There is this guy who dies and goes to heaven and everything is perfect: he is playing pool and shoots the cue ball and all the colored balls go in and nothing ever goes wrong. He finally goes very frustrated and says to himself - "I'm in heaven and it's driving me crazy!"
- In the Company of Giants
Negative feedback in a servo-mechanism is equivalent to criticism. Negative feedback says in effect, "You are wrong - you are off course - you need to take corrective action to get back on the beam."
The purpose of negative feedback, however, is to modify response, and change the course of forward action not to stop it altogether.
If negative feedback is working properly, a missile or a torpedo reacts to "criticism" just enough to correct course and keeps going forward toward the target. This course will be a series of zig-zags.
However, if the mechanism is too sensitive to negative feedback, the servo-mechanism overcorrects. Instead of progressing toward the target, it will perform exaggerated lateral zig-zags, or stop all forward progress altogether.
Our own built-in servo-mechanism works in the same way. We must have negative feedback in order to operate purposely, in order to steer our way, or be guided to a goal.
Excessive Negative Feedback Equals Inhibition
Negative feedback always says in effect, "Stop what you're doing, or the way you're doing it - and do something else." Its purpose is to modify response, or change the degree of forward action - not to stop all action. Negative feedback does not say, "stop - period!" It says, "What you are doing is wrong," but it does not say, "it is wrong to do anything."
Yet, where negative feedback is excessive, or where our own mechanism is too sensitive to negative feedback, the result is not modification of response - but total inhibition of response.
Inhibition and excessive negative feedback are one and the same. When we over-react to negative feedback of criticism, we are likely to conclude that not only is our present course slightly off-beam, or wrong, but that it is wrong for us even to want to go forward.
A woodsman, or a hunter, often guides himself back to his automobile by picking out some prominent landmark near his car - such as an extra tall tree which can be seen for miles. When he is ready to return to his car, he looks for his tree (or target) and starts walking towards it. From time to time the tree may be lost from his view, but as soon as he is able, he "checks course" by comparing his direction with the location of the tree. If he finds that his present course is taking him 15 degrees to the left of the tree, he must recognize that what he is doing is "wrong." He immediately corrects his course and again walks directly towards the tree. He does not, however, conclude that it is wrong for him to walk.
Yet, many of us are guilty of just so foolish a conclusion! When it comes to our attention that our manner of expression is off course, missing the mark, or "wrong" - we conclude that self-expression itself is wrong, or that success for us (reaching our particular tree) is wrong.
Keep in mind that excessive negative feedback has the effect of interfering with, or stopping completely, the appropriate response.
Stuttering as a Symptom of Inhibition
Stuttering offers a good illustration of how excessive negative feedback brings on inhibition, and interferes with appropriate response.
While most of us are not consciously aware of the fact, when we talk we receive negative feedback data through our ears by listening to or "monitoring" our own voice. This is the reason that totally deaf individuals seldom speak well. They have no way of knowing whether their voice is coming out as a shriek, a scream, or an unintelligible mumble. This is also the reason that persons born deaf, do not learn to talk at all, except with special tutoring. If you sing, perhaps you have been surprised to find that you could not sing on key, or in harmony with others, while suffering temporary deafness or partial deafness because of a cold.
Thus, negative feedback itself is no bar or handicap to speech. On the contrary, it enables us to speak and speak correctly. Voice teachers advise that we record our own voices on a tape recorder, and listen back to them, as a method of improving tone, enunciation, etc. By doing this we become aware of errors in speech that we had not noticed before. We are able to see clearly what it is we are doing "wrong" - and we can make correction.
However, if negative feedback is to be effective in helping us to talk better, it should (1) be more or less automatic or subconscious, (2) it should occur spontaneously, or while we're talking and (3) response to feedback should not be so sensitive as to result in inhibition.
If we are consciously overcritical of our speech, or if we are too careful in trying to avoid errors in advance, rather than reacting spontaneously, stuttering is likely to result.
If the stutterer's excessive feedback can be toned down, or if it can be made spontaneous rather than anticipatory, improvement in speech will be immediate.
- Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics
