Using Concealed Public Accompaniments to Teach Individuals to Tact Intensity

Healthcare professionals frequently ask individuals to use numerical rating scales to rate their pain intensity, yet individuals often find it challenging to accurately report sensations. The present study explored the efficacy of procedures to teach adults to report the intensity of tactile sensations-rough, heavy, and temperature (hot/cold)-on a numerical rating scale within a multiple baseline design across stimulus sets. The participants felt the stimuli, which were concealed from the participants' view, by inserting their hands into a stimulus box. The participants mastered the taught intensity tacts and generalized the tacts to novel body parts. One participant also generalized tacts to untaught intensities, and the other participant generalized responding to novel stimuli, untaught intensities, and untaught intensities in novel stimulus sets. These findings are discussed in the context of Skinner's analysis of how humans learn to talk about private events.