Verbal Mediation During Auditory Equivalence Class Formation Using Go/No-Go Successive Matching-to-Sample
Wait to ask learners to talk about their sound choices until after the first equivalence tests to avoid blocking new auditory classes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Dingus and team asked college students to match sounds in a go/no-go task. First they heard a sample tone, then two comparison tones. They pressed a key only when the correct match appeared.
After the matching tests, the students were told to talk out loud about why they picked each sound. The researchers wanted to see if this delayed talk-aloud changed how well the students formed new sound classes.
What they found
Six out of eight students formed new sound classes even though they had not talked during the first tests. Their later spoken words matched the choices they had made, showing the classes were already in place.
The study found positive results: delaying the talk-aloud did not hurt learning and may have kept the task simple at the start.
How this fits with other research
Zhelezoglo et al. (2021) and Hanson et al. (2021) used the same go/no-go sound task without any talk-aloud. They also saw most students form sound classes. Dingus et al. (2025) adds a new step: wait to ask for words until after the tests.
Madden et al. (2003) looked at picture matching and found that naming the pictures right away helped accuracy. That seems opposite to the new finding, but the tasks differ. Pictures give a clear image to name, while sounds are harder to label quickly. Timing and modality matter.
Together, the papers show that early talking can help with visual tasks yet may crowd out early sound learning. Waiting to talk keeps the first sound tests clean.
Why it matters
If you teach auditory equivalence, let the learner listen and respond first. Add naming or discussion only after the classes emerge. This small timing shift can prevent extra words from blocking new sound relations and still gives you a window into how the learner thinks.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Successive matching-to-sample (S-MTS) with a go/no-go response requirement has previously produced equivalence classes with nonverbal auditory stimuli among college students. When participants are required to talk aloud during posttests (protocol analysis), their verbal behavior tends to match their selection performance. However, in some cases, the protocol analysis seems to interfere with posttests, in that equivalence yields are lower when participants are required to talk aloud. Thus, the current study replicated and extended previous research by requiring participants to complete emergence posttests before introducing training for the protocol analysis. Subsequently, participants completed one additional block of the transitivity/equivalence posttest with the talk-aloud requirement. Additionally, participants completed tact and intraverbal tests following emergence posttests to further assess possible verbal-mediation strategies. The results showed that six of eight college students formed equivalence classes, suggesting that previous failures could have been influenced by the talk-aloud requirement. Further, there was a positive correlation between verbal and nonverbal (selection) responses suggesting the possibility that verbal mediation may have contributed to equivalence-class formation.
The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 2025 · doi:10.1007/s40616-024-00209-3