Function over Form

This article provides a comprehensive overview of the development of a behavior-analytic alternative to the popular implicit association test (IAT), namely, the function acquisition speed test (FAST). The IAT appears, prima facia, to indirectly assess participants’ learning histories with regard to the categorization of stimuli. However, its origin within cognitive psychology has rendered it replete with mentalism, conceptual ambiguity, statistical arbitrariness, and confounding procedural artifacts. The most popular behavioral alternative to the IAT, the widely used implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP), has inherited many of these concerning artifacts. In this article, we present a behavior-analytic critique of both the IAT and IRAP, and argue that a behavior-analytic approach to implicit measures must have stimulus control front and center in its analysis. We then outline a series of early research studies that provided the basis for a potentially superior procedure within our field. We go on to outline how this early research was harnessed in stepwise research, guided by a strict adherence to traditional behavior-analytic methods for the analysis of stimulus relations, to increasingly modify a test format fit for the behavior analyst interested in assessing stimulus relatedness.

show abstract

How to Build and How not to Build an Implicit Measure in Behavior Analysis: A case Study Using the Function Acquisition Speed Test

Watters

Cummins

Roche

2023

Perspect Behav Sci

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Quantifying the Empirical Growth of Relational Frame Theory Research: a Cautionary Note

Dymond

May

2018

Psychol Rec

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Relational frame theory (RFT) is a modern, contextual behavioral theory of human language and cognition. A recent article by O'Connor, Farrell, Munnelly and McHugh (2017) provided an updated citation analysis of data-based and nondata-based articles citing RFT-related terms as a proxy for the influence RFT has had on the scientific literature. Here, we evaluate the claims made by O'Connor et al. and suggest that caution should be exercised when interpreting some of their findings. Progress has, in many ways, clearly been made but we argue that the analysis of the growth in RFT outputs is more nuanced than at first appears.

show abstract

Belief and the Cognitive Unconscious

Alcock¹

2022

The Cognitive Unconscious

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Beliefs influence perceptions, emotional reactions, and behaviors. Much intellectual activity is devoted to their acquisition and to protecting them from corruptive influences. Beliefs also influence the encoding and recall of experience, resulting in memories that tend toward consistency with what is already believed to be true. They have been an important focus of study despite difficulties in providing a precise and meaningful definition of the construct. Some have added to the problem by suggesting that beliefs also exist in the cognitive unconscious, and that such “implicit” beliefs have unrecognized but significant impacts on emotion and behavior. This notion is examined and rejected in this chapter. While implicit biases and conditioned emotional responses certainly exist, they do not constitute belief, which is a truth-testable proposition involving both content and a subjective probability estimate of its truth. An implicit belief therefore violates the normal sense of what it means to believe.

show abstract

Function over Form

Cited by 4 publications

References 63 publications

How to Build and How not to Build an Implicit Measure in Behavior Analysis: A case Study Using the Function Acquisition Speed Test

How to Build and How not to Build an Implicit Measure in Behavior Analysis: A case Study Using the Function Acquisition Speed Test

Quantifying the Empirical Growth of Relational Frame Theory Research: a Cautionary Note

Belief and the Cognitive Unconscious

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About