Experimental Investigation of Metaphorical Extension: A New Procedure
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Experimental Investigation of Metaphorical Extension: A New Procedure Filipe C. Carvalho 1
&
Julio C. de Rose 1
# Association for Behavior Analysis International 2020
Abstract This article describes a procedure to investigate metaphorical extension of tacts, and reports preliminary data. Six college students learned to choose between four pseudo-words to tact four species (classes) of creature-like pictures. The defining properties controlling the tacts (selections) were color and shape, but two of the species—Clai and Trax—had experimentally manipulated adventitious properties (e.g., wings, hair) whereas the other species, Fite and Dag did not have these properties. In subsequent phases, these adventitious properties were added either to the Fite or to the Dag, and standard tacts were punished with negative feedback. Extension of the tacts "Clai" and "Trax" was observed to Fite and Dag pictures that appeared with the adventitious properties previously associated with Clai or Trax pictures. These metaphorical extensions continued to occur in test phases without differential consequences. These preliminary data show that the procedure has potential to simulate metaphorical extension in the lab and to allow the experimental investigation of variables that affect this phenomenon. Keywords Verbal behavior . Metaphorical extension . Metaphor . Tacts . Punishment
A tact is a verbal operant under discriminative control of "a particular object or event or property of an object or event" (Skinner, 1957, pp. 81-82). The verbal community establishes a repertoire of tacts reinforcing specific responses (e.g., saying "chair" or "green") in the presence of, respectively, a chair or a green object. The verbal community typically provides or withholds reinforcement for tacts based on the presence of defining This work was part of the research program of Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia sobre Comportamento, Cognição e Ensino (National Institute of Science and Technology on Behavior, Cognition, and Teaching), under the leadership of Deisy G. de Souza and supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, Grant # 2014/50909-8) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, Grant # 465686/2014-1). Preparation of the manuscript was supported by a doctoral scholarship to the first author, from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior. The second author has a research productivity grant from CNPq. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-020-00425-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Julio C. de Rose [email protected] 1
Departamento de Psicologia, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Caixa Postal 676, São Carlos, SP SP 13565-905, Brazil
(contingent) features: the tact "green" is reinforced only in the presence of green stimuli. However, the contingent property is always accompanied by adventitious properties that "though present at reinforcement, do
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