The effects of tact training on the development of analogical reasoning

Abstract

This study assessed whether tact training would establish analogies as measured by equivalence-equivalence relations. In Experiment 1, six college students were trained to tact "same" or "different" in the presence of AB and BC compounds based on component class membership (e.g., A1B1 as "same", and A1B2 as "different"), and then tested on emergent tacts (BA, CB, AC, CA) and equivalence-equivalence relations. Only one of six participants passed all tests without remedial training. In Experiment 2, six college students were trained to tact only compounds belonging to the same class as "same". Three of six participants passed all tests without remedial training. In Experiment 3, six college students were trained to tact stimuli belonging to the same class with a common name prior to exposure to relational tact training. All participants passed tests without remedial training. In Experiment 4, eight college students were trained to tact stimuli belonging to the same class with a common name. Six participants passed without remedial training, while two, who did not tact the relation of the compounds, did not. Results from these studies suggest that simple discrimination of individual components and their relation in the form of tacts is related with equivalence performance.

The effects of listener training on the development of analogical reasoning

“…The use of problem solving statements (e.g., “same goes with same”) by some of the participants is consistent with results obtained by Miguel et al () and previous research on bidirectional naming in which intraverbally related stimulus names may evoke correct listener responses during MTS tasks (Jennings & Miguel, ; Ma et al, ; Petursdottir, Carp, Peterson, & Lepper, ; Santos et al, ).…”

“…P8 and P12 only tacted class‐consistent compounds as “both vek,” “both zog,” or “same;” they never said “different” in the presence of any class‐inconsistent compounds, yet they passed all analogy tests (see Table ). Furthermore, results from P10's error analysis closely resemble that of some participants in Miguel et al (); P10 primarily selected the incorrect comparison during same–same trials, and never during different–different trials. For example, in the presence of B1C1 (vek–vek) he would never pick the other same comparison (B2C2 or A2B2, zog–zog).…”

“…Another possible limitation that also applies to previous studies in this line of investigation (e.g., Carpentier et al, ; Carpentier et al, , Miguel et al, ) is that using two 3‐member classes made it inevitable that analogy MTS tasks only had two comparisons. Presenting MTS trials with only two comparisons increases the likelihood that participants can select the correct comparison by chance (Johnson & Sidman, 1993; Sidman, ).…”

Intraverbal naming and equivalence class formation in children

“…Horne and Lowe's () naming hypothesis has yielded a substantial body of literature showing that the application of a common name to several stimuli results in visual stimulus class formation in the absence of any direct training to relate visual stimuli to one another (Horne, Hughes, & Lowe, ; Horne, Lowe, & Randle, ; Kobari‐Wright & Miguel, ; Lowe, Horne, Harris, & Randle, ; Lowe, Horne, & Hughes, ; Miguel et al, ; Miguel & Kobari‐Wright, ; Miguel, Petursdottir, Carr, & Michael, ; Sprinkle & Miguel, ). Similarly, the establishment of intraverbal relations between the unique names of visual stimuli has been found to produce novel conditional discriminations among the stimuli in the absence of other training (Petursdottir, Carp, Peterson, & Lepper, ; Santos, Ma, & Miguel, ).…”

The role of verbal behavior in the establishment of comparative relations

“…However, it is possible that during both training and testing, participants from Dougher et al () may have engaged in verbal behavior which could have contributed to their performance (e.g., Carp & Petursdottir, ; Jennings & Miguel, ; Lee, Miguel, Darcey, & Jennings, ; Ma, Miguel, & Jennings, ; Mandell & Sheen, ; Miguel, ; Miguel et al, ; Miguel, Petursdottir, Carr, & Michael, ; Moustakis & Mellon, ; Petursdottir, Carp, Peterson, & Lepper, ; Randell & Remington, ; Santos, Ma, & Miguel, ; Sundberg, Sundberg, & Michael, ). For example, when participants learned to select the smallest, medium, or biggest comparison in the presence of specific sample stimuli (nonarbitrary training), they could also have tacted each sample as the size of the correct comparison (i.e., “small,” “medium,” and “large”).…”