RESUMEN
The purpose of this three-experiment study was to evaluate whether performance consistent with the formation of equivalence classes could be established after training adults to tact and intraverbally relate the names of visual stimuli. Fourteen participants were exposed to tact training, listener testing, and intraverbal training (A'B' and B'C') prior to matching-to-sample (MTS) and intraverbal posttests presented in different sequences across experiments. All participants demonstrated emergent MTS and intraverbal relations consistent with equivalence class formation. More importantly, all participants emitted experimentally defined or self-generated tacts or intraverbally named the correct sample-comparison pairs at some point during posttests. These results are consistent with the intraverbal naming account (Horne & Lowe, 1996) in that participants who passed novel relations MTS tests also demonstrated emergence of corresponding intraverbal relations. However, verbal reports and latency data suggest that participants did not necessarily have to use intraverbal naming as a problem solving strategy continuously throughout MTS posttests. These results extended previous research by showing that verbal behavior training of baseline relations (A'B' and B'C') is sufficient to establish novel conditional relations consistent with equivalence class formation.
Asunto(s)
Formación de Concepto , Aprendizaje Verbal , Adulto , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Estimulación Luminosa , Solución de Problemas , Vocabulario , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
The current study evaluated whether training intraverbal naming would be sufficient to establish visual-visual matching-to-sample (MTS) performances in college students. In the first experiment, we used a multiple-probe design across stimulus sets to assess whether six participants could match arbitrary visual stimuli (AB) after learning to tact their two experimentally defined classes (A' and B') and then intraverbally relate their names (i.e., "A' goes with B'"). All participants matched the stimuli accurately after training, as well as emitted the trained intraverbals. In the second experiment, we used a multiple baseline design across four participants to assess whether the same training would produce bi-directional intraverbals in the form of "B' goes with A'," and MTS performance consistent with symmetry (BA). All participants responded accurately during matching and intraverbal tests. Across both experiments, participants stated the trained intraverbals while performing the matching task. Results showed that MTS performance can be established solely by verbal behavior training.