A comparison of intraverbal training procedures for children with autism

We compared the effectiveness of three training procedures, echoic and tact prompting plus error correction and a cues-pause-point (CPP) procedure, for increasing intraverbals in 2 children with autism. We also measured echoic behavior that may have interfered with appropriate question answering. Results indicated that echoic prompting with error correction was most effective and the CPP procedure was least effective for increasing intraverbals and decreasing echoic behavior.     

Defining behavior-environment interactions: translating and developing an experimental and applied behavior-analytic vocabulary in and to the national language

Verbal behavior, as in the use of terms, is an important part of scientific activity in general and behavior analysis in particular. Many glossaries and dictionaries of behavior analysis have been published in English, but few in any other language. Here we review the area of behavior analytic terminology, its translations, and development in languages other than English. As an example, we use our own mother tongue, Finnish, which provides a suitable example of the process of translation and development of behavior analytic terminology, because it differs from Indo-European languages and entails specific advantages and challenges in the translation process. We have published three editions of a general dictionary of behavior analysis including 801 terms relevant to the experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis and one edition of a dictionary of applied and clinical behavior analysis containing 280 terms. Because this work has been important to us, we hope this review will encourage similar work by behavior analysts in other countries whose native language is not English. Behavior analysis as an advanced science deserves widespread international dissemination and proper translations are essential to that goal.     

音乐经验对言语加工能力的促进作用

以初中二年级的学生为考察对象,探讨了音乐经验对不同层次的言语加工能力的促进作用,发现：在声音信号的加工层面,音乐经验对音高和时长信息感知能力的发展都有积极的促进作用;在语音意识层面,音乐经验的促进作用只局限于声调意识;在言语记忆方面,音乐经验可以促进言语材料在长时记忆中的保持。     

Some Implications of a Behavioral Analysis of Verbal Behavior for Logic and Mathematics

The evident power and utility of the formal models of logic and mathematics pose a puzzle: Although such models are instances of verbal behavior, they are also essentialistic. But behavioral terms, and indeed all products of selection contingencies, are intrinsically variable and in this respect appear to be incommensurate with essentialism. A distinctive feature of verbal contingencies resolves this puzzle: The control of behavior by the nonverbal environment is often mediated by the verbal behavior of others, and behavior under control of verbal stimuli is blind to the intrinsic variability of the stimulating environment. Thus, words and sentences serve as filters of variability and thereby facilitate essentialistic model building and the formal structures of logic, mathematics, and science. Autoclitic frames, verbal chains interrupted by interchangeable variable terms, are ubiquitous in verbal behavior. Variable terms can be substituted in such frames almost without limit, a feature fundamental to formal models. Consequently, our fluency with autoclitic frames fosters generalization to formal models, which in turn permit deduction and other kinds of logical and mathematical inference.     

Demand characteristics and research into drug use

Abstract

Health research makes frequent use of verbal reports; and such reports are usually assumed to be the surface indicants of measurable entities such as attitudes, beliefs, intentions, etc. which reside inside the person. It is our assertion that verbal reports themselves are motivated and variable; they are functional and context-dependent and their meaning and significance are localised. Consequently discourse cannot be treated as if it were fixed and categorical data to be retrieved from memory by asking questions that appear objective or disinterested. A method is postulated, using a social perception analogy with signal detection (SD) theory. The method allows for the assessment of subject criterion, and permits an examination of signal-strength in terms of the researcher's motivation. Data are evaluated in terms of their “robustness”, a measure which derives from the variability of response in different contexts, and under different elicitation procedures. The method requires few assumptions to be made about the “truth” or “falsity” of verbal reports. It focuses on the types of social activities that are performed by utterances and thus on the contextual variability revealed by asking questions in different situations and in different ways. This procedure does not presume a direct correspondence between verbal reports and mental representations.     

La creación verbal: el procesamiento del discurso estético

Resumen

Entre los numerosos géneros del discurso, los literarios han sido considerados tradicionalmente como el dominio privilegiado de la creatividad, ya que el enunciado artístico es el que explota con mayor exhaustividad la búsqueda de recursos infrecuentes y originales en todos los niveles de representación del lenguaje. En este trabajo se describen las exigencias que los procedimientos estéticos imponen sobre el procesamiento lector y escritor, considerando que el texto literario tiene características no cooperativas que exigen operaciones diferencialesy más complejas en comparación con otros ámbitos del discurso. Se propone que la frecuentación comprensiva y productiva de géneros literariospermite que se desarrollen formas alternativas de procesamiento que llevan la flexibilidad representacionalsimbólica a su máxima expresión. Así, el texto estético funciona como un instrumento mediacional altamente especializado que proporciona una cultura para promover formas de pensamiento inventivas e imaginativas.     

Exploring a new paradigm for empathy research / Explorando un nuevo paradigma para el estudio de la empatía

Abstract

The present paper proposes an alternative experimental procedure for studies on empathy. It is intended as a simple and reliable alternative to the commonly used designs, which are certainly very elegant, but costly, as they require delicate real-life experimental manipulations. We advocate that studies using simple well-formulated text stimuli can be methodologically as reliable and valid as game task approaches. To underscore our claim, we report first behavioural evidence that supports this conclusion. The clear advantage of the method we present is that it is less susceptible to bias and, more importantly, more accessible to laboratories that do not have the financial means and the spatial infrastructure to manoeuvre complex and costly experimental setups and techniques. It is an easy to use, computer-based paradigm.     

Estudio de las diferencias individuales en gastos atencionales,a partir de una tarea de papel y lápiz

Resumen

En este trabajo, que conjuga la tradición psicométrica con la perspectiva de procesamiento de información, se estudió si las diferencias en rendimiento observadas en los tests están asociados a diferencias individuales en gasto atencional. Fueron seleccionados 4 grupos extremos de sujetos en función de dos factores de inteligencia (verbal y espacial), los cuales realizaron una tarea de verificación de frases (tarea primaria) aisladamente o en conjunción con una de emparejamiento perceptivo (tarea secundaria). Se utilizaron como variables dependientes el número de aciertos de la tarea primaria, en ambas condiciones, y en la tarea secundaria, con tiempo limitado; y el número de errores en ambas tareas, sin límite de tiempo. Los sujetos altos verbales tuvieron más aciertos que los bajos verbales al ejecutar la tarea primaria en solitario, e iguales diferencias se encontraron entre altos y bajos espaciales; no se observaron diferencias en el número de errores. Al realizar ambas tareas concurrentemente, los altos verbales tienen mayor número de aciertos y cometen menos errores, en la tarea primaria, que los bajos verbales; los altos y bajos espaciales se diferencian únicamente en el número de aciertos. Estos resultados son discutidos y comparados con estudios diferenciales recientes.     

Memory for emotional words: The role of semantic relatedness,encoding task and affective valence

Emotional stimuli have been repeatedly demonstrated to be better remembered than neutral ones. The aim of the present study was to test whether this advantage in memory is mainly produced by the affective content of the stimuli or it can be rather accounted for by factors such as semantic relatedness or type of encoding task. The valence of the stimuli (positive, negative and neutral words that could be either semantically related or unrelated) as well as the type of encoding task (focused on either familiarity or emotionality) was manipulated. The results revealed an advantage in memory for emotional words (either positive or negative) regardless of semantic relatedness. Importantly, this advantage was modulated by the encoding task, as it was reliable only in the task which focused on emotionality. These findings suggest that congruity with the dimension attended at encoding might contribute to the superiority in memory for emotional words, thus offering us a more complex picture of the underlying mechanisms behind the advantage for emotional information in memory.