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," which is what we often refer to when we study linguistics.

Skinner explains how words and sentences are controlled and shaped. 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 how we use language.

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

Origins

The book Verbal Behavior began from a set of talks given by B. F. Skinner at the University of Minnesota in the early 1940s. He continued to develop these ideas in summer lectures at Columbia University and in the William James lectures at Harvard University during the ten years before the book was published.

Research

B. F. Skinner's ideas about verbal behavior were inspired by ways people study literature, and this approach has kept inspiring new studies. Although Skinner's book mostly presents theories without many experiments, many scientists have since done research and created new applications based on his work.

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 are shaped by 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 a response, like saying a word, is strong. He suggested looking at a few things: whether the response happens, how strong it is, how fast it is, and how many times it is repeated.

• Emission – If a response happens, it might seem strong. But this is a simple yes-or-no measure and doesn’t show how strong it is.
• Energy-level – How strong or powerful the response is can show its strength. For example, saying "Water!" loudly and clearly shows more strength than saying it quietly.
• Speed – How quickly a response happens after a prompt can also show its strength. A fast response suggests a strong tendency to respond.
• Repetition – Saying something many times, like "Water! Water! Water!", can also 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 a type of talking or acting that happens when someone wants something, like when they are hungry or need help. It is usually a request or command, such as asking for milk or telling someone to open a door.

A study by Lamarre & Holland in 1985 showed how these wants and needs can affect what people ask for. They helped people learn to ask for things they needed to finish certain 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 based on what we see or experience around us. 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 makes it easier for friends to understand what you are talking about. Tacts are important because they help us talk about the world and get things we want by sharing what we know.

Intraverbal

Intraverbals are a type of talking that is guided by other talking. Scientists often study intraverbals by looking at how ideas connect to each other in classic ways.

Audiences

People learn how to talk and behave in front of others through rewards and consequences over time. When we speak to someone, 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

The following table shows the new ways of talking that were studied in the analysis of verbal behavior.

Verbal operants as a unit of analysis

B. F. Skinner described different ways people communicate, calling them things like "mands" and "tacts." He explained that how we understand these actions depends on the situation. For example, shouting "fire!" could mean different things based on where and when you say it.

Skinner said that just grouping these actions together isn’t enough. To really understand them, we need to look at why and how they happen, using the same careful methods scientists use to study behavior.

Multiple causation

In this chapter, Skinner explains that a person's reaction is often influenced by many different factors at once. He also points out that one factor can affect many different reactions. The book also talks about how having more than one person listening or watching can change how someone behaves, since each person might encourage different responses.

Supplementary stimulation

Supplementary stimulation talks about practical ways to guide how people talk, using what we learned before. It looks at how different things can affect speech at the same time and talks about many basic actions we’ve already talked 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, though this might change depending on how a person checks their own speech. These unusual mixes can sometimes sound silly and not help the conversation. One example of this 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 kind 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 kinds of words to learn more about how we communicate.

Self-strengthening

In this part, the writer talks about how people can help themselves to remember and use words better. Sometimes, we might forget a name or struggle with a new language. 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 gives an example of how someone might use these ideas to improve.

Logical and scientific

This part talks about people who care about taking 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 experiencing 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. However, understanding these private events is important for learning about how people communicate.

Chomsky's review and replies

In 1959, Noam Chomsky wrote a well-known review of Verbal Behavior. He explained that children learn their first language without being directly taught in the way that behaviorist theories suggest. He also noted that Skinner's ideas about behavior and learning could not explain how people can say and 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. One response to Chomsky's review came in 1970 from Kenneth MacCorquodale, who felt that Chomsky did not fully understand behaviorist psychology or the differences in Skinner's ideas. MacCorquodale thought Chomsky made some logical mistakes and did not accurately represent Skinner's work. Chomsky, however, felt his review showed problems with how Skinner's ideas were being used in certain areas of study.

Current research

Researchers continue to study ideas from verbal behavior today. They share their findings in special journals like The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. They also talk about their work at meetings and conferences.

Some journals also have articles about ways to help people learn to talk better using these ideas. Experts have been working with these concepts for many years and are still learning more about how people generate new words and sentences.