Verbal Behavior Week 2

Front 1

Whatis Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior?

Back 1

behavior maintainedby the effect it has on the behavior of a listener and that the behavior of thelistener has been explicitly taught by the verbal community.-

Example:- Saying hi when someone has earbuds in.- Talking to yourself.- Asking for coffee .Non Example: scream and flop or tugging onsomeone’s shirt

Front 2

How are verbal behavior and non-verbal behavior stimuli?

Back 2

Similar hey are both controlled by the same behavioral processes except elicitation

Different because verbal behavior is socially maintained by the listener and the listener's response was explicitly taught by the verbal community.

Example: saying "excuse me" v.s tugging on someones shirt

Front 3

Whydoes verbal behavior get special attention?

Back 3

Verbal behavior requires special attention because it allows our culture to move beyond ontogenic selection, you are able to learn from others, allowing for technologies and response patterns that never would have occurred otherwise.It requires cultural selection and social mediation for maintenance. It requires responses that are different than non verbal behavior. The responses of the speaker and listener need to be taught and they need to teach to teach those responses as well.

Front 4

Whydoes Skinner object to terms like “speech” and “language”?

Back 4

Because typically speech only refers to vocal verbal speechwhereas speech should encompass vocal verbal speech as well as ASL, brail, etc. The term language refers to behavior of a culture as a wholerather than then individual. The term has nothing to do with the behavioralframework in which it should be used.

Example: English language verse the verbalbehavior of an individual

Front 5

Whatdoes Skinner mean by the term “etymological sanction”. ?

Back 5

To create new terms so that the science of verbal behavior can be under control of new vocabulary that will avoid terms that occasion pre-scientific behavior

Front 6

What does Skinner mean by “understanding” verbal behavior?

Back 6

The extent to which you can predict and control behavior

Front 7

React to the following statement: “… the behavior of the listener in mediating the consequences of the behavior of the speaker is not necessarily verbal in any special sense.”

Back 7

The listener can engage in a variety of topographies to thespeaker’s verbal behavior. Example: Speaker: “can you get me coffee?”Listener: get you coffee

Or.

Listener: “Where should I put it?”

Front 8

Whyhas psychology “been led to neglect some of the events needed in a functionalor causal analysis?”

Back 8

Psychology relies on explanatory fictions, attributingevents as taking place inside the organism.The presence of an explanation eliminates an establishingoperation for different explanations.

EX. Gravity.

Front 9

Whydoes verbal behavior have favorable characteristics as an object of study?

Back 9

It is easily observed.There is a large amount of material.The facts are verified and substantial, two people can agreeon what was said.The development of writing has provided aready-made system for reporting verbal behavior which is convenient and precise

Front 10

Discussthe difficulties involved in attempting to explain verbal behavior in terms ofideas, meanings, images, information, etc.

Back 10

When you talk in ideas, meaning images, and information you are placing the locus of control inside the language or the word which can lead to mentalistic explanations because they are covert.

If this is done we cannot determine functionalrelations

Front 11

Evaluate "one has not accounted for a remark by paraphrasing 'what is means'.

Back 11

Paraphrasing is just another occurrence of another member of a response class but in order to determine a meaning you need to identify the variables of which a response is a function.

synonym or definitions are members of the same response class.

Front 12

What is and is not the purpose of Skinner's book?

Back 12

Skinner is interpreting verbal behavior and categorizing it according to controlling variables. Skinner is accounting for verbal behavior as an outcome for behavioral processes. It develops a taxonomy of verbal behavior based on known functional relations/ processes of behavior.

It is not an explanation for a lit review for research that informs the behavioral processes discussed. it does not look at verbal behavior of the individual as unique.

Front 13

In what sense is the book "theoretical"

Back 13

It is theoretical in the sense that is is not experimental and does not include experimental analysis.

Front 14

In what sense is the book not "theoretical"

Back 14

It is not theoretical because the science of ABA is based on inductive theory in which you first describe a functional relation using the data then you come up with a theory based on the data.

This book is based on previous research on behavioral processes

Front 15

What does Skinner mean when he says that we can see the meaning or purpose of a response? How does it differ from traditional views?

Back 15

The meaning is not a property of a word, it can be seen in the variables in which the response is a function.

traditionally the meaning is within the word

Example: the same word can be used under different conditions

- water for attention

- water as a mand for the water table

Front 16

How is the definition of verbal behavior related to the form, mode, or meduim of the response? Give examples.

Back 16

Verbal behavior cannot specify any one form, mode, or medium. There is no defining form or topography of behavior because it is irrelevant.

We are looking for the change in behavior after the response not how the response was emitted.

verbal behavior includes: vocal verbal, sign language

Front 17

What is the distinction between verbal and vocal behavior as audible speech?

Back 17

Verbal behavior differs from vocal behavior because the responses are mediated b the listener.

Verbal: saying hi, requesting an item

non example: vocal stereotypy, humming, snoring

Front 18

Distinguish an instance of a response from a class of responses. Why is that distinction important in the practical control of behavior?

Back 18

An instance of response is one instance of activity of an organism at one moment of time.

class of responses: a collection of topographically different responses that co- vary as a function of the same environmental event.

It is important because we identify functional relations between response classes and stimuli classes not instances.

Example: open door

Front 19

What is the basic unit of verbal behavior?

Back 19

Verbal operant: there is not a fixed topographical size.

The proper size is the size at which it shows us orderly data and a functional relation becomes apparent.

Novel sentences are used because the words in phrases have previously been reinforced.

Front 20

Formal Analysis

Back 20

Describes the form or topography of behavior

structural analysis

Front 21

Causal Analysis

Back 21

Specifies the controlling environmental variables of which the response is a function. Determining the conditions under which it will or will not occur.

Functional Analysis

Front 22

Distinguish between a behavioral and a traditional linguistic approach to the choice of a unit size.

Back 22

Standard linguistic unit are various sizes. They can vary for example, between morphemes below the word, to sentences above the word, and so on.

The behavioral unit is the size of an operant. The speaker can use any size- sound to phrase.

"oh" and "stop there"

Front 23

Verbal repertiore

Back 23

Is a collection of response classes that occur under appropriate environmental circumstances

Example: a variety of words/ phrases that can be used to get someone attention

Front 24

vocabulary

Back 24

A lexicon of words emitted by someone

any word that can be used. Pancake

Front 25

What is the role of probability?

Back 25

Probability is a dependent measure and is highly correlated with response rate. The likelihood that a behavior will happen under certain circumstances.

Example: typical verse uncommon greetings. If I use one more often, its probability it will be used in a novel circumstance is greater.

Front 26

On what 3 bases is the notion of response strength inferred?

Back 26

Energy level: refer to the intensity/ magnitude.

Example: shout out or whisper or the use of relative energy to emphasize something.

Speed: the speed at which successive parts of a sample follow one another or the latency to respond.

Repetition: rate

Front 27

Summarize the individual variables and related processes. Do any of these differ from those involved in nonverbal behavior?

Back 27

Any behavioral process effects responding regardless of being verbal or non-verbal.

Example: reinforcement can increase mands or humming.

Operant conditioning, reinforcement, punishment, shaping, extinction, discriminative stimulus control, motivating operations, aversive stimuli

Except elicitation, verbal behavior is not respondent.

Front 28

Discuss the role of the listener in the total verbal episode, and our interest in that role in analyzing verbal behavior

Back 28

The listener mediates the deliver of reinforcement for verbal behavior. If we want to analyze the maintaining variables for verbal behavior we must analyze the behavior of the listener.