Establishing equivalence–equivalence analogical relations via tact and listener training

Cordeiro et al. (2021) asked if tact training alone can build analogical thinking.

They taught college students to name picture pairs with a shared label. Then they tested whether the students could match new pairs the same way without extra teaching.

Every student passed the analogy tests right away. No extra listener drills were needed.

The results show that simply learning to tact is enough to create equivalence-equivalence relations.

Foti et al. (2015) got the same outcome, but only after students first named each picture with a rhyme. Cordeiro removed that pre-naming step and still succeeded, so the earlier requirement looks optional for adults.

Belisle et al. (2020) used the same logic with kids with autism, but taught bigger-smaller instead of analogies. Both studies confirm that once you build a relational network, new untrained responses pop out.

Modenesi et al. (2026) also produced derived relations in adults, yet they used go/no-go matching instead of any naming. Together the papers show there are several roads to the same emergent performance.

If you want clients to solve analogies or sort new items into classes, start with solid tact training. You may not need extra listener trials or fancy pre-training. This saves session time and keeps programming simple for both neurotypical adults and, by extension, verbal learners on your caseload.