March 17, 2016

March 17, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Humble Behaviorism” Neuringer (1991) quotes Hineline (1980), who wrote “The behaviorists’ interest in language extends to their own scientific language, and serious attempts are made to emit language that is based on empirical relationships, and to stay close to the observed data.” One wonders why nobody has come up with the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/ Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction? Aren’t people talking either as a function of positive or negative emotions? Isn’t it by now an empirical fact that human animals are innately inclined to move away from aversive stimulation? Doesn’t NVB, in which the speaker’s voice is perceived by the listener as a negative stimulus, make the listener want to move away from the observed data, from what is said? Isn’t SVB, in which the speaker’s voice is perceived by the listener as an appetitive stimulus, the only response class which should be considered as scientific speech, and shouldn’t NVB be seen as unscientific speech? Isn’t it important for the behaviorist to speak, to be listened to and to be understood? Shouldn’t the serious attempts to emit a scientific language have made behaviorists embrace SVB as their only way of communicating, because NVB is always elicited? How far can we really say that behaviorists have extended their interest in language to their own way of talking? Is it scientific to equate scientific language only with written and not with spoken language?

March 16, 2016

March 16, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Humble Behaviorism” Neuringer (1991) writes about research that was done by Herrnstein (1984), in which pigeons were trained to respond to projections of slides with people in them. The pigeons even responded appropriately to pictures of people they had never before seen. “In an extension of this work, after pigeons were trained to respond on one key to music by Bach and another key to music by Stravinsky, they generalized in ways analogous to people: they responded to the Bach key when probe pieces by Telemann or Buxtehude and the Stravinsky key when music by Eliot Carter was played (Porter & Neuringer, 1984).” This is very interesting research corroborating the generalization which goes on in human interaction. Certain people have substantially more Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) instances in any given verbal episode than others, who have more Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) instances in any given verbal episode. I read in another paper (I don’t recall which one), that it was found that as discrimination increases generalization decreases. This explains why someone like me, who discovered, due to a large amount of SVB instances in his behavioral history the distinction between SVB and NVB, only wishes to continue with SVB, whereas those who had a lot of NVB instances in their behavioral history, basically only want to continue with NVB. This explains SVB and NVB from a respondent perspective.     

March 15, 2016

March 15, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Humble Behaviorism” Neuringer (1991) writes “Contingency thinking may also influence overt behaviors. If I want to decrease candy eating, I say to myself at the point of temptation, “If I eat a candy-bar now, that will increase the probability that I eat another one tomorrow. Do I want to do that to myself?”” Too much candy-eating is bad and any kind of self-talk that supports too much candy-eating is can be construed as negative self-talk. Such negative private speech is the result of our exposure to and our involvement in negative public speech. Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) public speech causes NVB private speech. The only way to change NVB private speech is to be more often involved in SVB public speech. This  results in more SVB private speech, in self-talk that stimulates moderation of candy-eating. If we look at candy-eating in terms of how private speech is related to public speech, we recognize that candy-eating is negatively reinforced by and functionally related to NVB public speech. Thus, “The covert query, “If this behavior – then what consequence?””, occurs as we were conditioned by NVB. Such a query wouldn’t even be necessary and therefore wouldn’t occur, if we were more often exposed to and involved in SVB. Any kind of self-talk about improving ourselves can be explained as NVB covert speech which is function of NVB overt speech. Probabilities of SVB and NVB will change due to our knowledge of the SVB/NVB distinction.   

March 14, 2016

March 14, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Humble Behaviorism” Neuringer (1991) writes “discriminative responses to these “subjective” states would be useful in an experimental analysis of behavior.” He is referring to verbal reports about covert responses, such as “feeling depressed” and “having an intention or goal.” Then, he states that “Often the behavior analysist is not in a position to experience the conditions leading to the purported emotion, thought, rumination, feeling or the like.” The reason why most behavior analysists, but also everybody else, is often not in a position to experience such conditions is because of their way of talking, which limits their thinking. With Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) behaviorists will be able to gather more accurate verbal reports on human subjects, because they talk in a non-threatening way, but in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) speakers don’t empathize with the listeners and are not in a position to think about the contingencies that gave rise to the thoughts and feelings of the listeners. “Discrimination training” must happen on the side of the researcher: “Contingency thinking” involves practices in which researchers talk out loud with themselves and say “If my sound expresses stress and fear, then I acquire negative private speech” and “If this is true for me, then this is may also be true for others” and “If I bring out negative private speech into public speech, then I find what caused me to feel this way. Is this also true for others?”

March 13, 2016

March 13, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Humble Behaviorism” Neuringer (1991) writes “Meaning is based on discrimination of differences: If everything is “x” then “x” is meaningless.” The fact that behaviorist classify “both mental and physical under the single rubric of behavior” doesn’t necessarily “weaken the term” as it allows behaviorists to “show why it is functional to hypothesize similarities between overt (or “physical”) and covert (or “mental”) behaviors. However, the critics are correct that something meaningful is missing: the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

We can talk about behavior in a SVB or in a NVB fashion and these are two entirely different ways of talking. In SVB we connect with each other, but in NVB we disconnect from each other. Thus, it is functional to “hypothesize about the similarities between overt and covert behaviors” only in a SVB manner, but not in a NVB manner. In SVB it is meaningful to hypothesize about similarities between overt and covert behaviors, but in NVB it is utterly meaningless. As spoken communication is considered to be less important than written publications, behaviorists and non-behaviorists alike overemphasize the latter, but underestimate the importance of the former. By writing about it, “humble agnosticism” is not going to restore the importance of spoken communication. Thus, it is not the adherence to a theoretical position, but the overemphasis on writing which prevents SVB.