ERIC EJ808981: The Effects of Tact and Listener Training on the Emergence of Bidirectional Intraverbal Relations

2008·0.13 MB·English

by  ERIC

JOURNALOFAPPLIEDBEHAVIORANALYSIS 2008, 41, 411–415 NUMBER3 (FALL2008)
THE EFFECTS OF TACT AND LISTENER TRAINING ON THE
EMERGENCE OF BIDIRECTIONAL INTRAVERBAL RELATIONS
´
ANNA INGEBORG PETURSDOTTIR, ALMA RU´N OLAFSDO´TTIR, AND
BERGLIND ARADO´TTIR
UNIVERSITYOFAKUREYRI
We evaluated the effects of 2 types of training on the emergence of bidirectional intraverbal
relations with 4 typically developing children. Tact training involved reinforcing foreign-
languagevocalizationsinthepresenceofvisualstimuli,andlistenertraininginvolvedreinforcing
selectionsofvisual stimulifollowing vocalpresentations offoreign-language words. Intraverbal
relations were tested by instructing participants to vocalize native-language equivalents of
foreign-language words or vice versa. Both types of training produced increases in intraverbal
responding, butthe emergent relations werenotalways bidirectional.
DESCRIPTORS: emergent relations, foreign-language instruction, intraverbals, listener
behavior,tacts
_______________________________________________________________________________
Skinner (1957) described the intraverbal multiple tact relations; that is, verbal responses
relation as a verbal response under the control in the presence of nonverbal stimuli (Skinner,
of an antecedent verbal stimulus that does not 1957). Miguel et al. additionally trained the
have point-to-point correspondence with the selectionofnonverbalstimuliinthepresenceof
responseproduct.Intheappliedverbalbehavior verbal stimuli, sometimes termed listener rela-
literature (e.g., Sundberg & Partington, 1998), tions, as did Petursdottir, Carr, Lechago, and
this term has been used to describe a variety of Almason (2008). Across the three studies, tact
educationally relevant outcomes of language and listener training had minimal effects on
training, such as answering social questions, typically developing preschoolers’ vocal intra-
reciting the alphabet, singing songs, telling verbal responding, suggesting that for young
stories, and describing stimuli in their absence. children, activities such as labeling and identi-
It has been argued that because academic and fying stimuli in picture books and videos may
social behavior relies heavily on intraverbal not always suffice to expand intraverbal reper-
repertoires, early childhood education should toires. However, all three studies investigated
emphasize their establishment (Partington & training in the context of teaching categoriza-
Bailey, 1993; Sundberg & Michael, 2001). tion skills. Having acquired relations between
A few studies have investigated the extent to objects and their object names and category
which young children may derive novel in- names, the participants were tested for the
traverbal relations from the reinforcement of ability to emit either multiple object names
other relations. Two studies (Miguel, Peturs- givenacategoryname(Migueletal.;Partington
dottir, & Carr, 2005; Partington & Bailey, & Bailey) or the same category name given
1993) evaluated the the effects of training multiple object names (Petursdottir et al.).
Thus, the relations were hierarchical (i.e.,
The second and third authors’ contribution should be ordered groupings within a system, as in the
considered equal. We thank Mark Sundberg for helpful
case of utensils [category] and knife [object
comments.
AddresscorrespondencetoAnnaIngeborgPetursdottir, within the category]). The present study was
who is now at the Department of Psychology, Texas intended to provide a preliminary evaluation of
Christian University, Box 298920, Fort Worth, Texas
the effects of tact and listener training on the
76129(e-mail: [email protected]).
doi:10.1901/jaba.2008.41-411 emergence of bidirectional intraverbal relations
411
412 ANNA INGEBORG PETURSDOTTIR et al.
inthecontextofalesscomplex,nonhierarchical delivered social praise contingent on correct
task structure. To this effect, 4 children were responses in both types of training. If the child
taught a small foreign-language vocabulary in made an incorrect response, the experimenter
which a one-to-one relation existed between prompted a correct response vocally (tact
native-language and foreign-language nouns. training) or by pointing (listener training). If
the child did not make a response, the
experimenter waited 10 s and then prompted
METHOD
a correct response. Training continued until
Participants, Setting, and Materials
100% correct responding was achieved in three
Ida, Emil, Lena, and Karen were 5 years old,
consecutive trial blocks.
spoke Icelandic as a native language, did not
Intraverbal testing. We used a multiple
speakasecondlanguage,andparticipatedinthe
baseline design across stimulus sets to evaluate
study with their parents’ permission. Sessions
the effects of tact training (Ida and Emil) or
lasted 20 to 30 min and were conducted three
listener training (Karen and Lena) on the
to five times a week over a period of 2 to 4
acquisition of two types of intraverbal respond-
weeks. Sessions took place in an empty
ing:Icelandic-SpanishintraverbalsandSpanish-
preschool classroom, where the child and
Icelandic intraverbals. Intraverbals were tested
experimenter sat across from each other at a
in baseline and following each training phase.
child-sized table. Visual stimuli consisted of
Each trial block consisted of six Icelandic-
laminated color photographs (8 cm by 10 cm)
Spanish and six Spanish-Icelandic trials. Trial
ofsixanimalspicturedinanaturalenvironment
presentation order varied across blocks. The
and six fruits pictured against a white back-
experimenter initiated a Spanish-Icelandic trial
ground. Prior to the experiment, the children
bypresentingtheIcelandicequivalentof‘‘What
couldname(i.e.,tact)allofthevisualstimuliin
does[Spanishname]mean?’’Acorrectresponse
Icelandic and vocally imitate their Spanish
was defined as vocalizing the Icelandic equiva-
names.
lent of the Spanish name. The experimenter
Procedure initiated an Icelandic-Spanish trial by present-
Tact and listener training. Emil and Ida ing the Icelandic equivalent of ‘‘What is
received tact training, and Lena and Karen [Icelandic name] in Spanish?’’ A correct
received listener training. Each child received response was defined as vocalizing the Spanish
training sequentially on two six-stimulus sets equivalent of the Icelandic name. The experi-
(fruitsand animals). Training wasconducted in menterdidnotpresentvisualstimuliduringtest
six-trial blocks. On a tact training trial, the trials and did not deliver any consequences
experimenter placed a visual stimulus on the following correct or incorrect responses.
table in front of the child and asked the Data collection and interobserver agreement.
Icelandic equivalentof ‘‘What is this [animal or During testing and training, the experimenter
fruit]calledinSpanish?’’Acorrectresponsewas recordedcorrectandincorrectresponsesondata
defined as vocalizing the Spanish name of the sheets. The experimenter recorded a correct
animal or fruit displayed on the picture. On a response when the child emitted the target
listener training trial, the experimenter placed vocalization or selected the target visual stimu-
three visual stimuli (all animals or all fruits) on lus and recorded an incorrect response if the
the table and asked the Icelandic equivalent of child vocalized the name of or selected a
‘‘Which [animal or fruit] is called [Spanish different stimulus or did not respond within
name]?’’ A correct response was defined as 10 s of trial initiation. The experimenter scored
touching the target stimulus. The experimenter the child’s first response if the child vocalized
BIDIRECTIONAL INTRAVERBALS 413
multiple fruit or animal names. A second resulted in only partial acquisition of the
observer independently collected data on at intraverbal relations.
least 40% of all testing and training trials for Both types of training appeared to produce
each child. An agreement was defined as both greater effects on intraverbal responding than
observers recording a correct response or both those observed in prior research on emergent
recording an incorrect response. Otherwise, a vocal intraverbal relations (Miguel et al., 2005;
disagreement was scored. Point-by-point inter- Partington & Bailey, 1993; Petursdottir et al.,
observer agreement for each trial block was 2008). This might suggest that young children
calculated by dividing the number of agree- readily derive vocal intraverbal relations when
ments by the sum of agreements and disagree- those relations are not hierarchically structured,
ments and converting this ratio to a percentage.
whereas a hierarchical structure might interfere
During testing, mean interobserver agreement
withtheiremergence.However,theparticipants
was 100% for Emil, Ida, and Lena and 99%
inthepresentstudywereslightlyolderorinthe
(range, 92% to 100%) for Karen. Mean
upper age range of those in earlier studies, and
agreement during training exceeded 97% for
as a result, developmental differences cannot be
each child.
ruled out. Although tact training appeared to
have a stronger effect on the intraverbal
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION repertoire than did listener training, these data
should be interpreted with caution, because no
Figure 1showsintraverbaltestingdataforall
within-subject evaluation was conducted to
participants. Correct intraverbals rarely oc-
comparetheeffectsofthetwotypesoftraining.
curred in baseline, but stable increases were
In addition, the tact-trained children were
observed following both types of training. The
exposed to more training trials (M 5 53.7 trial
tact-trained participants (Emil and Ida) per-
formed with high accuracy (overall .90% blocks) than the listener-trained children (M 5
33.8 trial blocks) before they reached the
correct) in Icelandic-Spanish trials on both
stimulus sets. In addition, their performance in training criterion (acquisition data are available
Spanish-Icelandic trials was highly accurate from the first author).
(overall .90% correct) on the animals set, One finding of interest, however, is that
butEmil’sperformance waslessaccurateonthe training did not necessarily result in equal
fruits set. The listener-trained participants accuracy on both of the tested relations. When
(Lena and Karen) did not reach .90% overall Lena was vocally presented with Spanish words
levels of accuracy in either testing condition; following listener training, she emitted their
however, Lena responded with 100% accuracy Icelandic equivalents with fairly high accuracy,
in Spanish-Icelandic trials during the last two but when she was vocally presented with those
blocks of testing on the animals set. Lena’s same Icelandicwords,sherarelyemittedcorrect
performance in Icelandic-Spanish trials was Spanish responses. Also, following tact training
consistently less accurate than her performance on his first stimulus set, Emil’s intraverbal
in Spanish-Icelandic trials, whereas Karen responding was more accurate in Spanish than
performed with similar accuracy in both in his native Icelandic language. These findings
conditions. In sum, tact training reliably suggest that emergent intraverbal relations are
resulted in the acquisition of an Icelandic- not necessarily bidirectional, along with the
Spanish intraverbal repertoire and somewhat possibilitythatthetrainingofdifferentrelations
less reliably in the acquisition of Spanish- (e.g., tacts vs. listener relations) may differen-
Icelandic intraverbals. The effects of listener tiallyaffectwhichtypeofunidirectionalrelation
training were more variable and typically emerges.Thisfindingmayberelatedtotherole
414 ANNA INGEBORG PETURSDOTTIR et al.
Figure 1. The number of correct responses on Icelandic-Spanish and Spanish-Icelandic intraverbal test trials in
baseline andfollowing the completion oftacttraining (toptwo panels) andlistener training (bottomtwo panels).
BIDIRECTIONAL INTRAVERBALS 415
of the novel Spanish words as either responses by the visual stimulus on tact trials and by the
or discriminative stimuli (SDs) during training relevant vocal stimulus (Icelandic fruit or
and testing. Tact training directly established animal name) on Icelandic-Spanish trials.
the Spanishvocalizations required on Icelandic- Exclusive intraverbal control by ‘‘Spanish’’
Spanishtesttrials butdidnotestablishstimulus would result in one of the six responses being
control over any kind of responding by the correct by chance (assuming a repertoire of the
Spanish names presented in Spanish-Icelandic six Spanish responses in the set) and therefore
trials. Listener training, by contrast, established cannot explain why tacts were acquired to
stimulus control by Spanish words over selec- criterion and Icelandic-Spanish intraverbals
tion responses, but no Spanish vocalizations were typically emitted with 100% accuracy.
were required. Keeping this in mind, a verbal More likely, instructions on test trials func-
behavioranalysis(Skinner, 1957)mightsuggest tioned as contextual stimuli that prompted the
that if during training, the children were to tact childtovocalizesomenameineitherSpanishor
the visual stimuli in Icelandic prior to selecting Icelandic.
them or tacting them in Spanish, those tacts
alone could suffice to establish the intraverbal
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