February 18, 2015

February 18, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing is about the bad attitudes that people still have about the way in which they communicate. From a natural perspective, no individual has ever possessed any such thing as a bad attitude. Such an agential explanation has no scientific value whatsoever. It hasn’t, didn’t and couldn’t bring us any closer to describing and thus communicating, the scientific behavior, which only becomes possible to the extent that we no longer adhere to the superstitious patterns of behavior, which are the inevitable remnants of multiple pre-scientific cultural contingencies.

Because the scientific account of verbal behavior, like evolution by natural selection, is so often pushed aside by those who are unfamiliar with it, who, therefore, enforce their pseudo-explanations, that people continue with all sorts of nonsense, which a  heart-surgeon, civil engineer or baker could never afford. Heart operations would fail, bridges would collapse, and we would go hungry, as nobody knew how to bake a bread. Although we have become scientific about many things, there continue to be so many conflicts, because we are unscientific about how we communicate. 

Even if our scientific descriptions in terms of having a predisposition “refer to nervous-system parts that have the particular structures, from genetic or past conditioning that, when energy traces from the relevant evocative stimuli reach them, readily mediate the particular behavior patterns that we call attitudes” (Ledoux, 2014, p. 420), such explanations didn’t and couldn’t improve our communication and human relationships. 

It goes without saying that there is a neural basis for our verbal behavior, but it makes more sense, if, during our conversations, rather than in our writings, we would “define the term attitude as a verbal-shortcut term for particular behavior patterns that stimuli, thematically-related to the behavior pattern, evoke and consequate, with the theme appearing in the name of the attitude” (Ledoux, 2014, p. 420). By talking about attitude in this way, the notion of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) as two subsets of verbal behavior becomes relevant. The former can be described as a positive attitude and the latter as a negative attitude. We are talking here about the attitude of the speaker.

Stated differently, SVB refers to the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with positive reinforcement. On the contrary, NVB refers to the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. The common discrepancy between saying and doing, found when researchers ask in verbal survey questions about the participant’s nonverbal behavior, is an artifact of NVB. SVB sets the stage for congruence between saying and doing, whereas NVB predicts incongruence between these two. 

 

When researchers would ask and participants would understand the question, not in a printed survey, but in a conversation: “What is the predicted extent of any evocative effects of such and such conditions or circumstances on ‘your’ behavior” (Ledoux, 2014, p. 421), there would be a situation in which a speaker asks a listener how he or she would respond if the speaker speaks in a particular kind of way. The presence of the speaker has a different, more immediate, evocative effect on the listener, than the presence of the writer-researcher, who is asking the reader to write to a researcher, who is neither seen nor heard.

February 17, 2015

February 17, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

The situation that sets the stage for spoken communication is different from culture to culture. As individuals from different cultures become exposed to unfamiliar contingencies, they soon realize what is punished in one culture is reinforced in another.  In addition to phylogenetic (caused by evolutionary processes) and ontogenetic (caused by processes occurring during an organism's life time) processes, B.F. Skinner pointed to culture as the third component to be considered in explaining behavior. 

This writer stimulates the reader to consider the different sounds of these different cultures. German sounds different from Hindi and Russian sounds different from English. However, we can also find similarities in how different cultures sound. This is where the distinction between Sound and Noxious Verbal Behavior as two subsets of verbal behavior becomes important. It doesn’t matter whether we speak Hindi or Russian, Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) refers to the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with positive reinforcement. In both  English and German, however, Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) refers to the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. It is pragmatic to consider SVB and NVB as languages from different cultures, because they too occur in different environments. A hospital, in which nurses and doctors are trying to take care of patients, is a different communication environment as a battlefield on which soldiers are trying to kill each other. We have not been able to see similarities in cultures, because our differences between SVB and NVB inevitably got personal. That is, SVB and NVB explain human verbal behavior at the level of the individual organism.  

Although different topics, such as work, art, science, politics, family, finances or sports, may characterize our spoken conversation, limited interaction is possible when people don’t speak the same language, that is, when they don’t sound the same. Swedish sounds don’t make any sense to a French person who has never been exposed to Swedish sounds. 

The same stimulus generalization principle that is involved in teaching a child to say “dog” to a German shepherd as well as to a Chihuahua, is at work in learning to speak a different language than one’s native language. In learning to say “dog”, in the presence of relatively different-looking creatures, the child responds, however, to the similarities. Thus, the child learns different concepts such as tool, food and transportation. Although a hammer looks very different than a saw, a hammer and a saw are tacted as a “tool”, because of what we use them for. Likewise, the common element class “as something eatable” evokes our ability to discriminate apple, bread and candy as “food.” However, "as research with nonverbal pigeons has often demonstrated, verbal behavior is not necessarily involved in such conceptual behavior" (Martin & Pear, 2007, p. 106). The principle of behavioral continuity is illustrated by the fact that pigeons can easily be taught to respond to concepts such as “fish” or “human.” Thus, when a child responds with “fish” upon hearing words such as shark, sardine and whale or seeing pictures of these, this child has learned “to emit the appropriate response to all the members of a stimulus common-element class and does not emit that response to stimuli that do not belong to that class” (Martin & Pear, 2007, p. 106). 

   

As long as the distinction between SVB and NVB has not been made, we are not fully verbal, that is, we are not showing the conceptual behavior that is necessary to call a spade a spade. Although we do have a vague  notion of them as subsets of verbal behavior, as evidenced by sayings such as: it is not what you say but how you say it, we often mistake NVB for SVB. The stimulus common-element class of NVB and SVB can only be correctly discriminated if we listen to how we sound while we speak. 

Voice I is the common element in NVB and Voice II is the common element in SVB. Voice I is called Voice I, because we will not be able to recognize Voice II without first identifying Voice I. Our mistake to view NVB as SVB is based on our unfulfilled need for peace, safety, stability and support, which functions as Establishing Operations for NVB. Unless we discriminate that the stimulus classes that comprise our negative and our positive experiences (regardless of our phylogenetic, ontogenetic or cultural heritage) always, everywhere and under all circumstances sound very different, we continue to mistake SVB for NVB and visa versa. 

SVB and NVB are two important equivalence classes which can be easily learned. What is needed is matching-to-sample. Only SVB can reinforce SVB and only SVB can shed light on NVB. In a simple stimulus equivalence experiment, a child may be taught during a couple trials to match number 2 with a picture of two ducks on it. In a second number of trials, the child is then reinforced for matching the picture of the two ducks with the word “two.” During the third trial the child will be tested to see if it has learned the equivalence class. If the child matches the word “two” with the number 2 then “members of this equivalence class are functionally equivalent in the sense that they all control the same behavior” (Martin & Pear, 2007, p. 106). We do more matching-to-sample training for NVB than SVB, because we don’t know SVB. We acquired equivalence classes, but don't see the negative consequences of stimulus generalization. “When a new behavior becomes conditioned to one member of an equivalence class, that behavior is likely to be controlled by other members of the class without explicit training” (Martin & Pear, 2007, p. 108). 

SVB and NVB are concepts which tell us about how we communicate. NVB has Voice I in common and SVB has Voice II in common. However, what we say in NVB pertains to the same equivalence class. What we say in SVB refers to an entirely different, for many new, way of communicating. As SVB is reinforced it will last longer. Its newness is proportional to the extent that it lasts longer than the previous time. Although most of us can recognize components of SVB, we have not experienced repeated trials in which components came together and stayed together for a longer time. For this we must arrange lab-like conditions in which we control for NVB. This will only be done if we see the need for it and the potential of it. 

Generalization is said to fail when the child says “doggie” to a hairy four-legged creature in the presence of a cat. Similarly, generalization fails as long as we accept as normal the way of communicating to which we are used, which we have come to expect and which we reinforce: NVB, in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. It is necessary that we teach discriminations and that we stop reinforcing aggressive or passive aggressive communication as a way of communicating. Although NVB is verbal behavior, as it is Noxious, listeners are aversively controlled by it and are bound to respond to it with some form of counter-control, escape or avoidance. 

Only SVB, in which the speaker controls the listener with positive reinforcement, is to be tacted as real communication. That is, SVB must be differentiated from NVB, because it is a different subset of verbal behavior. NVB may be better tacted as coercion, aggression, domination, exploitation, intimidation, but not as communication. A dog is not a cat.

February 16, 2015

February 16, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Summed up, in NVB the speaker is *outward oriented, *verbally fixated and *struggling for the listener’s attention. In SVB, on the other hand, because the speaker listen’s to his or her own voice, while he or she speaks, he or she is conscious about how he or she impacts the listener.  SVB is conscious communication, but NVB is unconscious communication.

Conscious communication is made possible by the fact that speaking and listening happen simultaneously in the here and now and at the same rate and intensity level. Moreover, because of the speaker’s awareness of his or her instrument of sound, of his or her body, the listener experiences the congruence between what is said and how it is said. The alignment of verbal and nonverbal expressions of the speaker will effortlessly evoke understanding in the listener, because the listener is not (as is the case in NVB) listening to an aversive-sounding, attention-grabbing speaker. 

Another way of putting this is that in SVB there is coherence between the saying and doing of the speaker. In NVB there is a mismatch between the verbal and the nonverbal expressions of the speaker. This mismatch is  dominating and straining the attention of the listener. Consequently, NVB is always effortful, while SVB is effortless. In NVB the speaker exploits the listener, whose job is merely to applaud and admire the speaker. 

Although, there are differences between employer and employee, parent and child, teacher and student, in SVB, there is no hierarchical difference between the speaker and the listener, and, consequently, there can be turn-taking. In NVB, on the other hand, turn-taking is impossible and so the speaker remains a speaker and the listener remains confined to being a listener. Although the illusion is often created by NVB speakers that one day the listener will also be praised and recognized as a speaker, this is only done in order to maintain dominance. Listeners who grow up with mainly NVB become NVB speakers. We are NVB speakers because of how we grew up. Sadly, most of us had very little SVB. Although we may have received aspects of SVB while growing up, it was never given to us in a deliberate, knowledgeable, consistent and skillful manner. More familiarity with SVB will occur as we acknowledge that it is natural to have it. When we enjoy our relationships and feel safe and at easy, SVB will increase. 

        

The issue of the speaker-as-own-listener versus other-as-speaker-listener has not been properly understood. Since the former makes the latter possible, the speaker-as-own-listener is necessary to have relationship. Problems are created as we over value the other-as-speaker-listener, which excludes the speaker-as-own-listener. How can we expect to have good relationships, if NVB prevents us from being conscious of ourselves?


NVB is ubiquitous because there is more reinforcement for it. There is not enough reinforcement for SVB because we don’t know how to reinforce it. The dominance of NVB can be compared to a food-addiction. Although we know we shouldn’t eat so much, we become obese because we don’t realize of what our eating-behavior is a function. Likewise, we don't know of what our NVB is a function. Unless we know that we can't stop it. We haven't stopped it because we didn't know that. What we believed to cause our behavior didn't cause our behavior. The 'self", which presumably explains our behavior, didn't explain anything and has only perpetuated our NVB.

 

Different types of reinforcement are believed to be involved in SVB and NVB. Direct reinforcement and automatic reinforcement are strikingly different, in that in the former another person is always needed. During automatic reinforcement, however, the mediation of the consequences by another organism is not required, but during direct reinforcement, the consequence for behavior is reinforcement delivered by another organism. 


In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the other person is always needed for reinforcement, but Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) can be automatically reinforcing and another person is not always required. In SVB, the speaker produces a reinforcing stimulus, a sound, which is reinforced by the presence of a reinforcing stimulus, that is, another sound, which is the continuation of and an attunement with the previous sound. 

As NVB is never automatically reinforcing, others are always needed to reinforce it. Therefore, one conspicuous aspect about NVB is that the speaker always attracts and demands the attention of the listener. Moreover, in NVB, the speaker holds, directs and diverts the listener’s attention. NVB refers to all the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with and aversive contingency. 

Since most of our spoken communication is NVB, we experience talking usually as something that is energy-consuming. SVB is experienced as energizing, because it is simultaneously reinforced by others while it is automatically reinforcing for the speaker. Stated differently, in NVB speakers are not stimulated by their own voice, but by the attention which they are receiving from their listeners. Moreover, during NVB, speakers have no idea about how they sound or what the impact of their way of communicating is on the listener. 


During SVB, on the other hand, the speaker knows that he or she sounds good and feels good about the way in which he or she speaks. In SVB the speaker is conscious of what he or she says and how he or she says it, but in NVB, the speaker is unaware of how others feel, because he or she is only interested in getting the listener to do what he or she wants them to do. No matter how much others listen to and obey the NVB speaker, such a speaker is never satisfied with the attention that he or she is receiving, because he or she is not aware of how he or she sounds. Therefore, NVB speakers lack the experience of automatic reinforcement and will abuse listeners with their incessant demand for attention.  

February 15, 2015

February 15, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This paper describes the notion of Sound and Noxious Verbal Behavior as two subsets of verbal behavior. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) refers to the verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with positive reinforcement. On the contrary, Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) refers to all verbal episodes in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. During spoken communication, these subsets are caused and maintained by a different sound of our voice. SVB can simply be said to be caused by Voice I and NVB is caused by Voice II. SVB and NVB are called that way because we can learn to recognize these subsets by how we sound.  

From one moment to the next speakers produce SVB or NVB. Although speakers express SVB or NVB, there are conversations in which one or the other continues for a period of time. Thus, in some conversations there is hardly any SVB, while in others there is a lot. Absence or presence of SVB signifies presence or absence of NVB. These mutually exclusive patterns of verbal behavior determine different outcomes for the listener. During episodes in which the SVB speaker controls the behavior of the listener with positive reinforcement, the listener is stimulated to become a SVB speaker as well. In SVB the speaker and the listener are always mutually reinforcing each other. In NVB, by contrast, the benefits only accrue to the speaker, who, because of his or her hierarchical status, is allowed to and even expected to dominate, exploit and oppress the listener. In NVB, the listener has to and is often made to listen to the speaker. Moreover, in NVB the listener must listen to the speaker, that is, to the speaker who is not the listener, but when this listener speaks, this will prevent him or her from being a speaker-as-own-listener. 

During SVB the speaker is also his or her own listener. The sound of a SVB speaker’s voice is automatically reinforcing to the extent that it was also reinforced by others. Stated in a different way, in SVB the speaker (like a musician, who listens to and enjoys the sound of his or her own instrument) is able to continue to listen to his or her sound while he or she speaks. Thus, during SVB the listener who is different from the speaker listens to the speaker, who listens to his or her own voice while he or she speaks and who is therefore effortlessly understood.  

During NVB the speaker is not listening to his or her own sound while he or she speaks. To the contrary, the NVB speaker wants and coerces others to listen to him or to her. Stated differently, the other-as-speaker-listener is considered to be more important than the speaker-as-own-listener in NVB. The latter has nothing to do with a self as a behavior-causing inner agent. The speaker-as-own-listener occurs when the speaker and the listener are one and the same person. The other-as-speaker-listener occurs when the speaker and the listener are different persons.

When the other-as-speaker-listener excludes the speaker-as-own-listener, our spoken communication becomes a struggle for attention. Thus, NVB is characterized by the *outward orientation of both the speaker as well as the listener, which is caused by the exclusion of the speaker-as-own-listener by the speaker. In SVB, by contrast, the speaker-as-own-listener includes the other-as-speaker-listener and makes other-as-speaker-listening possible and effective. Consequently, in SVB, the *struggle for attention, which is characteristic for NVB, is totally absent. 


A third property of the NVB speaker is his or her *verbal fixation on what is being said. His or her lack of attention for how he or she speaks, that is, the inability to listen while he or she speaks, always co-occurs with *outward orientation and *struggle for attention.  These three habits (*outward orientation, *struggle for attention and *verbal fixation) change the sound of our voice and cause us to have NVB. It is only in the absence of these three interrelated habits that we will attain SVB.