Naming, Stimulus Equivalence and Relational Frame Theory: Stronger Together than Apart
Blend stimulus equivalence, relational frames, and naming lessons instead of picking one.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Regaço et al. (2025) wrote a position paper. They asked behavior analysts to stop treating three language theories as enemies.
The three theories are stimulus equivalence, relational frame theory, and naming theory. The authors say they work better as a team.
No new data were collected. The paper maps how the three views can fit together to explain how humans learn language.
What they found
The authors show that each theory fills gaps the others leave. Stimulus equivalence tracks how new links form without direct training.
Relational frame theory adds rules for patterns like same, opposite, and bigger. Naming theory brings in the power of verbal labels.
When combined, the package can explain both simple matching and complex rule-governed talk.
How this fits with other research
Alonso-Álvarez et al. (2018) argued that same and opposite performances are just equivalence plus exclusion. Their data seemed to challenge the need for relational frames.
Regaço et al. answer: keep the frames, but let equivalence and naming do part of the work. The fight fades when the three models share the load.
Older work like Rapport et al. (1996) already linked equivalence to what people can say about their own learning. Naming theory builds on that link, giving speech a clear role in derived relations.
Why it matters
If you run equivalence or relational training, stop asking which theory is right. Use all three. Teach the match, give the label, and highlight the pattern. Your learners may form stronger classes and talk about them more clearly.
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After each equivalence set, ask the learner to name the new group and state the pattern (e.g., These are all tools).
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Research on human language started to change when Murray Sidman and colleagues demonstrated that a participant was able to derive unreinforced stimulus relations after conditional discrimination training. This work provided the basis for a novel approach to research on symbolic behavior and fostered the development of three main theoretical accounts: stimulus equivalence (SE), relational frame theory (RFT), and naming theory (NT). These accounts unfolded in the last decades of the twentieth century, promoting intense debate and discussion within behavior analysis. Although experimental research emerging from these three accounts is still highly active today, the theoretical discussions have, to a large extent, faded. Considering the importance of rekindling a dialogue, this article aims to describe the differences among the three accounts, but focus on their common points. We conclude by arguing that developing a more complete behavior-analytic account of human language would be served best by considering both research and theoretical analyses of SE, RFT and NT. Finally, we provide examples of two successful research groups that adopted this approach and in doing so have advanced our understanding of language within behavior analysis.
Perspectives on Behavior Science, 2025 · doi:10.1007/s40614-024-00427-z