Training intraverbal naming to establish equivalence class performances

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Psychology
• Experimental Analysis of Behavior

Background:

• Equivalence class formation is a key concept in understanding complex verbal behavior.
• Previous research explored the role of intraverbal naming in establishing these classes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if training tact and intraverbal relations of visual stimuli names leads to equivalence class formation in adults.
• To examine the relationship between performance on matching-to-sample (MTS) and intraverbal posttests.

Main Methods:

• Fourteen adult participants underwent tact training, listener testing, and intraverbal training (A'B' and B'C').
• Participants were then assessed using matching-to-sample (MTS) and intraverbal posttests in varied sequences across three experiments.

Main Results:

• All participants demonstrated emergent matching-to-sample (MTS) and intraverbal relations, consistent with equivalence class formation.
• Participants successfully named sample-comparison pairs, supporting the intraverbal naming account.
• Verbal reports and latency data indicated that intraverbal naming was not continuously required for problem-solving during MTS posttests.

Conclusions:

• Verbal behavior training of baseline relations (A'B' and B'C') is sufficient for establishing novel conditional relations indicative of equivalence class formation.
• Findings extend previous research by confirming the role of trained verbal relations in emergent equivalence.
• The study highlights the flexibility of intraverbal naming as a strategy in equivalence tasks.