The role of bidirectional naming in the emergence of analogical relations in children
Teach kids to both say and hear relational words and analogies can emerge without more training.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Zhirnova and her team worked with four typically-developing kids aged four to five. They first taught each child to name, or tact, pictures that showed same-different or opposite relations. Then they added listener tests: the adult said a relation word and the child had to pick the correct picture.
After the kids could both say and hear the relations, the team tested for brand-new analogies. No extra teaching was given. The kids had to match A:B to C:D pairs they had never seen together.
What they found
All four children passed symmetry and transitivity tests for analogical relations. Two kids did it with zero extra training. The other two needed only one quick review session.
In plain words, once the children could both name and listen for relations, they could solve new analogy puzzles right away.
How this fits with other research
Bruns et al. (2004) saw that toddlers who only learned to listen could not sort new pictures. Adding tact training later fixed the problem. Zhirnova’s study shows the same fix works for harder analogical tasks in older kids.
Reichow et al. (2011) found that transitive class containment popped out faster with arbitrary pictures than with look-alike ones. Zhirnova used arbitrary pictures too, and got quick transitive analogy results, lining up with that tip.
Zeiler (2006) showed that adults who quietly rehearsed could build new sequences. Bidirectional naming may act like kid-friendly rehearsal, letting the child talk to themselves while they pick answers.
Why it matters
If you run equivalence or early academic programs, add quick listener checks after you teach tacts. The two-way practice can unlock analogical reasoning without extra drills. Try it before you write a long analogy teaching plan.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The role of bidirectional naming in the emergence of analogical relations was investigated in four typically developing children between the ages 5 and 7 years. All participants learned to tact both the categories (clothes, furniture, and vehicles) and relations (same and different) among nine stimuli. They were subsequently tested on analogical responding during which they were presented with two stimuli belonging to the same or different categories and asked to select the comparison that matched the sample. During the last analogy test, we asked participants to tell us why they selected a certain comparison. Relational tact training produced emergent analogical responding in two participants after exposure to relational listener tests, whereas the other two required direct training on baseline analogy relations. All participants met criterion during derived analogy tests in accordance with symmetry and transitivity. The results of this study suggest that participants passed analogy tests by relationally tacting the sample (i.e., speaker) and reacting to its product by selecting the correct comparison (i.e., listener). This supports and extends previous findings suggesting that children must also engage in behaviors consistent with bidirectional naming to respond accurately to analogy tasks.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2025 · doi:10.1002/jeab.70003