Cumulative Record. Chapter 28: The Operational Analysis of Psychological Terms. Quote 34

In summary, a verbal response to a private stimulus may be maintained in strength through appropriate reinforcement based upon public accompaniments or consequences, . . . , or through appropriate reinforcement accorded the response when it is made to public stimuli, the private case occurring by induction when the stimuli are only partly similar. If these are the only possibilities (and the list is here offered as exhaustive), then we may understand why terms referring to private events have never formed a stable and acceptable vocabulary of reasonably uniform usage. (p. 422)