in it and when we have NVB, we are also all part of it. 

I agree with Skinner that “A scientific view of man offers exciting possibilities”, but I strongly disagree with him that “We have not yet seen what man can make of man (p. 215). I have seen and, more importantly, I have heard what SVB will do to people. I have taught  hundreds of students who can tell you about the positive effects of SVB. In my classroom I create the environment in which all students reliably experience an increase SVB and a decrease NVB.  This result can be obtained by anyone who knows about the SVB/NVB distinction. There is nothing mysterious about it. SVB is the science of vocal verbal behavior.  Its results are predictable and replicable.    

February 25 , 2016

February 25 , 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In the final pages of Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971, p. 213) Skinner writes “We have seen how the literatures of freedom and dignity, with their concern for autonomous man, have perpetuated the use of punishment and condoned the use of only weak punitive techniques, and it is not difficult to demonstrate a connection between the right of the unlimited individual to pursue happiness and the catastrophes threatened by unchecked breeding, the unrestrained affluence which exhausts resources and pollutes the environment, and the immanence of nuclear war.” Although this is certainly true, our way of talking plays a much bigger causal role than what has been written; “the literatures of freedom and dignity.” 

If Skinner had attempted to address the great importance of how we influence each other by our way of talking, he would have had to account for the positive and negative emotions, which are the collateral effects of how we talk. Obviously, as long as autonomous man was reinforced for how we spoke with one another, we felt positive emotions and we weren’t the least concerned with him, but since this non-existent autonomous man was in fact punished so many times that we were practically unable to feel real to the point that we were almost constantly involved in asserting counter control. 

Counter control became our way of defining ourselves due to our Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).  In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), there is no counter control as no one elicits it. The fact that speakers and listeners together maintain SVB puts the speaker’s attention on the listener. In SVB, the speaker-as-his-own-listener fine-tunes and connects his or her speaking and listening behavior.  Also, in SVB, the listener who is not the speaker, hears a sound that bridges speaking and listening behavior. Consequently, there is no separation between the speaker and the listener in SVB. Our so-called “unlimited pursuit of happiness” could never lead to the merging of our speaking and listening behavior.  To the contrary, it constantly set apart the speaker and the listener as separate entities, presumably caused by this autonomous inner man. We may have been in pursuit of happiness, but we were never able to achieve it with our NVB. Our pursuit of happiness has remained limited by hostile environments. 

Unlimited pursuit of happiness involves reinforcement of our ability to create and maintain safe, supportive and stable environments. Our freedom of speech is only meaningful to the extent that we are able to listen ourselves and that listeners will hear speakers who listen to themselves, that is, to the extent that we together engage in SVB.  As long as our NVB didn’t and couldn’t transform into SVB, we weren’t happy and we couldn’t be happy. For a long time we have been able to avoid the issue of how we interact with each other. 

The literature of freedom and dignity is negatively reinforced as it takes our attention temporarily away from the ubiquity of NVB. NOT because of the literature of freedom and dignity, but because of NVB are we heading toward “the catastrophes threatened by unchecked breeding, the unrestrained affluence which exhausts resources and pollutes the environment, and the immanence of nuclear war.” The only way to change things around is by creating environments in which SVB can happen, where our so-called identity is no longer an issue because we are not threatened. 

Although we may continue to believe otherwise, our books and our written words play no causal role in the perpetuation of our punitive behavioral control.  It is our way of talking which drives many of our other behaviors. In NVB punishment is executed by what we say and by how we speak. It is therefore useless to write about extinguishing the common belief in autonomous man. Unless we talk about it, that is, unless we engage in SVB nothing can or will change.  In SVB it is evident that there can be no inner self. During SVB we realize that we have continued an inaccurate way of describing ourselves and each other. In SVB we come to terms with the fact that NVB was an unconscious, mechanical, unscientific and negative way of talking.

February 24 , 2016

February 24 , 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) Skinner explains that reality doesn’t change because our theory about reality changes. Reality stays the same and theories are only as good as they can bring us in touch with reality.  By being in touch with reality we create control. On page 213 he writes “What does change is our chance of doing something about the subject of our theory. Newton’s analysis of the light in a rainbow was a step in the direction of the laser.” The “subject of our theory” is how we communicate.  The Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/ Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction allows us to permanently change and improve the way in which we talk. 

Due to SVB we will have no more problems with ourselves or with each other and we will understand ourselves and each other. In NVB, the opposite is the case. In NVB we keep creating problems. Another benefit from SVB is that we perceive saying as doing.  The separation between what a person says and does or, what a person believes or does, is based on the assumption that saying is not doing. Saying is doing and we do a lot of harm by what we say. If we were aware of what we do to ourselves and what we do each other by how we speak, we would be stimulated to talk in a different way. 

Each moment this awareness sets in, a person’s NVB effortlessly transforms into SVB.  SVB is a conscious, sensitive and flexible way of talking, but in NVB we are insensitive, inflexible, mechanical and on automatic pilot.  In SVB, our focus is effortless and effective, but in NVB, we struggle with ourselves and each other to get the attention and to pay attention. Skinner is absolutely correct by stating that the traditional conception of man “was designed to build up the individual as an instrument of counter control, and it did so effectively but in such a way as to limit progress (p.213).” However, this counter control is only asserted during NVB, it is not elicited in SVB, which reinforces all the communicators and supports progress.