Maria Amélia Matos

Rudimentary Reading Repertoires via Stimulus Equivalence and Recombination of Minimal Verbal Units

We report a study with sixteen low-SES Brazilian children that sought to establish a repertoire of relations involving dictated words, printed words, and corresponding pictures. Children were taught: (1) in response to dictated words, to select corresponding pictures; (2) in response to syllables presented in both visual and auditory formats, to select words which contained a corresponding syllable in either the first or the last position; (3) in response to dictated-word samples, to “construct” corresponding printed words via arranging their constituent syllabic components; and (4) in response to printed word samples, to construct identical printed words by arranging their syllabic constituents. After training on the first two types of tasks, children were given tests for potentially emergent relations involving printed words and pictures. Almost all exhibited relations consistent with stimulus equivalence. They also displayed emergent naming performances—not only with training words but also with new words that were recombinations of their constituent syllables. The present work was inspired by Sidman’s stimulus equivalence paradigm and by Skinner’s functional analysis of verbal relations, particularly as applied to conceptions of minimal behavioral units and creativity (i.e., behavioral flexibility) in the analytical units applied to verbal relations.

Investigação do controle por regras e do controle por histórias de reforço sobre o comportamento humano

This study investigated the role of experimental history and of relative density of reinforcement on rule following behavior. Sixteen undergraduate students participated. Under a matching-to-sample procedure, with 3 comparison stimuli, the participants were asked to point the comparisons in sequence, according to their dimension, Color, Thickness or Form, in common to the sample. At the beginning of Phases 1, 2, 3 and 4, participants were exposed, respectively, to minimal instructions, a discrepant rule (specifying a non reinforced sequence), a corresponding rule (specifying a TFC sequence) and a repeated discrepant rule. Only the CTF sequence was reinforced in all phases. In Phase 3, two sequences, TFC and CTF, were concurrently reinforced (Concurrent FR 2 FR6 and FR2 FR6). Control by rules and by reinforcement history were both observed, under specific conditions. These findings have implications for drawing a distinction between behaviors controlled by rules and those shaped by contingencies.

Blood Glucose Discrimination Training: The Role of Internal and External Cues

The effects of observing internal and external events on blood glucose (BG) discrimination were assessed in eight patients with type 1 diabetes using an intrasubject design. During baseline condition, participants estimated their BG, then measured and recorded it (feedback-only procedure) three times a day. Participants were then divided randomly into two groups. Both were submitted to internal cue (IC) and external cue (EC) training conditions in a balanced order, and then both cues were presented together in combined cues (CC) training conditions. Under IC, participants observed and recorded their symptoms before estimating BG. Under EC, they observed and recorded environmental events prior to BG estimation. In CC conditions, participants paid attention to both internal and external cues before the estimate–feedback routine. BG estimation accuracy improved after either IC or EC conditions. When the two types of cues were combined, only two participants improved their BG estimation accuracy. The remainder did not, probably because they had already attained high accuracy levels (ceiling effect).

Seqüência de estímulos durante o fortalecimento da resposta de bicar: efeitos sobre a aquisição de desempenhos em matching e oddity

This study was aimed to investigate the question why oddity-from-sample acquisition in animals always start at above chance level. A question was raised concerning the role of stimuli sequences and a possible bias introduced in responding. Thus, this study analyzed the effects of stimuli sequencing during response build up in the pigeon (pre-training) upon the acquisition of identity matching (IMTS) and oddity-from-sample (OFS) with three color stimuli and two comparisons. During pre-training one color was presented at the time in any one of three response key. Color presentation was randomized but for the restriction that the probability of two like colors being presented consecutively was the same as the probability of two non-like colors being presented consecutively. This controlled for any sequencing bias effects upon responding. Following, subjects were submitted either to IMTS or to OFS training. Results replicated those of the literature, indicating that stimuli sequencing control during pre-training has no effect upon matching and oddity acquisition.

Linguistic sources of Skinner’s verbal behavior

Formal and functional analyses of verbal behavior have been often considered to be divergent and incompatible. Yet, an examination of the history of part of the analytical approach used in Verbal Behavior (Skinner, 1957/1992) for the identification and conceptualization of verbal operant units discloses that it corresponds well with formal analyses of languages. Formal analyses have been carried out since the invention of writing and fall within the scope of traditional grammar and structural linguistics, particularly in analyses made by the linguist Leonard Bloomfield. The relevance of analytical instruments originated from linguistic studies (which examine and describe the practices of verbal communities) to the analysis of verbal behavior, as proposed by Skinner, relates to the conception of a verbal community as a prerequisite for the acquisition of verbal behavior. A deliberately interdisciplinary approach is advocated in this paper, with the systematic adoption of linguistic analyses and descriptions adding relevant knowledge to the design of experimental research in verbal behavior.

Emergent Verbal Behavior and Analogy: Skinnerian and Linguistic Approaches.

The production of verbal operants not previously taught is an important aspect of language productivity. For Skinner, new mands, tacts, and autoclitics result from the recombination of verbal operants. The relation between these mands, tacts, and autoclitics is what linguists call analogy, a grammatical pattern that serves as a foundation on which a speaker might emit new linguistic forms. Analogy appears in linguistics as a regularity principle that characterizes language and has been related to how languages change and also to creativity. The approaches of neogrammarians like Hermann Paul, as well as those of Jespersen and Bloomfield, appear to have influenced Skinner’s understanding of verbal creativity. Generalization and stimulus equivalence are behavioral processes related to the generative grammatical behavior described in the analogy model. Linguistic forms and grammatical patterns described in analogy are part of the contingencies of reinforcement that produce generalization and stimulus equivalence. The analysis of verbal behavior needs linguistic analyses of the constituents of linguistic forms and their combination patterns.

The influence of Bloomfield’s linguistics on Skinner

Bloomfield’s “Linguistics as a Science” (1930/1970), Language (1933/1961), and “Language or Ideas?” (1936a/1970), and Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1957) and Science and Human Behavior (1953) were analyzed in regard to their respective perspectives on science and scientific method, the verbal episode, meaning, and subject matter. Similarities between the two authors were found. In particular both asserted that (a) the study of language must be carried out through the methods of science; (b) the main function of language is to produce practical effects on the world through the mediation of a listener; and (c) a physicalist conception of meaning. Their differences concern the subject matter of their disciplines and their use of different models for the analysis of behavior. Bloomfield’s linguistics and Skinner’s functional analysis of verbal behavior are complementary approaches to language.

Análises do matching de identidade generalizado por contingências de três e quatro termos: implicações para equivalência de estímulos

A expansao da triplice continencia em unidades com quatro ou mais elementos abriu novas perspectivas para a compreensao de comportamentos complexos, como a emergencia de respostas que derivam da formacao de classes de estimulos equivalentes e que modelam comportamentos simbolicos e conceituais. Na investigacao experimental, o procedimento de matching to sample tem sido frequentemente empregado para estabelecer discriminacoes condicionais. Em particular, a obtencao do matching de identidade generalizado e considerada demonstrativa da aquisicao dos conceitos de igualdade e diferenca. Segundo argumentamos, o fato de se buscar a compreensao desses conceitos a partir de processos discriminativos condicionais pode ter sido responsavel pelos frequentes fracassos em demonstra-los em sujeitos nao humanos. A falta de correspondencia entre os processos discriminativos responsaveis por estabelecer a relacao de reflexividade entre estimulos que formam classes equivalentes e o matching de identidade generalizado, nesse sentido, e aqui revista ao longo de estudos empiricos e discutida com respeito as suas implicacoes.

Analyzing generalized identity matching by contingencies of three and four terms: Implications for stimulus equivalence

A expansao da triplice continencia em unidades com quatro ou mais elementos abriu novas perspectivas para a compreensao de comportamentos complexos, como a emergencia de respostas que derivam da formacao de classes de estimulos equivalentes e que modelam comportamentos simbolicos e conceituais. Na investigacao experimental, o procedimento de matching to sample tem sido frequentemente empregado para estabelecer discriminacoes condicionais. Em particular, a obtencao do matching de identidade generalizado e considerada demonstrativa da aquisicao dos conceitos de igualdade e diferenca. Segundo argumentamos, o fato de se buscar a compreensao desses conceitos a partir de processos discriminativos condicionais pode ter sido responsavel pelos frequentes fracassos em demonstra-los em sujeitos nao humanos. A falta de correspondencia entre os processos discriminativos responsaveis por estabelecer a relacao de reflexividade entre estimulos que formam classes equivalentes e o matching de identidade generalizado, nesse sentido, e aqui revista ao longo de estudos empiricos e discutida com respeito as suas implicacoes.

Análisis de la igualación de identidad generalizada por contingencias de tres y cuatro términos: implicaciones la equivalencia de estímulos

A expansao da triplice continencia em unidades com quatro ou mais elementos abriu novas perspectivas para a compreensao de comportamentos complexos, como a emergencia de respostas que derivam da formacao de classes de estimulos equivalentes e que modelam comportamentos simbolicos e conceituais. Na investigacao experimental, o procedimento de matching to sample tem sido frequentemente empregado para estabelecer discriminacoes condicionais. Em particular, a obtencao do matching de identidade generalizado e considerada demonstrativa da aquisicao dos conceitos de igualdade e diferenca. Segundo argumentamos, o fato de se buscar a compreensao desses conceitos a partir de processos discriminativos condicionais pode ter sido responsavel pelos frequentes fracassos em demonstra-los em sujeitos nao humanos. A falta de correspondencia entre os processos discriminativos responsaveis por estabelecer a relacao de reflexividade entre estimulos que formam classes equivalentes e o matching de identidade generalizado, nesse sentido, e aqui revista ao longo de estudos empiricos e discutida com respeito as suas implicacoes.