Jan De Houwer  Bertram Gawronski  Dermot Barnes-Holmes 《European Review of Social Psychology》2013,24(1):252-287

In attitude research, behaviours are often used as proxies for attitudes and attitudinal processes. This practice is problematic because it conflates the behaviours that need to be explained (explanandum) with the mental constructs that are used to explain these behaviours (explanans). In the current chapter we propose a meta-theoretical framework that resolves this problem by distinguishing between two levels of analysis. According to the proposed framework, attitude research can be conceptualised as the scientific study of evaluation. Evaluation is defined not in terms of mental constructs but in terms of elements in the environment, more specifically, as the effect of stimuli on evaluative responses. From this perspective, attitude research provides answers to two questions: (1) Which elements in the environment moderate evaluation? (2) What mental processes and representations mediate evaluation? Research on the first question provides explanations of evaluative responses in terms of elements in the environment (functional level of analysis); research on the second question offers explanations of evaluation in terms of mental processes and representations (cognitive level of analysis). These two levels of analysis are mutually supportive, in that better explanations at one level lead to better explanations at the other level. However, their mutually supportive relation requires a clear distinction between the concepts of their explanans and explanandum, which are conflated if behaviours are treated as proxies for mental constructs. The value of this functional-cognitive framework is illustrated by applying it to four central questions of attitude research.  相似文献   

    

Daniel M. Fienup  Daniel P. Covey  Thomas S. Critchfield 《Journal of applied behavior analysis》2010,43(1):19-33

Instructional interventions based on stimulus equivalence provide learners with the opportunity to acquire skills that are not directly taught, thereby improving the efficiency of instructional efforts. The present report describes a study in which equivalence‐based instruction was used to teach college students facts regarding brain anatomy and function. The instruction involved creating two classes of stimuli that students understood as being related. Because the two classes shared a common member, they spontaneously merged, thereby increasing the yield of emergent relations. Overall, students mastered more than twice as many facts as were explicitly taught, thus demonstrating the potential of equivalence‐based instruction to reduce the amount of student investment that is required to master advanced academic topics.  相似文献   

    

Critchfield TS  Fienup DM 《Journal of applied behavior analysis》2010,43(4):763-768

Computerized lessons employing stimulus equivalence technology, used previously under laboratory conditions to teach inferential statistics concepts to college students, were employed in a group setting for the first time. Students showed the same directly taught and emergent learning gains as in laboratory studies. A brief paper-and-pencil examination, suitable for classroom use, captured effects demonstrated previously through laboratory tests. The results support the extension of the lessons to more naturalistic settings.  相似文献   

    

Dymond S  Bateman H  Dixon MR 《Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior》2010,94(3):353-363

Contemporary behavior-analytic perspectives on gambling emphasize the impact of verbal relations, or derived relational responding and the transformation of stimulus functions, on the initiation and maintenance of gambling. Approached in this way, it is possible to undertake experimental analysis of the role of verbal/mediational variables in gambling behavior. The present study therefore sought to demonstrate the ways new stimuli could come to have functions relevant to gambling without those functions being trained directly. Following a successful derived-equivalence-relations test, a simulated board game established high- and low-roll functions for two concurrently presented dice labelled with members of the derived relations. During the test for derived transformation, children were reexposed to the board game with dice labelled with indirectly related stimuli. All participants except 1 who passed the equivalence relations test selected the die that was indirectly related to the trained high-roll die more often than the die that was indirectly related to low-roll die, despite the absence of differential outcomes. All participants except 3 also gave the derived high-roll die higher liking ratings than the derived low-roll die. The implications of the findings for behavior-analytic research on gambling and the development of verbally-based interventions for disordered gambling are discussed.  相似文献   

    

George P. Knight  Argero A. Zerr 《Child Development Perspectives》2010,4(1):25-30

Abstract— The role of theory informed by the nature of the population being studied is often overlooked in considering the equivalence of measures across developmental changes, across groups that differ in developmental status, or across groups that differ in participant characteristics. The purpose of this article is to discuss the “best practice” approaches for evaluating measurement equivalence based on such informed theory. This article discusses the role of informed theory in the consideration of various types of measurement equivalence in developmental research, as well as equivalence of translated items and measures.  相似文献   

    

Drake CE  Wilson KG 《Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior》2008,89(3):333-340

Conducting studies using an undergraduate participant pool is fraught with difficulties. Among them are problems with adequately motivating subjects both to come to the study, and once there, to actively engage the experimental task. Thirty-one college students participated in a matching-to-sample (MTS) study involving substantial training, testing, retraining, and retesting of conditional discriminations and equivalence relations among four 4-member classes of nonsensical words. The study was conducted during the end of the semester, when performance often had been observed to be poorer than at other points in the semester. Eleven of the participants, in addition to standard instructions about the task, received additional instructions specifying molar consequences for high rates of \"correct\" responses throughout the procedure. This subset of participants displayed markedly improved performance as compared to those who did not receive the additional instructions. Results suggest that specification of molar contingencies improves participants' sensitivity to molecular contingencies within the study. Instructions that specify and increase the consequential functions of feedback provided during MTS trials may be one means of reducing unwanted variability in human MTS performance.  相似文献   

    

Carr D  Wilkinson KM  Blackman D  McIlvane WJ 《Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior》2000,74(1):101-114

Studies from two different laboratories tested for equivalence classes in individuals with severe mental retardation and minimal verbal repertoires. In the first study, 3 individuals learned several matching-to-sample performances: matching picture comparison stimuli to dictated-word sample stimuli (AB), matching those same pictures to printed letter samples (CB), and also matching the pictures to nonrepresentative forms (DB). On subsequent tests, all individuals immediately displayed Emergent Relations AC, AD, BC, BD, CD, and DC, together constituting a positive demonstration of equivalence (as defined by Sidman). The second study obtained a positive equivalence test outcome in 1 of 2 individuals with similarly minimal verbal repertoires. Taken together, these studies call into question previous assertions that equivalence classes are demonstrable only in individuals with well-developed language repertoires.  相似文献   

    

Wirth O  Chase PN  Munson KJ 《Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior》2000,74(3):363-375

Recent developments in speech recognition make it feasible to apply the technology to study vocal behavior. The present study illustrates the use of this technology to establish functional stimulus classes. Eight students were taught to say nonsense words in the presence of arbitrarily assigned sets of symbols consistent with three three-member experimenter-defined stimulus classes. Computer-controlled speech-recognition software was used to record, analyze, and differentially reinforce vocal responses. When the stimulus classes were established, students were taught to say a new nonsense word in the presence of one member of each stimulus class. Transfer of function was tested subsequently to determine if the novel stimulus names transferred to the remaining stimulus class members. Most subjects required two iterations of the training and testing procedures before transfer occurred. The data illustrate the usefulness of recording vocal behavior during stimulus control procedures and demonstrate the use of speech-recognition technology. The paper also describes the current state of speech-recognition technology and suggests several other areas of research that might benefit from using vocal behavior as its primary datum.  相似文献   

    

M Meeter  D Shohamy    C.E Myers 《Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior》2009,91(1):127-141

Acquired equivalence is a paradigm in which generalization is increased between two superficially dissimilar stimuli (or antecedents) that have previously been associated with similar outcomes (or consequents). Several possible mechanisms have been proposed, including changes in stimulus representations, either in the form of added associations or a change of feature salience. A different way of conceptualizing acquired equivalence is in terms of strategic inference: Confronted with a choice on which it has no evidence, the organism may infer from its history of reinforcement what the best option is, and that inference is observed as acquired equivalence. To test this account, we combined an incremental learning task with an episodic memory test. Drawings of faces were made equivalent through acquired equivalence training, and then paired with words in a list learning paradigm. When participants were asked to recognize specific face-word pairings, they confused faces more often when they had been made equivalent. This suggests that prior acquired equivalence training does influence how memories are coded. We also tested whether this change in coding reflected acquisition of new associations, as suggested by the associative mediation account, or whether stimuli become more similar through a reweighting of stimulus features, as assumed by some categorization theories. Results supported the associative mediation view. We discuss similarities between this view and exemplar theories of categorization performance.  相似文献   

    

Christopher PJ  Dougher MJ 《The Behavior analyst / MABA》2009,32(1):149-161

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