verbal behavior
all behavior that involves words, including speaking, listening, writing, and reading. The term is used by those who favor a behavioristic account of language (see behaviorism) in which human verbal behavior is thought to be explained by general laws of learning and behavior observable in other species; that is, its reinforcement is socially mediated by the responses of others. This contrasts with the cognitive approach dominant in psycholinguistics and specifically with the theory of the cognitive task specificity of language. [first described by B. F. Skinner in 1957]