By definition, all of the stimuli in an equivalence class have to be functionally interchangeable with each other. The present experiment, however, demonstrated that this was not the case when using post-class-formation dual-option response transfer tests. With college students, two 4-node 6-member equivalence classes with nodal structures of…

Amid the novel terms and original analyses in Skinner's "Verbal Behavior", the importance of his discussion of multiple control is easily missed, but multiple control of verbal responses is the rule rather than the exception. In this paper we summarize and illustrate Skinner's analysis of multiple control and introduce the terms "convergent…

The purpose of the current study was to assess whether children would categorize pictures when taught the relevant listener and speaker behaviors separately. A category-sort test was used to assess emergent conditional relations. Category-sort trials consisted of looking at (Test 1) or tacting/labeling (Test 2) a sample stimulus and selecting the…

Following pre-training with everyday objects, 8 children aged from 2 to 4 years learned to produce one manual sign (fists placed one above the other, in front of body) to one stimulus and an alternative manual sign (shoulders touched with ipsilateral hands) to the other stimulus, with each of three pairs of different arbitrary wooden shapes (Set…

The present study undertook an updated citation analysis of Skinner's (1957) "Verbal Behavior". All articles that cited "Verbal Behavior" between 1984 and 2004 were recorded and content analyzed into one of five categories; four empirical and one nonempirical. Of the empirical categories, studies that employed a verbal operant from Skinner's…

Few studies have made use of B. F. Skinner's (1957) behavioral analysis of language and precise taxonomy of verbal behavior when describing the controlling variables for the mand relation. Consequently, the motivating operation (MO) has not typically been identified as an independent variable and the nature of a spontaneous mand has been…

Discusses how operant conditioning has not brought instructional designers any closer to using feedback effectively in computer assisted instruction they design, defines and describes types of feedback, presents guidelines for effective feedback use, and suggests use of templates to bring instructional design to a sophisticated level of…

This paper puts forward "The Conceptual Referent Theory of Happiness" (CRT), which states that a person's conceptual referent for a happy life plays a role in the judgment of her life and in the appraisal of her happiness. A typology of eight conceptual referents for happiness is made on the basis of a review of philosophical essays on…