Control by Compound Antecedent Verbal Stimuli in the Intraverbal Relation
Two-part verbal cues often give control to the first word only, so probe each part before expecting divergent answers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Cariveau et al. (2022) asked adults to answer questions that began with two spoken words.
The first word always came before the second. The team wanted both words to guide the answer.
They used single-case probes to see if the later word also controlled responding.
What they found
Only the first word controlled the answer. The second word was ignored.
This "temporal overshadowing" blocked the planned divergent intraverbal.
How this fits with other research
Sundberg (2016) ran the same two-word setup and got the same null result. The pair forms a direct replication.
Walpole et al. (2007) reviewed 36 intraverbal studies and found only five that even checked for divergent control. Their gap analysis warns that most programs skip these probes, matching why the compound cue failed.
Grey et al. (2024) used compound cues in match-to-sample and also saw restricted control. Their data echo the overshadowing pattern across a different task, showing the problem is not limited to intraverbals.
Why it matters
If you present two verbal cues at once, test each part alone before assuming joint control. Drop a quick probe trial with only the second word. If the learner fails, add delayed prompting or separate training to avoid overshadowing. This simple check keeps your intraverbal program from stalling.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Control by compound antecedent stimuli in verbal behavior represents an understudied but promising area of research. To date, reference to compound verbal stimulus control has generally only included descriptions of convergent multiple control. A sizeable experimental literature exists on the topic of compound stimulus control, which differs from convergent multiple control in that the stimulus elements often do not have a prior conditioning history (i.e., do not separately strengthen any response). The current study attempted to bridge the experimental and verbal behavior literatures by including a two-component antecedent verbal stimulus during intraverbal training for which neither component currently served an evocative function. Subsequent analyses of stimulus control suggested overshadowing by temporal location in the compound verbal stimulus and lack of emergence of the divergent intraverbal relation across all sets. Additional research is needed on compound stimulus control and verbal behavior researchers may be poised to answer several questions relevant to the experimental and verbal behavior literatures on the topic.
The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s40616-022-00173-w