Docx - Verbal Behavior Study guide III ch 6-8 and schlinger (2008) PDF

Preview

Summary

Verbal Behavior Study guide III ch 6-8 and schlinger (2008)...

Description

Study Questions Part III: Chapter 6, 7, 8 and Schlinger

Chapter 6 1. Distinguish between pure and impure tacts. Give and example of each. (p. 151) A pure tact is when the speaker is tacting but knows that the audience is listening and reinforces that tact. Skinner uses the example of a housewife tacting “Dinner is ready”. She is saying this so that the listeners who are hungry, are aware of the dinner being ready, and serves very close to a mand. An impure mand is when the speaker is not wanting the reinforcer themselves, but is informing the listener. For example, if a chef was cooking dinner (his job) he is not cooking because he’s hungry, he’s cooking for a room full of people. When he announces that dinner is ready, he is indicating to the waiters or owners that the dinner is ready, and that it’s not reinforcing him to say the tact. 2. Why can’t the listener’s emotional response explain the reinforcement of a mand? (p. 154) The emotional reaction is usually a by-product of some other verbal function. The response may be unconditioned, such as a natural laugh. If someone told a funny joke that would be conditioned because they have learned to laugh at jokes. 3. How is stimulus summation (or the “piling up” of stimuli) sometimes used in verbal behavior? (p. 161) Stimulus summation is used in verbal behavior to intensify a verbal response. If I heard “stop”, compared to “stop it right now, quit it” I would be more keen to stop with the 2nd response. The intensity of the longer statement with the repeated requests is more intense than just stop, therefore as the listener I am reacting faster than I would with just “stop”. 4. Give some reasons why people talk to themselves. Why is such verbal behavior often highly idiosyncratic? (p. 163-165) It’s automatic reinforcement. Speaking to oneself is good practice as a listener as well as the speaker. Practicing speeches or presentations is reinforcing to the speaker because they feel confident with practice. Skinner compares a pianist playing for himself and would a person with ASD talk to themselves. It reinforces them. 5. How does Skinner describe the process of punishment? (p. 166) Skinner describes the purpose of punishment is to convert the behavior, or the circumstances under which the behavior characteristically occurs, into a conditioned aversive stimulus. Therefore for punishment to succeed, we automatically provide reinforcement for responses which are incompatible with the behavior we dislike. The goal is to decrease that behavior but not paying attention to it, and reinforcing a different behavior that we do like, in hopes to increase it. 6. Describe some of the effects of punishment on verbal behavior. (pp. 167-168)

Skinner says that the effects of punishment on verbal behavior seem to show generalization. This means that punishment can become conditioned in that the behaviors that are appropriate because conditioned and the learners learn appropriate behavior vs. inappropriate and that perhaps they generalize it and engage in behaviors where they know they’ll be reinforced instead of punished. Chapter 7 1. What is the definition of an audience? What is the main difference between the listener function and the audience function of a stimulus? (p. 172) An audience is a SD in the presence of which verbal behavior is characteristically reinforced and in the presence of which, therefore, it is characteristically strong. The listener stimulates the speaker prior to emission of verbal behavior-therefore they are an audience. Different audiences control different subdivisions of the repertoire of the speaker. 2. In what way does an audience differ from the discriminative stimuli that control tacts, echoics, textual behavior and intraverbal operants? (p. 173) An audience is characteristically more than one person and therefore has a greater strength and intensity than a listener function. 3. What three things does the audience determine? (p. 175) The audience determines:  The occurrence of a response  The response form  What is talked about (topic) 4. What is a negative audience (pp. 178-179) An audience in the presence of which a response will be punished , therefore they serve as the SD for punishment. 5. Why might a speaker function as his or her own audience? (p. 179-180) If they are unable to acquire an audience, they will remove the thought of the speaker and take the role as the listener. “Pretend that what you are reading/writing wasn’t written by you and act solely as a listener. Schlinger, 2008 1. How has Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior been criticized? Schlinger states that there may be no functional distinction between speaker and listener behavior and that Skinner didn’t define the difference of verbal and non-verbal enough. 2. What does Schlinger tell us about Skinner’s view of the listener?

That Skinner went back and forth on the importance of the listener. In the beginning of the book he rarely mentions the listener but then states the importance of the listener later on in the book. I think Schlinger and other critics are confused on way he goes back and forth on the listener’s role. 3. Can you briefly answer the question: “What is listening?” Cite or quote the article. Schlinger (2008) states that listening is a subvocal part of verbal behavior. 4. How might the section about conditioning the behavior of a listener be clinically applicable for language intervention? It brings to light the effects of function-altering and contingency specifying stimulus.

Chapter 8 1. Why does Skinner’s analysis allow one to move from classification to functional analysis? (p. 199) It’s necessary to consider other conditions that affect the strength of verbal behavior as a whole, including conditioning, motivation, and emotion which all play a part in the total behavior of the human organism. 2. How does verbal behavior differ from nonverbal behavior in terms of the effects on the magnitude of the outcome and the probability of reinforcement? What is Skinner referring to in the expression “verbal magic.” (pp. 204-205) The extent of the reinforcement depends upon the energy of the behavior of the listener, but only indirectly, if at all, on that of the speaker. This differs from that of non-verbal behavior. Verbal magic is the special power of words and all of the many forms and functions words can have. 3. What is the difference between extinction and forgetting? (pp. 206-207) Extinction- decrease in verbal behavior resulting for nonreinforcement Forgetting- deterioration of verbal behavior as a result of time 4. What types of variables related to the field of motivation also influence verbal behavior? (pp. 212-213) Satiation, deprivation, aversive stimulation (that generates avoidance and escape behavior), certain drugs, uncontrolled processes of maturation or aging. 5. Are emotional expressions verbal? (p. 214) How might they become verbal? This makes me think of dead man’s theory, and coming back to the definition of behavior. One can be sad, but it’s not a behavior unless they are doing something to prove that. I may be sad, but with that being a private event, I would need to cry or moan to be

considered of a “behavior”. They may become verbal by the action that causes an outside person to see the behavior. I may be angry, but that would not be verbal until I engaged in screaming. The screaming behavior is what identifies the emotional expression. 6. Give examples illustrating how the following factors lead to the cessation of verbal behavior: (a) changes in the level of deprivation, (b) only one instance of the response is reinforced, (c) audience characteristics, (d) effects on the speaker. (pp. 220-223) a) Changes in deprivation: reinforcement may result in decrease in probability of mand b) Only one instance reinforced: synonyms (avoids punishment of repetition) c) Audience characteristics: audience may say “yes I heard” d) Effects of the speaker: reaction of listener (listener is not listening anymore) 7. What is Chomsky’s rebuttal to chapter 8 in Skinner? He says that Skinner’s speculations are premature. He then discusses that generalization is not a real thing and that verbal behavior will always remain a mystery....