Barry Lowenkron

Joint control and the generalization of selection-based verbal behavior.

Although the acquisition of selection-based verbal behavior can be ascribed to the acquisition of a conditional discrimination, such an account cannot explain any generalization of the behavior to novel verbal stimuli. The problem is that printed and spoken words and phrases do not vary on continuous dimensions that would support stimulus generalization. Both conceptual analysis and empirical evidence suggest that an alternate form of stimulus control, joint control, can more readily account for acquisition and generalization of these performances. The fact that joint control depends on topography-based behavior implies that generalized selection-based behavior is not an alternative to topography-based behavior but depends on its prior development.

Joint control and generalized nonidentity matching: Saying when something is Not

This study investigated how the absence of a specified stimulus can control behavior. Four children were trained in nonidentity matching, and as a control, four were trained in identity matching. Both performances were produced by training overt mediating responses, so that in identity matching, the selection of a particular comparison was evoked by the repetition of a sample tact to the comparison, and in nonidentity, by the inability to repeat the sample tact to the comparison. Successful generalization of the performances indicated that they were indeed controlled by these general features rather than by stimulus-specific features. Comparison selection thus served as an autoclitic report about other verbal behavior. In particular, generalized nonidentity matching indicated that sensitivity to discrepancies between what a sample specifies, and what is actually presented, can be accounted for behaviorally, without recourse to hypothesized cognitive mediators.

Generalized instructional control and the production of broadly applicable relational responding.

Two experiments examined the performance of preschool children in tasks requiring the generalized matching of faces to faces and names to faces tinder the control of instructional stimuli (background color) that specified the basis by which faces were to be matched on a given trial. The children first learned to recite all the names, and to select all the faces, in a fixed order (the forward order). They then learned to select the faces in response to their spoken names. When the faces appeared on a white background, subjects selected the face named. On a gray background, they selected the face whose name was next forward. Subsequently, over a series of tests, when subjects were presented with novel, but similar stimuli with the same names, and with completely novel stimuli with novel names, control by the white and gray background colors generalized. In the second experiment, on trials with the gray background, when the face bearing the next-forward relation was not present, the children learned to select an appropriate substitute (two faces forward). This performance also generalized to novel stimuli. Together with earlier findings, these data suggest that widely generalized relational matching performances may arise because the labels for these relations are generically and metaphorically extended tacts.

An introduction to joint control.

Lowenkron and colleagues (Lowenkron, 1984; 1991; 1998; 2006; Lowenkron and Colvin, 1992) describe a model that explains complex behavior using only well-established behavioral principles, concepts and terms. The model, called joint control, is especially useful for understanding complex and delayed discriminations within a purely behavioral framework and with no appeal to hypothetical concepts or structures. In it the listener is an active behaver rather than a processor of information. In fact, on this account the listener becomes a speaker. Several examples of the relevance of this approach to the explanation of complex behavior are provided, including cases of stimulus selection, conditional discrimination, and generalized identity matching.

Joint Control and the Selection of Stimuli from Their Description

This research examined the role the two constituents of joint control, the tact and the echoic, play in producing accurate selections of novel stimuli in response to their spoken descriptions. Experiment 1 examined the role of tacts. In response to unfamiliar spoken descriptions, children learned to select from among six successively presented comparisons which varied in their color, shape, and border features. Repeated testing and training revealed that accurate selecting with new combinations of the same colors, shapes and borders, did not occur until after the children could themselves tact the individual color, shape and border features with the unfamiliar descriptions. Experiment 2 examined the role of self-echoics. Here, the stimulus features were given their familiar names, but the rehearsal of these names, while searching among the six successively presented comparisons, was impeded by a distracter task. Under these conditions selection of the correct comparison was found to depend on its position in the order of presentation. Correct comparisons presented earlier in the order, and presumably less effected by the distracter task, were more likely to be selected than correct comparisons presented later in the serial order. Taken together, these data suggest that generalized stimulus selection must be under joint tact/echoic control. The data also illustrate the distinction between mediated selection of a stimulus in response to its description (i.e., selection under joint control) and the traditional conception of an unmediated selection response evoked as a result of a heightened response probability in a conditional discrimination.

Meaning: A Verbal Behavior Account.

Although the verbal operants that comprise Skinner’s account of verbal behavior provide a seemingly complete description of the behavior of the speaker with respect to what is ordinarily called the expression of meanings, it may be shown that the account is intrinsically deficient in describing the receptive behavior of listeners with regard to their comprehension of the meanings of novel words, sentences and propositions. In response to this perceived deficiency, the notion of joint control is presented here. Joint control occurs when a verbal-operant topography, currently evoked by one stimulus, is additionally (i.e., jointly) evoked by a second stimulus. This event of joint stimulus control then sets the occasion for a response. This simple mechanism is shown here to have exceedingly broad explanatory properties: providing a coherent and rigorously behavioral account of various aspects of language ranging from meaning, reference and comprehension, to the development of abstraction in children’s speech.

Generalized Negatively Reinforced Manding in Children with Autism

Individuals with developmental disabilities are often unable to influence their social environment in traditional ways (i.e., vocal language) and frequently exhibit challenging behaviors (e.g., aggression and self-injury) because such behaviors were previously reinforced under similar conditions. While the area of positive reinforcement manding has been well-documented and empirically validated, there is less research in the area of negatively reinforced manding—particularly in the area of negatively reinforced manding of nonpreferred items. Using a multiple baseline design across participants, this study sought to teach three children with autism to replace their challenging behaviors with more socially appropriate ways to request the removal of nonpreferred items. Results showed that all participants were able to learn the negatively reinforced mand response and these mand responses were generalized to other untrained items. In addition to extending the research in the area, the study empirically defined a procedure for teaching negatively reinforced manding of nonpreferred items. Moreover, teaching the mand response resulted in quality of life improvements for all participants and their families.

Developing an interdisciplinary master's program in applied behavior analysis

At many universities, faculty interested in behavior analysis are spread across disciplines. This makes difficult the development of behavior-analytically oriented programs, and impedes regular contact among colleagues who share common interests. However, this separation by disciplines can be a source of strength if it is used to develop interdisciplinary programs. In this article we describe how a bottom-up strategy was used to develop two complementary interdisciplinary MS programs in applied behavior analysis, and conclude with a description of the benefits—some obvious, some surprising—that can emerge from the development of such programs.

PATTERNS OF ERRORS IN THE REVERSAL SHIFT AND THE OVERLEARNING-REVERSAL EFFECT

In two experiments adults (ns = 90, and 40) learned a two-choke discrimination to eight stimuli. After either initial acquisition training or overtraining a reversal shift was presented. In a subsequent phase post-reversal-shift subjects were instructed to respond, without feedback, to the stimuli in terms of either the acquisition phase or reversal-shift phase patterns of responding. In Exp. I four stimuli, presented without feedback, were interspersed during acquisition and the reversal shift to differentiate between subjects using a conceptual mode of solution based only on values of the relevant dimension and a nonconceptual, rote learning, solution mode. The overlearning-reversal effect and associated error pattern were found only among nonconceptual subjects. Post-reversal-shift test performance indicated that overtraining differentially affected response strategies used in the reversal shift as a function of the mode of solution subjects attained. In Exp. II stimuli were arranged so that a conceptual solution was not possible. The data replicated Exp. I. A response-mediation interpretation of the effects of overtraining on reversal-shift behavior and reversal-shift error pattern is proposed.

MODES OF SOLUTION USED BY CHILDREN IN CONCEPT-IDENTIFICATION PROBLEMS

87 nursery school children were exposed to a concept-identification problem in which the salient dimension was either also a relevant or nonrelevant dimension, depending on the condition. Responses to 2 of the stimulus pairs were followed by reinforcement while responses to the remaining 2 pairs were not. After acquisition or overtraining the reversal shift was introduced. Nonoutcome trial behavior was taken to indicate whether a conceptual solution, utilizing only values of the relevant dimension, or a nonconceptual solution, incorporating both the relevant and nonrelevant dimension, was attained. While not having any clear-cut effect on over-all performance, dimensional salience and relevance both affected the proportions of subjects solving conceptually and nonconceptually.