Abstract
The acquisition of verbal behavior is complex and requires the analysis of myriad variables. Ernst Moerk estimated that by the time a child has reached 4 years of age they have experienced nearly 9 million language learning trials with mothers using at least 14 categories of maternal teaching interactions. The interactions provide a foundation for children learning the tact, mand, echoic, intraverbal, autoclitic, and other relations, described by Skinner in Verbal Behavior. Here we examine two relations that have been overlooked to some extent and arguably account for many of the generative features of verbal behavior and shared meaning: the abstract tact, or more precisely the interdimensional abstract tact, and the autoclitic frame. We describe Goldiamond’s treatment of stimulus control in its many forms; dimensional, abstractional, and instructional, and how it can be used to understand the acquisition of both intradimensional and interdimensional abstract tacts and autoclitic frames that guide seemingly complex relational responding and meet consequential contingency requirements. We argue the development of complex relational responding in children can be explained parsimoniously without mediating variables or hypothetical constructs.
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Notes
Layng (2019) provides an example of such a program used to teach the abstract tacts solid, liquid, and gas and their corresponding molecular movements.
This observation was first made by James G. Holland (J. G. Holland, personal communication, May, 1986).
The discussion has focused on what may be considered conjunctive relations. These may be considered “and” relations in as much as responding to a set or features is required. That is, property 1 and property 2 and property 3, control responding, for example. The absence of any of the properties results in a nonexample. It is important to note, however, that there are other relations that can also acquire stimulus control over behavior. This class is defined by features not necessarily shared by all class members. These relations are what Bruner al. (1956) called disjunctive concepts.
Cohen makes the case that the entire treatment of “perspective taking” can be explained best as a function of the same relations found in metaphor. It makes for a fascinating read.
Other behavioral processes likely contribute to some of the punctuations or “leaps” observed in verbal behavior performance. Two such processes in particular may play a significant role, the first is contingency adduction, the recruitment and often combinations of new patterns from previously established components (see Andronis et al., 1997; Johnson & Layng, 1992; Layng et al., 2004), and the second is the effect of verbal behavioral cusps, where certain behavior patterns are established that bring the child into contact with contingencies not previously available (see Rosales-Ruiz & Baer, 1997).
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The authors thank Awab Abdel-Jalil, Joanne K. Robbins, Paul T. Andronis, Caio Miguel, David Cox, and Greg Stikeleather for their extremely helpful comments.
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Layng, T.V.J., Linnehan, A.M. Acquisition of Children’s Relational Responding: The Role of the Intradimensional and Interdimensional Abstract Tact and the Autoclitic Frame. Perspect Behav Sci 46, 539–559 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-023-00375-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-023-00375-0