Verbal Behavior Flashcards

A child sees a dog and says 'animal.' Later, after learning the word 'dog,' she continues to say 'animal' when seeing dogs. According to Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior, what best describes the original response 'animal' when seeing the dog?

Answer: An impure tact under multiple control from both the visual stimulus and previously reinforced verbal behavior

The response 'animal' is an impure tact: it was partially controlled by the nonverbal stimulus (the dog) but also under the influence of the child's existing verbal repertoire. Pure tacts are controlled exclusively by the nonverbal environment; when prior verbal behavior also exerts control, the response is classified as an impure tact under multiple control.

During a NET session, a learner spontaneously says 'more bubbles' when the clinician pauses blowing bubbles. The learner has no history of being explicitly taught this phrase as a mand. Which concept BEST explains the emergence of this novel mand?

Answer: Recombinative generalization across previously reinforced mand and tact frames

Recombinative generalization occurs when a learner combines previously trained units (e.g., 'more' from one mand and 'bubbles' from a tact repertoire) to produce a novel, functionally appropriate response. This is distinct from simple stimulus generalization, which refers to responding to untrained stimuli in the same response class, and from autoclitic framing, which modifies the functional relationship of a verbal response.

A speaker says 'I think it might rain' rather than 'It will rain.' In Skinner's verbal behavior framework, the phrase 'I think' functions as which type of autoclitic?

Answer: A qualifying autoclitic that weakens the strength of the primary verbal operant

A qualifying autoclitic alters or weakens the effect of the primary verbal operant on the listener. 'I think' signals to the listener that the speaker's response ('it might rain') is of low strength — the speaker has limited evidence. Relational autoclitics specify relationships between objects or events (e.g., 'the cup is on the table'), not between speaker confidence and content.

A BCBA is training a child to tact colors. During probe trials, the child correctly tacts 'red' when seeing a red ball but says 'ball' when the red cup is presented. According to the analysis of multiple control, which stimulus variable MOST likely accounts for this breakdown?

Answer: The ball has a stronger history of reinforcement for tacting the property 'red,' so color control has not transferred across objects

Multiple control and transfer of stimulus control analysis explain this error: the child's tact 'red' was trained predominantly with the ball, so the controlling property (color) is tightly bound to that specific object. Without varied exemplar training across objects, color as an abstract stimulus property has not come to exert independent control. This is a failure of stimulus generalization within the tact repertoire, not a competing operant issue.

A therapist reads a word card aloud and the client immediately repeats it. The client reads the same card silently and whispers the word softly. According to Skinner, these two responses are topographically similar but belong to different verbal operant classes. Which pairing correctly identifies them?

Answer: The repeated spoken word is an echoic; the whispered reading is a textual

An echoic is controlled by an auditory verbal stimulus and has formal similarity to that stimulus (the therapist's spoken word → client's spoken repetition). A textual is controlled by a visual verbal stimulus (print) and produces a vocal response with formal similarity to the written text. Though the topography of both outputs may be nearly identical, the controlling antecedent stimulus modality determines the operant class.

During an intraverbal training program, a learner reliably answers 'Washington' to 'Who was the first president?' but never answers 'George' to 'What was Washington's first name?' A behavior analyst hypothesizes that the responses are under narrow stimulus control. Which intervention strategy MOST directly addresses this by using Skinner's verbal behavior framework?

Answer: Vary the syntactic frame of the intraverbal antecedents to broaden the controlling stimulus features

Intraverbal stimulus control that is too narrow (i.e., only one specific verbal antecedent evokes the response) is addressed by varying the form of the verbal antecedent — presenting the same relational content through different syntactic frames (e.g., 'The first president's name was __,' 'George ___ was the first president'). This broadens the controlling stimulus class consistent with VB-MAPP and Sundberg's intraverbal analysis, targeting the core problem of restricted verbal stimulus control.