Verbal Behavior

Verbal Behavior

"Verbal Behavior" is a book written in 1957 by the psychologist B. F. Skinner. In this book, Skinner talks about how people use words and language. He calls this "verbal behavior."

Skinner explains how words and sentences are shaped and controlled. He uses special terms to describe different ways we speak and understand each other. Some of these terms include "echoics," "mands," and "tacts." These help us think more clearly about language.

He also looks at who we are talking to, calling this the "audience." By studying verbal behavior, Skinner wanted to understand the rules that guide our use of words. His ideas have influenced many areas, from psychology to education.

Origins

The book Verbal Behavior started from talks given by B. F. Skinner at the University of Minnesota in the early 1940s. He kept working on these ideas in summer lectures at Columbia University and in the William James lectures at Harvard University for ten years before the book was published.

Research

B. F. Skinner's ideas about verbal behavior came from how people study literature. His work has inspired many new studies. Even though Skinner's book has mostly theories and few experiments, scientists have used his ideas to do research and create new applications.

Functional analysis

B. F. Skinner's book Verbal Behavior talks about how we talk and communicate. He introduced ideas like the autoclitic and six basic ways people speak: mand, tact, audience relation, echoic, textual, and intraverbal. Skinner believed we should study behavior by looking at what happens around us, not by guessing about thoughts inside our heads. He thought we should focus on how our words change based on what happens after we speak. The book has five parts with 19 chapters. The first chapter explains that talking is shaped by what we hear and what happens next, not by special skills we are born with. Skinner also looks at other ways people have tried to understand talking and then explains his own ideas. This approach was inspired by Ernst Mach's practical way of studying physics.

General problems

B. F. Skinner talked about how to tell if saying a word is strong. He suggested looking at a few things: whether you say it, how strong you say it, how fast you say it, and how many times you say it.

• Emission – If you say a word, it might seem strong. But this is a simple yes-or-no way to check and doesn’t show how strong it is.
• Energy-level – How loud and clear you say a word can show its strength. For example, saying "Water!" loudly and clearly shows more strength than saying it quietly.
• Speed – How quickly you say something after someone asks can also show its strength. A fast answer suggests a strong tendency to respond.
• Repetition – Saying something many times, like "Water! Water! Water!", can show that the response is strong, compared to saying it just once quickly or loudly.

Mands

Main article: Mand (psychology)

In B. F. Skinner's book Verbal Behavior, he talks about something called a mand. A mand is when someone speaks or acts because they want something. For example, when they are hungry or need help. It is usually a request, like asking for milk or telling someone to open a door.

A study by Lamarre & Holland in 1985 showed how people's wants can change what they ask for. They helped people learn to ask for things they needed to finish tasks.

Behavior under the control of verbal stimuli

B. F. Skinner talked about how words and sounds can guide our actions and speech. One way this happens is through reading or writing, which he called textual behavior. This means our spoken words are guided by something we see but do not hear, like looking at a book and saying what we see.

Skinner also studied how repeating sounds helps us learn language. He called this echoic behavior. It happens when we hear a word and then say it back, like when a teacher says a new word and asks us to repeat it. This helps us learn new words and languages by listening and copying.

Tacts

Main article: Tact (psychology)

In the book Verbal Behavior, a "tact" is a way we describe things we see or experience. It helps us share what we notice with others. For example, when you see a red apple and say, "apple," you are using a tact. This helps friends understand what you are talking about. Tacts are important because they help us talk about the world and share what we know.

Intraverbal

Intraverbals are a kind of talking that is led by other talking. Scientists study intraverbals by seeing how ideas link together in usual ways.

Audiences

People learn how to talk and behave with others by getting rewards or consequences. When we speak, our words might be rewarded or punished, which changes how we speak next time. This helps us know what to say to different people.

Sometimes, we meet people who do not like certain things we say. These are called negative audiences. For example, a child might learn not to say certain words around adults, or a king might stop people from speaking in certain ways. This means we change our words to fit the person we are talking to.

Summary of verbal operants

This table shows new ways of talking studied in the analysis of verbal behavior.

Verbal operants as a unit of analysis

B. F. Skinner talked about different ways people communicate, using names like "mands" and "tacts." He said that what we think these actions mean can change depending on where and when they happen. For example, shouting "fire!" means something different if you say it in a school or at a campfire.

Skinner believed that just putting these actions in groups isn’t enough. To understand them better, we should look at why and how they happen, using careful steps like scientists do.

Multiple causation

In this chapter, Skinner explains that a person's reaction is often shaped by many different things happening at the same time. He also says that one thing can lead to many different reactions. The book also talks about how having more than one person around can change how someone acts, because each person might encourage different responses.

Supplementary stimulation

Supplementary stimulation shows us simple ways to help guide how people talk. It uses what we already know. We’ll see how many different things can shape the way we speak all at once. We’ll also look at many basic actions we’ve already learned about.

New combinations of fragmentary responses

Sometimes, people mix up small parts of what they want to say, creating new and unusual ways of speaking. These mixes are usually spoken words. They can sometimes sound silly and not help the conversation. One example is when someone accidentally says something they didn’t mean to. This can happen more often with children or adults learning a new language. Tiredness, being sick, or not feeling well can also make these mixes more likely.

Autoclitics

Main article: Autoclitic

An autoclitic is a special way of talking that changes how strong other words are. For example, when someone says, "I think it is raining," the words "I think" make the statement about the rain a little less certain. This helps show how sure or unsure a person is when they speak. Researchers have studied these words to learn more about how we talk to each other.

Self-strengthening

Here, we learn how people can help themselves remember and use words better. Sometimes, we might forget a name or find a new language hard. To get better, we can repeat things, like saying a poem out loud, or change how we feel about what we’re learning. The writer shows an example of how someone might use these ideas to improve.

Logical and scientific

This part talks about people who want to take action that works well. It encourages using special ways to control responses, like using graphs, models, and tables, to help make things clearer and more effective. The logical and scientific group also works to make sure answers are accurate and not twisted. Even though not much has changed in science from this point of view, some ideas for future research have been suggested.

Tacting private events

Private events are things that only the person feeling them can notice, like a headache. Public events are things that happen outside of a person's body and can be seen by others, like a car accident.

When people talk about their private events, it is shaped by the people around them. For example, if a child says, "I have a toothache," they are talking about something only they can feel. It can be harder for others to help shape how someone talks about private events because these events cannot be seen or felt by others. But, understanding these private events is important for learning about how people communicate.

Chomsky's review and replies

In 1959, Noam Chomsky wrote a famous review of Verbal Behavior. He said that children learn their first language without being taught in the way behaviorist theories suggest. He also said that Skinner's ideas about behavior could not explain how people can understand new sentences they have never heard before.

Frederick J. Newmeyer said that Chomsky's review became very important for the field of cognitive psychology. In 1970, Kenneth MacCorquodale replied to Chomsky. He thought Chomsky did not fully understand behaviorist psychology or Skinner's ideas. MacCorquodale believed Chomsky made some mistakes and did not accurately describe Skinner's work. Chomsky felt his review showed problems with how Skinner's ideas were used in some areas of study.

Current research

Scientists are still studying ideas about how people talk. They write about their discoveries in special books such as The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. They also discuss their work at meetings and talks.

Some of these books also have stories about how to help people learn to talk better using these ideas. Experts have been studying these concepts for many years and are still finding out more about how people create new words and sentences.