A review of empirical studies of verbal behavior

Citation Analysis of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (2008-2018)

Recent articles by the editorial board of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB) include calls for greater integration, collaboration, and inclusion. In so doing, it may be helpful to consider TAVB's current reach. Previously, Petursdottir, Peterson, and Peters (The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 25, 109-121, 2009) described the number of citations of articles published in TAVB from 1983 to 2007. The authors found that the greatest number of references to TAVB were self-citations, followed predominantly by other behavior-analytic outlets, such as the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. Here, we replicate and extend the work of Petursdottir et al. (The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 25, 109-121, 2009) by conducting a citation analysis of references included in TAVB publications from 2008 to 2018 and also report citations by these venues to TAVB. This citation analysis allows for a more recent review of those outlets that articles published in TAVB commonly reference and those that cite TAVB. Generally, self-citations predominated, with articles published in TAVB commonly referencing books and chapters. The implications of these practices on the impact of TAVB and suggestions for moving forward are considered.

The importance of multiple exemplar instruction in the establishment of novel verbal behavior

According to traditional linguistic accounts language, and its generative nature, cannot be taught. From a behavior analytic perspective, language is like any other behavior; it is learned and amenable to change. Based upon Skinner's radical behavioral analysis of verbal behavior, specific procedures have been designed to promote novel verbal relations. However, despite the strength and utility of this approach, using behavioral principles to understand the generativity of language has been challenging. Dependent upon the specific theory (e.g., stimulus equivalence, relational frame theory, bidirectional naming) within the radical behavioral orientation, researchers arrange unique procedures to evaluate the variables responsible for this phenomenon. This paper presents the commonalities and differences of two procedures (i.e., multiple exemplar training, multiple exemplar instruction) with examples of research highlighting the use of both in producing generativity. Further, it describes how multiple exemplar instruction is independent from other procedures leading to this outcome, and concludes by providing recommendations for both research and practice.

The impact of Verbal Behavior on the scholarly literature from 2005 to 2016

B. F. Skinner's (1957) Verbal Behavior had a limited influence on empirical research in the first few decades following its publication, but an increase in empirical activity has been evident in recent years. The purpose of this article is to update previous analyses that have quantified the influence of Verbal Behavior on the scholarly literature, with an emphasis on its impact on empirical research. Study 1 was a citation analysis that showed an increase in citations to Verbal Behavior from 2005 to 2016 relative to earlier time periods. In particular, there was a large increase in citations from empirical articles. Study 2 identified empirical studies in which a verbal operant was manipulated or measured, regardless of whether or not Verbal Behavior was cited, and demonstrated a large increase in publication rate, with an increasing trend in the publication of both basic and applied experimental analyses throughout the review period. A majority of the studies were concerned with teaching verbal behavior to children with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities, but a variety of other basic and applied research topics were also represented. The results suggest a clearly increasing impact of Verbal Behavior on the experimental analysis of behavior on the 60th anniversary of the book's publication.

Empirical Application of Skinner's Verbal Behavior to Interventions for Children with Autism: A Review

Sundberg and Michael (2011) reviewed the contributions of Skinner's (1957) Verbal Behavior to the treatment of language delays in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and discussed several aspects of interventions, including mand training, intraverbal repertoire development, and the importance of using Skinner's taxonomy of verbal behavior in the clinical context. In this article, we provide an update of Sundberg and Michael's review and expand on some discussion topics. We conducted a systematic review of studies that focused on Skinner's verbal operants in interventions for children with ASD that were published from 2001 to 2017 and discussed the findings in terms of journal source, frequency, and type of verbal operant studied.

Empirical Investigations of the Intraverbal: 2005-2015

Several papers have reviewed the literature based on Skinner's conceptual framework presented in his 1957 book, Verbal Behavior. These reviews have called for more research on the topic of verbal behavior generally and often for more research on particular verbal operants. For example, Sautter and LeBlanc (2006) urged the behavior-analytic community to conduct more research on the intraverbal because of the scant existing literature base at that time. In the current review, we replicate the procedures used by Sautter and LeBlanc focusing specifically on the intraverbal relation and on the literature published in the 10 years since their call for research. We summarize the publication themes, provide graphs of the trends and types of published articles, and offer ideas for future research specific to the intraverbal.

Verbal Stimulus Control and the Intraverbal Relation

The importance of the intraverbal relation is missed in most theories of language. Skinner (1957) attributes this to traditional semantic theories of meaning that focus on the nonverbal referents of words and neglect verbal stimuli as separate sources of control for linguistic behavior. An analysis of verbal stimulus control is presented, along with its distinction from nonverbal stimulus control and motivational control. It is suggested that there are at least four different types of increasingly complex verbal discriminations relevant to speaker and listener behavior: simple, compound, verbal conditional, and verbal function-altering (Eikeseth & Smith, 2013; Schlinger & Blakely, 1994). Separate but interlocking accounts of how these specific types of verbal stimuli produce different evocative and function-altering effects for the speaker and for the listener are provided. Finally, the effects of weakening verbal stimulus control and the loss of intraverbal behavior are considered, especially as they relate to dementia, aphasia, and traumatic brain injury.

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior: a Status Update

We analyzed past volumes of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB) to provide a comprehensive status update after 30 years of publication. Data on TAVB's content, frequent contributors, and scholarly impact suggest a healthy state of the journal.

Teaching Tacting of Private Events Based on Public Accompaniments: Effects of Contingencies, Audience Control, and Stimulus Complexity

Our current understanding of the role of private events in the science of behavior is based largely on Skinner's natural science interpretation of private events. Skinner described public accompaniments as one source of control for a verbal community to differentially reinforce verbal behavior regarding private events. In this study, we developed an experimental analogue to study variables influencing tacting of private events. The participant had exclusive access to one set of stimuli (the private stimuli), and the experimenter attempted to teach tacts for private stimuli based on their correspondence with public stimuli accessible to both the experimenter and participant. Results of experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that reports of private stimuli were a function of degree of public-private correspondence, reinforcement contingency, and audience control. In some cases, we encountered reports controlled exclusively by public stimuli. Results of experiment 3 showed that public control was less likely when public stimuli were more complex and the experimenter had a unique behavioral history with respect to those stimuli that was not shared by the learner. The orderly patterns of data obtained suggest that analogue arrangements might be a useful, and even necessary, starting point for experimental investigations of how private events may enter into the analysis of behavior.

Thirty Points About Motivation From Skinner's Book Verbal Behavior

Skinner discussed the topic of motivation in every chapter of the book Verbal Behavior (1957), usually with his preferred terminology of "deprivation, satiation, and aversive stimulation." In the current paper, direct quotations are used to systematically take the reader through 30 separate points made by Skinner in Verbal Behavior that collectively provide a comprehensive analysis of his position regarding the role of motivation in behavior analysis. In addition, various refinements and extensions of Skinner's analysis by Jack Michael and colleagues (Laraway, Snycerski, Michael, & Poling, 2003; Michael, 1982, 1988, 1993, 2000, 2004, 2007) are incorporated, along with suggestions for research and applications for several of the points.

Publication trends in The Analysis of Verbal Behavior: 1982-1998

Every article published in The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB) from its inception as a newsletter through 1998 was rated along several dimensions. Results indicated that the journal has grown substantially over time. Most articles (overall, 73%) published in TAVB did not describe experiments. The experiments that were described characteristically used within-subject designs and direct measures of behavior. They were conducted mostly by researchers in academic settings, using students as participants. Several authors have recently suggested that the journal should publish more experimental articles, covering a wider range of topics. The present results show that there is indeed room for more experimental articles, although they also underscore that the Journal has played, and continues to play, a major role as an outlet for both empirical and theoretical analyses of verbal behavior.

Behavioral pharmacology and verbal behavior: Diazepam effects on verbal self-reports

Diazepam (10 mg) was administered to two men performing a delayed matching-to-sample task in which the number of elements in a compound sample stimulus (one of which appeared among 4 comparison stimuli) was manipulated from 1 to 3. After each trial, subjects pressed either a "Yes" or "No" button in response to a computer-presented query about whether the last choice met a point contingency requiring selection of the matching comparison stimulus within a time limit. Diazepam simultaneously produced marginal decreases in matching-to-sample performance and more pronounced decreases in the accuracy of self-reports about the same performance. Diazepam selectively increased false reports of success; false reports of failure were not systematically affected. A signal-detection analysis summarized these patterns as a decrease in self-report discriminability (A') with no systematic change in bias (B'(H)). These preliminary results converge with those of clinical lore and the results of studies with other benzodiazepine drugs in suggesting that diazepam can produce an "overconfidence" in performance self-evaluation, the mechanisms and parameters of which remain to be identified. The results were inconsistent with those of one previous study of diazepam's effects on performance self-evaluation, but given procedural differences between the two studies, the discrepancy may reflect the functional independence of verbal operant classes in Skinner's (1957) taxonomy.

Establishing verbal repertoires: Toward the application of general case analysis and programming

A great deal of clinical and experimental work in past decades has focused on establishing functional verbal repertoires that are used across various settings and situations by persons with moderate and severe disabilities. Such work has not always involved a careful analysis and programming approach for structuring training to achieve the desired range of stimulus control relationships. General case analysis and programming procedures, which are based on behavior analytic and Direct Instruction principles and techniques, have proven effective in recent years for teaching a variety of community-based skills to learners with moderate and severe disabilities. This paper outlines the general case process and discusses its application to establish verbal repertoires.

Whither the muse: What influences empirical research on verbal behavior?

To identify some of the published works that have helped to inspire empirical verbal behavior research, we searched for patterns in the sources cited in empirical studies published in The Analysis of Verbal Behavior between 1990 and 1999. Not unexpectedly, Skinner's (1957) Verbal Behavior was the most cited source, although a variety of more recent sources explicating verbal relations as conceptualized by Skinner also were frequently cited. About one third of the most frequently cited sources were fairly recent primary empirical papers. These outcomes suggest that scholars who are interested in a behavior-analytic approach to studying verbal behavior are beginning to generate a critical mass of work that renders Verbal Behavior no longer monolithic in its influence. Nevertheless, some aspects of the citation data could be interpreted as evidence of insularity, and we argue for the importance of a broad-based analysis of verbal behavior that can have substantial impact outside of behavior analysis.

Quantified trends in the history of verbal behavior research

The history of scientific research about verbal behavior research, especially that based on Verbal Behavior (Skinner, 1957), can be assessed on the basis of a frequency and celeration analysis of the published and presented literature. In order to discover these quantified trends, a comprehensive bibliographical database was developed. Based on several literature searches, the bibliographic database included papers pertaining to verbal behavior that were published in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Behaviorism, The Behavior Analyst, and The Analysis of Verbal Behavior. A nonbehavioral journal, the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior was assessed as a nonexample comparison. The bibliographic database also included a listing of verbal behavior papers presented at the meetings of the Association for Behavior Analysis. Papers were added to the database if they (a) were about verbal behavior, (b) referenced B.F. Skinner's (1957) book Verbal Behavior, or (c) did both. Because the references indicated the year of publication or presentation, a count per year of them was measured. These yearly frequencies were plotted on Standard Celeration Charts. Once plotted, various celeration trends in the literature became visible, not the least of which was the greater quantity of verbal behavior research than is generally acknowledged. The data clearly show an acceleration of research across the past decade. The data also question the notion that a "paucity" of research based on Verbal Behavior currently exists. Explanations of the acceleration of verbal behavior research are suggested, and plausible reasons are offered as to why a relative lack of verbal behavior research extended through the mid 1960s to the latter 1970s.

301 research topics from Skinner's book verbal behavior

Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior addresses some of the most important issues in human behavior. However, relatively few of the analyses presented by Skinner in Verbal Behavior have been subjected to an experimental analysis. The current list of topics was assembled in an effort to stimulate empirical research on verbal behavior. The list contains thirty research areas with ten topics suggested for each area. A final topic, education, is presented as a challenge to behavior analysts.

Multiply controlled verbal operants: an analysis and extension to the picture exchange communication system

This paper presents Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior as a framework for understanding language acquisition in children with autism. We describe Skinner's analysis of pure and impure verbal operants and illustrate how this analysis may be applied to the design of communication training programs. The picture exchange communication system (PECS) is a training program influenced by Skinner's framework. We describe the training sequence associated with PECS and illustrate how this sequence may establish multiply controlled verbal behavior in children with autism. We conclude with an examination of how Skinner's framework may apply to other communication modalities and training strategies.

Intraverbal behavior and verbal conditional discriminations in typically developing children and children with autism

Individuals with autism often experience difficulty acquiring a functional intraverbal repertoire, despite demonstrating strong mand, tact, and listener skills. This learning problem may be related to the fact that the primary antecedent variable for most intraverbal behavior involves a type of multiple control identified as a verbal conditional discrimination (VC(D)). The current study is a descriptive analysis that sought to determine if there is a general sequence of intraverbal acquisition by typically developing children and for children with autism, and if this sequence could be used as a framework for intraverbal assessment and intervention. Thirty-nine typically developing children and 71 children with autism were administered an 80-item intraverbal subtest that contained increasingly difficult intraverbal questions and VC(D)s. For the typically developing children the results showed that there was a correlation between age and correct intraverbal responses. However, there was variability in the scores of children who were the same age. An error analysis revealed that compound VC(D)s were the primary cause of errors. Children with autism made the same types of errors as typically developing children who scored at their level on the subtest. These data suggest a potential framework and sequence for intraverbal assessment and intervention.

Bias in self-evaluation: Signal probability effects

Two experiments examined apparent signal probability effects in simple verbal self-reports. After each trial of a delayed matching-to-sample task, young adults pressed either a "yes" or a "no" button to answer a computer-presented query about whether the most recent choice met a point contingency requiring both speed and accuracy. A successful matching-to-sample choice served as the "signal" in a signal-detection analysis of self-reports. Difficulty of matching to sample, and thus signal probability, was manipulated via the number of nonmatching sample and comparison stimuli. In Experiment 1, subjects exhibited a bias (log b) for reporting matching-to-sample success when success was frequent, and no bias or a bias for reporting failure when success was infrequent. Contingencies involving equal conditional probabilities of point consequences for "I succeeded" and "I failed" reports had no systematic effect on this pattern. Experiment 2 found signal probability effects to be evident regardless of whether referent-response difficulty was manipulated in different conditions or within sessions. These findings indicate that apparent signal probability effects in self-report bias that were observed in previous studies probably were not an artifact of contingencies intended to improve self-report accuracy or of the means of manipulating signal probability. The findings support an analogy between simple self-reports and psychophysical judgments and bolster the conclusion of Critchfield (1993) that signal probability effects can influence simple self-reports much as they do reports about external stimuli in psychophysical experiments.

Publication trends in the analysis of verbal behavior: 1999-2008

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB) publishes experimental and theoretical papers relevant to a behavioral analysis of language. Normand, Fossa, and Poling (2000) reviewed the published studies in TAVB across several dimensions and found that despite the growth of the journal, most articles published in TAVB from 1982 to 1998 were nonexperimental. The current study extends this review by analyzing articles published in TAVB from 1999 through 2008. Results showed that 48% of the articles published between 1999 and 2008 were experimental (65% in the last 4 years), 93% of them used within-subject experimental designs, and most of them (54%) included children with developmental disabilities. This suggests an increased interest in the experimental analysis of verbal behavior with a focus on teaching language to individuals with disabilities.

A quarter century of the analysis of verbal behavior: an analysis of impact

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB) has been published since 1982, and during this time, interest in verbal behavior research appears to have increased substantially within behavior analysis. The purpose of the present analysis was to assess the influence of TAVB on the field by (a) counting citations of TAVB articles in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) from 1983 through 2007, (b) examining which other journals cite TAVB, and (c) calculating impact-factor estimates for 2003 through 2007. Citations of TAVB articles began to appear in JEAB and JABA in the late 1980s to early 1990s, and by the end of 2007, almost a third of all articles published in TAVB had been cited in either JEAB or JABA. Other journals that cite TAVB include The Behavior Analyst and The Psychological Record. The estimated impact factor ranged from 0.267 to 0.600. Strategies for increasing the impact of TAVB are discussed.

Empirical Applications of Skinner's Analysis of Verbal Behavior with Humans

In Verbal Behavior,Skinner (1957) provided a conceptual framework and taxonomy for the controlling variables of language that defined independent verbal operants by their functional relations to antecedents and consequences (rather than by topography or meaning). Although professional interest in this area has recently increased within the behavior analytic community, Skinner's conceptual framework may not yet have fully impacted the experimental literature. This quantitative review of the literature examined the studies on verbal behavior that were empirical in nature, concerned with human verbal behavior, and addressed at least one verbal operant (e.g., mand, tact, echoic, autoclitic, and/or intraverbal behavior) within the experiment. The results of this review suggest that a growing body of research exists to support many of the tenets of Skinner's conceptualization and taxonomy but many areas of verbal behavior research have yet to be addressed. Continued research in this area is crucial for the development and implementation of effective verbal behavior interventions for people with disabilities.

Staffing the empirical analysis of verbal behavior

Empirical articles in The Analysis of Verbal Behavior were inspected to evaluate the contributions of new and repeat investigators. The journal has attracted a steady stream of new empirical authors from early in its history. In recent years, repeat authors have begun to have a substantial impact on the journal. These outcomes suggest a maturing research community and provide cause for optimism about the future of empirical verbal behavior research.

Differential latency and selective nondisclosure in verbal self-reports

Several previous studies have examined the correspondence between self-reports and the delayed identity match-to-sample performance they supposedly described. The present two experiments used similar procedures to explore different characteristics of the self-reports. In both studies, match-to-sample responses were successful (earned points) if they were both correct and faster than a time limit. Following each response, a computer-presented query asked whether the response had been successful, and subjects replied by pressing a "Yes" or "No" button. Experiment 1 analyzed self-report latencies from a previously-published study (Critchfield, 1993a). Latencies generally were longer for self-reports of failure than for self-reports of success. In Experiment 1, a "Yes" or "No" self-report was required to advance the session. In Experiment 2, self-reports were optional. In addition to "Yes" and "No" buttons, subjects could press a third button (a "nondisclosure" option) to remove the self-report query without providing a "Yes" or "No" answer. Across a range of conditions, nondisclosures always occurred more frequently after match-to-sample failures than after successes (i.e., under conditions in which a self-report of failure would be appropriate). The effects observed in the two experiments are consistent with a history of differential punishment for uncomplimentary self-reports, which casual observation and some descriptive studies suggest is a common experience in United States culture. The research necessary to explore this notion should produce data that are of interest to psychologists both within and outside of Behavior Analysis.

Signal-detection properties of verbal self-reports

The bias (B'H) and discriminability (A') of college students' self-reports about choices made in a delayed identity matching-to-sample task were studied as a function of characteristics of the response about which they reported. Each matching-to-sample trial consisted of two, three, or four simultaneously presented sample stimuli, a 1-s retention interval, and two, three, or four comparison stimuli. One sample stimulus was always reproduced among the comparisons, and choice of the matching comparison in less than 800 ms produced points worth chances in a drawing for money. After each choice, subjects pressed either a "yes" or a "no" button to answer a computer-generated query about whether the choice met the point contingency. The number of sample and comparison stimuli was manipulated across experimental conditions. Rates of successful matching-to-sample choices were negatively correlated with the number of matching-to-sample stimuli, regardless of whether samples or comparisons were manipulated. As in previous studies, subjects exhibited a pronounced bias for reporting successful responses. Self-report bias tended to become less pronounced as matching-to-sample success became less frequent, an outcome consistent with signal-frequency effects in psychophysical research. The bias was also resistant to change, suggesting influences other than signal frequency that remain to be identified. Self-report discriminability tended to decrease with the number of sample stimuli and increase with the number of comparison stimuli, an effect not attributable to differential effects of the two manipulations on matching-to-sample performance. Overall, bias and discriminability indices revealed effects that were not evident in self-report accuracy scores. The results indicate that analyses based on signal-detection theory can improve the description of correspondence between self-reports and their referents and thus contribute to the identification of environmental sources of control over verbal self-reports.

A standard methodology for the analysis, recording, and control of verbal behavior

Lack of a standard methodology has been one of the major obstacles preventing advancement of behavior analytic research in verbal behavior. This article presents a standard method for the analysis, recording, and control of verbal behavior that overcomes several major methodological problems that have hindered operant research in verbal behavior. The system divides all verbal behavior into four functional response classes, correct, error, no response, and inappropriate behavior, from which all vocal responses of a subject may be classified and consequated. The effects of contingencies of reinforcement on verbal operants within each category are made immediately visible to the researcher as changes in frequency of response. Incorporating frequency of response within each category as the unit of response allows both rate and probability of verbal response to be utilized as basic dependent variables. This method makes it possible to record and consequate verbal behavior in essentially the same way as any other operant response. It may also facilitate an experimental investigation of Skinner's verbal response categories.