October 1, 2016

October 1, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Anyone anywhere in the world in conversation with another human being can observe there are only two ways in which we talk: Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) or in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). There is no need to search for uniformity, for order or for lawful relations among these naturally occurring events. In any conversation there will be speakers who speak with listeners, who then take turns with these speakers or there will be speakers, who speak at listeners, who don’t take turns with these speakers, who are only supposed to do as they are told.

In SVB speakers and listeners experience that they are one, but in NVB, speakers and listeners struggle with one another as they are moving apart. Only if we take a listener’s perspective of the speaker, only if we as listeners observe and evaluate the tone of the speaker’s voice, will we be able to take note of these universal response classes.

We couldn’t be effective in our spoken communication as long as we haven’t identified the homogeneity of these two crucially important vocal verbal patterns. It is not because of NVB that human relationship is deeply troubled, it is because as we don’t recognize the difference between SVB and NVB that we constantly mistake one for the other.

A genuine science of spoken communication has seemed impossible to achieve as we keep mistaking NVB for SVB. However, once we, as listeners, acknowledge these mutually exclusive ways of speaking, we understand why and when, we, as speakers, were either able or unable to speak with these speakers. The SVB/NVB distinction explains why listeners become speakers who speak with or who speak at listeners.

The listener’s experience of our spoken communication will be altered by the SVB/NVB distinction. As listeners we will be able to trust what we hear and no longer deny what we hear. We have experienced a great deal of trouble as we couldn’t be true to what we heard. People make a big deal about being heard by others, but don’t realize the real issue is that we hear ourselves, that we listen to ourselves while we speak.

We listen to ourselves while we speak only in SVB, but not in NVB. In NVB we are not even allowed to listen to ourselves as we are forced to listen to others. This is the reason why there are so many problems in the world; NVB keeps tearing us apart and only SVB can connect us.

The SVB/NVB distinction brings us a new understanding. As we have not viewed our communication and psychological problems from this level of analysis we were unable to solve them. Moreover, as our attempts to solve our problems have failed over and over again, our rates of NVB have increased and our rates of SVB have decreased.

We all know what SVB is when we have it, but we have lost hope in the increase of SVB. All of this is because we assume relations between events which do not exist, which are forcefully imposed on our reality. Rather than learning about and implementing scientific rules, we apply a model of spoken communication that is based on the fiction that each individual is causing his or her own behavior. This model had disastrous consequences and is maintained by our forceful way of talking: NVB.

We cannot contemplate our way out of our communication problems and SVB is the only way in which we can effectively deal with each other as turn-taking speakers and listeners. Predictions rooted in our ignorance about NVB will only create more NVB, while predictions rooted in our experience of and understanding about SVB reliably create more SVB.

Only SVB allows us to prepare ourselves and each other for more SVB. As we know how to set the stage for it, we will achieve more SVB and we will control the conversation which is going to happen in the future. There is nothing magic or idealistic about this, it is beautiful science.

September 30, 2016

September 30, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Whether human beings will ever be able to deal with the facts of what happens when they talk with each other is determined by our ability to distinguish between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Many people who came to know about this distinction have said it clarified something they had been thinking about for a long time; it stimulates them to be scientific about their own way of talking.

Scientists investigate the reality which is misrepresented by popular opinion. They acknowledge that speakers influence listeners with the sound of their voice. This fact remained out of sight as it cannot be seen; it must be listened to. As the speaker is his or her own subject in SVB, he or she listens to him or herself while he or she speaks.

Listening to others couldn’t make anything clear about the SVB/NVB distinction. Instead of listening to others, we reject authority outside of us and we listen to ourselves. To know about the nature of human interaction we cannot rely on what authorities have said or are saying.

Scholarly writings about interaction are of no help to anyone as they take our attention away from the spoken communication which contains the facts. However, the SVB/NVB distinction brings us in contact with the facts; in SVB speakers aversively dominate listeners, but in NVB speakers and listeners mutually reinforce each other. Moreover, if we are going to be scientific about our interactions with one another, we have to recognize that even knowledge itself is of no use to us as it distracts the speaker from listening to him or herself. Anything that interferes with this process prevents our own formulation of SVB.  

The more we know about the SVB/NVB distinction, the more we realize that although we would like to have SVB, fact is that we are constantly engaged in NVB. Only a scientist will accept such a rather painful fact. Whether they know it or not, unscientific people seek to fulfill their wishes to have SVB by believing that peace can be achieved by war.

The high rates of NVB, which can be observed everywhere, are not because man is innately such a brute beast, but because we haven’t yet developed the skills which will make SVB possible.  In the same way that math can be learned, SVB can be learned. SVB is peaceful and NVB is war, but we cannot believe and imagine our way to having SVB.

If we achieve SVB it will not be because we wished for it. We wish for all sorts of things only during NVB. Scientific endeavor is not beholden to our wishful thinking. Although science has always put a high price on intellectual honesty, it has not yet made a point of emotional honesty. The SVB/NVB distinction considers emotional honesty more important than intellectual honesty as the former makes the latter possible.

SVB is needed to realize that intellectual honesty doesn’t guarantee emotional honesty, but emotional honesty guarantees intellectual honesty. Presumably, scientists are also interested in results which do not confirm their theory, but, due to the way in which they talk, few are able to admit that they are emotionally biased to their own theory.

As scientists constantly engage in NVB they cannot be honest with themselves. The feelings of the scientist are an important subject matter to be investigated. Only SVB can make scientists intellectually and emotionally honest. Staying with the facts pertaining to human interaction requires a procedure not as blunt and ineffective as NVB.

Once we learn about the SVB/NVB distinction it is apparent that SVB supports and NVB prevents progress. We haven’t yet figured this out as we have elevated written descriptions over spoken descriptions of facts. This disaster continues to discourage the exploration of spoken while it occurs. No matter what the facts are, we still need to talk.  

September 29, 2016

September 29, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

When we extend the methods of science to our spoken communication it is easy to forget that the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) was made possible by the ordinary conversation between scientifically informed communicators. The results of such an interaction is different from those obtained by politicians, philosophers, believers, poets, business people and artists.

I was able to gain knowledge about spoken communication just like a biologist, a chemist or a mathematician would; I studied this topic for years and read many books about it. However, the biggest difference between me and other researchers is that I have been and continue to be my own subject. The essence of the SVB remains concealed from most other scientists as they refuse to experiment on themselves.  

Without being one’s own subject behavioral scientists as well as other scientists will not be able to fathom the importance of the SVB/NVB distinction which clarifies what many ‘great’ thinkers have thought about, but were unable to figure out. My writings, my accumulated knowledge, are not science itself, but are the products of my science.

Although measurement instruments like video and audio recordings can be used for certain purposes, they are useless for when it comes to our spoken communication. If we want to know the SVB/NVB distinction we must begin to use our own voice and our own ears. Our own voices and our own ears are more important than the devices we have used that have improved our observation of our world. The science of spoken communication depends on how we speak and listen, on our attitudes.  

September 28, 2016

September 28, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Although we don’t know about the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), we seem to agree to have a lot of NVB, but very little SVB. The little SVB we still have is meaningless. SVB is meaningful only to the extent that it is increasing, but unfortunately for the vast majority of us the opposite is true. 

Even if we were raised with fairly high rates of SVB, as we get older we have less and less of it. Only a scientific conception about our way of talking will increase the rate of SVB throughout our lives.  So many problems are created by NVB, but we haven’t done anything to stop it. 

Only when NVB stops can SVB begin. NVB was stopped at times, but never long enough to make us want SVB more than NVB. We never had enough SVB to notice these different ways of talking. Presumably, we are free and responsible individuals, but our NVB tells another story. 

What does our so-called freedom of speech mean if not a word is said about the importance of listening? In NVB the listener who is not him or herself the speaker is the only one who tries very hard to listen, but the speaker him or herself is not listening to him or herself at all. 

In SVB each speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. This natural phenomenon of speaking and listening simultaneously is seldom carefully examined. We may think we know it, but fact is that we don’t. 

Once people engage in SVB they realize how beautiful it is. We have had it, but we turned away from it as we knew from our own experience that positive behavior was punished. SVB happens at such low rates as there are not enough people who know how to reinforce it.   

September 27, 2016

September 27, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

I am convinced that we can have scientific spoken communication. I am not talking about improving spoken communication. I am only interested in what really works. Only SVB is scientific communication which works.

Our Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) has kept us ignorant about many things which have been known for years. It is disastrous what most human beings do is mainly decided by NVB, by unscientific behavior.

As long as we are not clear about what is spoken communication and what it is not we keep accepting as normal something which is abnormal. This is why NVB in which we are stressed, frustrated, anxious and defensive is more common than SVB in which we are happy and at ease.

We don’t have a well-defined theoretical understanding of our spoken communication. When we talk our sound has an effect on the listener. The speaker’s sound induces positive or negative affect in the listener.

How can we possible have a positive relationship if our sound induces negative feelings in the listener? It is impossible and to expect it to be possible is self-defeating. All our relationship problems are maintained by NVB in which the forceful voice of the speaker assaults the ears of the listener in an harsh attempt to dominate and oppress that listener. 

NVB occurs in hostile environments. As long as human beings continue to be impacted by stimuli which they perceive as threatening, they will produce NVB. Only if we create the environments in which listeners are affected by stimuli, by sounds of speakers, which they perceive as positive, will they be able to produce SVB. Once we agree on this point of view nothing stops us anymore from consistently engaging in SVB.