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Updated: May 23, 2026
06:57
Modeling Verbal Behavior Deficits with the Stimulus Control Ratio Equation, SCoRE
Published on: May 14, 2019
A reply to behavior analysts writing about rules and rule-governed behavior
The Analysis of Verbal Behavior
|April 6, 2012
Abstract:
Verbal stimuli called "rules" or "instructions" continue to be interpreted as discriminative stimuli despite recent arguments against this practice. Instead, it might more fruitful for behavior analysts to focus on "contingency-specifying stimuli" which are function-altering. Moreover, rather than having a special term, "rule," for verbal stimuli whose only function is discriminative, perhaps behavior analysts should reserve the term, if at all, only for these function-altering contingency-specifying stimuli.
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