The role of verbal behavior in the establishment of comparative relations
A short vocal mediation layer after match-to-sample lets college students reliably derive bigger-smaller relations.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Diaz et al. (2020) worked with college students.
They first taught simple if-then matches with shapes.
Next they added short vocal training: name the shapes, say the rule, repeat.
Then they tested if students could pick the bigger or smaller shape without further teaching.
What they found
Fifteen of sixteen students passed the new test after the vocal add-on.
Only one of twelve students passed when they got match-to-sample alone.
A few minutes of talking made the difference.
How this fits with other research
Dugdale et al. (2000) saw the opposite pattern.
Two language-trained chimps got lots of symmetry drills yet still failed reversal tests.
The chimps lacked human-style vocal mediation, so the extra drills did not help.
Hopkinson et al. (2003) showed that many people with severe ID form equivalence without much language.
Their review tells us naming is helpful, not required.
Diaz et al. tighten the lens: when language is present, a quick verbal boost is the fastest path.
Why it matters
If your learner can talk, add a brief verbal step to your conditional-discrimination program.
Have them name the stimuli and state the rule out loud.
This tiny move can turn failed probes into solid emergent relations, saving you weeks of extra training.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Twelve college students received conditional discrimination training with nonarbitrary and arbitrary stimuli, and derived comparative and transformation of function tests with a think-aloud condition across 2 experiments. Participants who failed these tests received remedial verbal operant training. Four control participants received verbal operant training alone. Across both experiments, only 1 participant passed the derived comparative test after conditional discrimination training. However, all participants passed derived comparative tests and 11 out of 12 participants passed transformation of function tests following verbal operant training, including the 4 control participants. Participants who passed derived comparative tests engaged in a high percentage of correct vocalizations during the think-aloud condition, while participants who failed did not. These results suggest that mediating verbal behavior could have played a crucial role in participants' responses during derived stimulus relations tests.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2020 · doi:10.1002/jeab.582