October 29, 2016

October 29, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my fourth response to “The Power of the Word May Reside in the Power of Affect” (2007) by Jaak Panksepp. I respond to Panksepp’s important work as it sheds light on the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).

“All mammals are born with brain potentials that elaborate many positive and negative emotional processes that guide the developmental trajectory of language acquisition.” Anyone familiar with the SVB/NVB distinction recognizes that “primary-processes” such as PLAY/joy and CARE/nurturance are only expressed in SVB, while PANIC/separation distress and FEAR/threat are only expressed during NVB.

Panksepp’s “primary processes” teaches us that SVB is of crucial importance “in motivating the inter-subjective dance between mother and child,” while NVB always disrupts this bond. “Social brains/minds” simply can’t develop if there is too little SVB and too much NVB.

Normal brain development promotes “programming of linguistic prosody within right hemispheres of developing children” and “analytic-cognitive attributes, including various delusional potentials of language” promote “left hemispheric dominance.” Panksepp considers “primary emotional processes” as the sources of “such cerebral specialization,” but it is the sound of the mother’s voice which stimulates these processes.

Depending on her rate of SVB, the mother will induce PLAY and CARE in her child, but depending on her rate of NVB, she will induce FEAR and PANIC. Thus, only SVB stimulates the appropriate use of language, while NVB will always stimulate the “delusional potentials of language.”   

October 28, 2016

October 28, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my third response to “The Power of the Word May Reside in the Power of Affect” (2007) by Jaak Panksepp. I write to praise Panksepp for his “affective neuroscience conception of basic brain emotional systems and their potential role in cognitive development.” It is a fact that “basic brain emotional systems” exist, but I am aware how often these systems distort rather than facilitate “cognitive development.”

When we talk either positive or negative “affective intensity of emotions” arise from the “lower subcortical reaches of the brain.” It makes a big difference if positive or negative emotions are laying the foundation for our cognitive development since our earlier so-called development always sets the stage for our later troubled relationships.

I take Panksepp’s remark very serious that “Adherents of classical conditioning models of emotion have rarely sought to understand the nature of their affective unconditional stimuli.” I am talking about the sound of the speaker’s voice and how this sound affects the listener.

Panksepp entire scientific career is built on the replicated finding that “the human cognitive apparatus rides upon the integrity of many primary-process, subcortical attentional, emotional and motivational processes.” What I call Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is conscious and unconscious communication.

SVB and NVB are not determined by what we say, but by how we say it. “Children born with practically no cortico-cognitive apparatus still possess phenomenal consciousness and deeply emotional minds that are affectively rather than cognitively oriented.” Anyone can hear this.

October 27, 2016

October 27, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my second response to “The Power of the Word May Reside in the Power of Affect” (2007) by Jaak Panksepp. I agree with the author that there is a “synergistic but distinct scenario for the emotional basis of language” and I think we should all learn about this.

Whether we pay attention to it or not any kind of communication elicits positive or negative emotions. As long as we have to pretend as if this is not the case we basically disembody our communication. I call this dissociative way of talking Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). In NVB the speaker and the listener are always perceived as separate entities.

In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), however, the speaker and the listener are experienced as one, as each speaker is his or her own listener and hears him or herself while he or she speaks. During SVB we can have embodied communication as there is no threat to avoid or escape from.

As the speakers and the listeners in SVB are aware that production of sound and reception of sound occur in the here and now, a conscious way of communicating unfolds. In NVB, on the other hand, the speaker and the listener behave in mechanical ways. Hierarchical differences sets them apart while they engage in unconscious communication.

The conscious communication of positive emotions (SVB) is an “underdeveloped arena of thought”, while unconscious expression of negative emotions (NVB) is a big problem. SVB addresses and solves this problem. Mankind hasn’t been able to address this problem which has remained unresolved. Our problem is how we talk with each other.   

October 26, 2016

October 26, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Today I respond to “The Power of the Word May Reside in the Power of Affect” (2007) by Jaak Panksepp. I am grateful to this researcher who once responded very positively to me in an email. His friendly advice was to “keep tilting the soil of affective neuroscience.” I have read many of his papers and also his book “Affective Neuroscience”.

In this paper Panksepp agrees with Shanahan’s “emotion-based view of the evolutionary and developmental basis of language acquisition.” Of course, he mentions Shanahan’s views to support his own perspective. I write about Panksepp’s work to illustrate the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).

Panksepp states something unusual for a neuroscientist: “The transition from non-linguistic creatures to linguistic ones may have required the conjunction of social-affective brain mechanisms, morphological changes in the articulatory apparatus, an abundance of cross-modal cortical processing ability, and the initial urge to communicate in coordinate and prosodic gestural and vocal ways, which may have been more poetic and musical than current propositional language.”

Only SVB, which is mutually reinforcing, is based on this “initial urge to communicate”, but NVB is language that is without poetry and music. I appreciate this great neuroscientist and psychologist and I know that he suffered a great deal from the lack of recognition for his work.

Panksepp states “There may be no language instinct that is independent of the evolutionary pre-adaptations.” Panksepp, Shanahan and I argue against is the dominant “cognitive view of language”, which is based on “neocortically-based language modules” that are in denial of “primary-process emotional systems and the affective states they engender.”