Producing and Recognizing Analogical Relations

Abstract

Analogical reasoning is an important component of intelligent behavior, and a key test of any approach to human language and cognition. Only a limited amount of empirical work has been conducted from a behavior analytic point of view, most of that within Relational Frame Theory (RFT), which views analogy as a matter of deriving relations among relations. The present series of four studies expands previous work by exploring the applicability of this model of analogy to topography-based rather than merely selection-based responses and by extending the work into additional relations, including nonsymmetrical ones. In each of the four studies participants pretrained in contextual control over nonarbitrary stimulus relations of sameness and opposition, or of sameness, smaller than, and larger than, learned arbitrary stimulus relations in the presence of these relational cues and derived analogies involving directly trained relations and derived relations of mutual and combinatorial entailment, measured using a variety of productive and selection-based measures. In Experiment 1 participants successfully recognized analogies among stimulus networks containing same and opposite relations; in Experiment 2 analogy was successfully used to extend derived relations to pairs of novel stimuli; in Experiment 3 the procedure used in Experiment 1 was extended to nonsymmetrical comparative relations; in Experiment 4 the procedure used in Experiment 2 was extended to nonsymmetrical comparative relations. Although not every participant showed the effects predicted, overall the procedures occasioned relational responses consistent with an RFT account that have not yet been demonstrated in a behavior-analytic laboratory setting, including productive responding on the basis of analogies.

Potential applications of relational frame theory to natural language systems

“…There are no simple algorithms that will be sufficient, and it will undoubtedly concur concomitantly with advances in competent sensory/motor systems as well as increased memory capacity and computational speed. Relational Frame Theory researchers have empirically demonstrated stimulus control in studies modeling such complex processes as analogical behavior [16,17] and facilitated interpretive explanations of such diverse phenomena as the development of the self [18], the concept of God and spirituality [19], and the emergence of some forms of psychopathology [20]. Relational Frame Theory has generated interpretive explanations of these phenomena when prior explanations were deemed inadequate, incomplete, or of limited utility.…”

É Possível Fazer Uma Análise Comportamental Da Inteligência?

“…A definição apresentada por eles baseia-se naquela apresentada na tese de doutorado de Regina Lipkens (1992), que foi o primeiro trabalho a considerar a analogia sob a perspectiva da TMR. No entanto, somente 17 anos depois foi publicado um artigo sobre a tese (Lipkens & Hayes, 2009 , 1997;Carpentier et al, 2003) e, por último, eram realizados os testes de equivalência-equivalência por meio de estímulos compostos. Nos testes de analogia (equivalência-equivalência/não equivalência-não equivalência) os estímulos compostos poderiam ser formados por dois estímulos de uma mesma rede relacional, ou de redes relacionais distintas (por exemplo A1-B1 e A1-B2, respectivamente).…”

“…Segundo alguns autores, a perspectiva da TMR contribui com o estudo da analogia por fornecer testes mais precisos do que os utilizados pela Psicologia Cognitiva ou pela Psicologia do Desenvolvimento para avaliar o raciocínio analógico (Stewart et al, 2002), principalmente por eles proverem um modelo de testes independente da utilização da linguagem natural (Lipkens & Hayes, 2009 …”

On Having a Goal: Goals as Representations or Behavior

“…These processes may be accomplished as a result of the listener having the repertoire of interacting with arbitrary contextual cues in a way that transforms the stimulus functions of present events. These repertoires can be shaped, under contextual control, to increasing complexity (Barnes-Holmes et al 2004a; Lipkens and Hayes 2009). Once the basic repertoire is available, quite complex actions can take place.…”