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Instructed versus shaped human verbal behavior: Interactions with nonverbal responding.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
|November 1, 1982
Summary
When verbal responses were shaped by rewards, they effectively controlled button-pressing behavior. However, instructed verbal responses showed inconsistent control over actions, highlighting the difference between contingency-governed and rule-governed behavior.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral psychology
- Verbal behavior analysis
Background:
- Operant conditioning principles govern behavior through reinforcement schedules.
- Verbal behavior can be shaped or instructed, influencing nonverbal actions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how shaped and instructed verbal responses control nonverbal button-pressing behavior.
- To compare the effectiveness of contingency-governed versus rule-governed verbal control.
Main Methods:
- Undergraduate students operated buttons under multiple random-ratio/random-interval schedules for points exchangeable for money.
- During schedule interruptions, participants completed sentence-completion tasks to generate guesses about button pressing.
- Guesses were either shaped with differential points, instructed, or simply collected, with contingencies sometimes reversed to test control.
Main Results:
- Shaped guesses consistently controlled button-pressing rates, even when opposing the established contingencies.
- Unsuccessful shaping or lack of differential consequences for guesses resulted in poor correspondence between guesses and pressing rates.
- Instructed guesses showed inconsistent relationships with pressing behavior, indicating variable control.
Conclusions:
- Contingency-governed verbal behavior (shaped guesses) effectively controlled nonverbal responding.
- Rule-governed verbal behavior (instructed guesses) demonstrated inconsistent control, sometimes controlling, sometimes being controlled by, and sometimes being independent of nonverbal behavior.