Talk:Verbal Behavior/Archive 1

Significance of Chomsky's critique of Verbal Behavior
I've made a small but important change to this sentence: Noam Chomsky's review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, [36] although considered by many to have largely missed the point of Skinner's work, [37] is considered, nonetheless, to have been widely influential. I changed "many" to "some". Even with that change, I think the sentence should stipulate that defenders of the book are themselves behaviorists.


 * Not at all relevant, really. Unless you define the defenders post-hoc as behaviorists it is almost certainly true that some "non-behaviorsts" think Chomsky is wrong. Are you suggesting otherwise? --Michaelrayw2 04:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * In the wiki entry to Relational Frame Theory it says almost the same thing as I do using the exact same citation. --Michaelrayw2 04:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Chomsky's opposition to the premises of this book, and to Skinnerian Behaviorism in general was an enormous contribution to the decline of the influence of Behaviorism. (The field is, tellingly, still only in active development in the areas to do with developmental disabilities such as autism, and to a lesser extent, with children and youth with maladaptive behaviors.)


 * Your point is of historical interest, not relevant to understanding VB. --Michaelrayw2 04:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The footnote attached to the claim of the "many" who considered Chomsky to have missed the point does not support it. The footnote links to a single riposte, and not to evidence of the alleged "many" individuals. And that riposte is one of a very small number of comprehensive treatments of Chomsky's critique – in fact, on various websites, it's hard to find a claim that Chomsky was rebuffed that *doesn't* link to that single piece. Skinner himself never made any substantive attempt to reply directly to Chomsky's criticisms.


 * Feel free to read the footnote. You recapitulate the very arguments made and answered in the paper. See the first paragraph in the second column on the first page. I paraphrase it. You repeat the argument about "not answered" which he replies to as incorrect. A single response is not proof that it is wrong due to its singularity. However this was not the only response. Skinner sites this paper in his paper/talk On Having A Poem essentially making it his response. What is your point and how does his help understand Skinner's book and not Chomsky's views? --Michaelrayw2 04:20, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

It is my view that there is not a significant number of articles or papers by anyone (outside of behavioural circles, and even inside them) that argue that Chomsky "missed the point". If that's true, then it is very important not to give the false impression that Chomsky's criticism of Verbal Behavior either did in fact "miss the point", or is seen by "many" to have done so. Any such claim should be demonstrated, or at least footnoted.


 * it is see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_Behavior_%28book%29#_note-36 You want to dismiss the footnote and then demand one. --Michaelrayw2 04:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

As well as this change, I would encourage future editors of this page to elucidate the impact of Chomky's detailed criticisms of this book. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.51.36 (talk) 05:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Earlier versions of this page consisted almost exclusively of "the impact of Chomky's detailed criticisms of this book" and no details of the book itself. Chomsky's paper is online and his position is well known. As Skinner has noted, "better known than the book itself". A link to Chomksy's paper is included and noted. That is more than generous considering that it sheds almost no light on the book it claims to review, in my opinion. --Michaelrayw2 03:57, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Larger context of book
It's a little strange that this page has a chapter-by-chapter detailed summary of the book, but very little on its wider reception and role in history. Most linguists who considered the book (and not just Chomsky, who was a very junior academic at the time) thought that it explained rather little about the systematic patternings of human language that had not already been explained before. Some consider that the book was an overall failure, which signalled the beginning of the end of the predominance of behavioralist / logical positivist / etc. influences in American academia. It certainly was the beginning of the end of the predominance of behavoralism / logical positivism / methodology-worship ("operationalism") / distributionalism / "biuniqueness" in linguistics. AnonMoos 03:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I know of a recent article that goes into this and I will try to incorporate it. A Radical Behaviorist in a Behaviorist journal, The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, wrote a paper on this topic detailing how Verbal Behavior was received. I will try to find it and add it. Thanks! --Michaelrayw2 03:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Natural Language Edit
Skinner's position is not limited to 'natural language' but would include "artificial languages" such as esperanto as well as forms of communication not currently encompassed by the term "language" (almost any human mediated consequence can serve as verbal behavior). I am going to revert 'natural language'. Sorry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.6.139.21 (talk) 15:12, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Guessing
The section on "Guessing" under "The Tact" contains the following statement:

"Although this is not always the case in something like guessing the landing side of a coin toss where the possible alternatives are fixed and there is no subtle or hidden stimuli to control responding."

Is this a summary of what Skinner writes, or editorializing? If the latter, I propose that it be removed. :-\ 67.163.165.236 (talk) 01:11, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Page 105 (paperback edition) deals with "guessing" as a tact which is emitted for which there is no controlling stimulus. In other words you must ''tact' the side of teh coin without any coin being present ("guess!").


 * In many contexts the mand "Guess!" is designed to invoke behavior that brings one under the control of subtle stimuli ("what has changed about you?" "Guess!" - examines hair, examines weight, examines clothes.... the subtle stimuli of a new haircut comes into play, "You got a haircut!" is a simple cheesy example).


 * p.106 gives the coin toss example but notes it is not a tact, but is rather likely to be controlled by your past history with coin guessing. Skinner cites his own research on teh repeated guessing of alternatives here which is quite entertaining in it's own right.

--Michaelrayw2 (talk) 09:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Unbalanced research emphasis
In Fall '07 The Behavior Analyst Dixon, et al note that Verbal Behavior research has become somewhat unbalanced. This should be stuck in the article somewhere. --Michaelrayw2 (talk) 09:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)