INTRAVERBAL BEHAVIOR: ACQUISITION, REVERSIBILITY, AND MULTIPLE CONTROL

Abstract

Intraverbal behavior is a verbal operant in which a verbal stimulus is the occasion for a particular verbal response to be emitted, but there is no point-to-point correspondence between stimulus and response. Translation is a special case of intraverbal behavior. The aim of the present study was to investigate (a) the production of intraverbal behavior of word pairs in English-Portuguese and Portuguese-English, (b) if the acquisition of intraverbal behaviorwould influence further acquisition of new intraverbal behavior, (c) if training intraverbal behavior would lead to the emergence of new symmetrical intraverbal behavior, and (d) if and how variables related to other verbal operants influenced acquisition of intraverbal behavior. Eleven young adults, whose native language was Portuguese, with little knowledge of English, participated in the study. During training a stimulus-word (in English or Portuguese) was presented on a computer screen and the participant typed the correspondent word in the other language (Portuguese or English): 30 intraverbal responses were trained, half on English-Portuguese and the other half on Portuguese-English. Two training conditions were followed by two reversal conditions, during which stimuli – words – were presented in the language previously required as response. Order effects were controlled balancing the direction of training (English-Portuguese or Portuguese-English) of the words between two groups of participants. Results showed that: (a) all participants acquired precise intraverbal behavior, although the training direction English-Portuguese was faster; (b) training had an effect on subsequent training and on symmetrical training, (c) there were few cases of immediate emergence of symmetrical intraverbal behavior; and (d) an error analysis showed that besides generalization effects, textual and transcription behaviors interfered during acquisition.Key words: intraverbal, verbal behavior, verbal operants, textual, transcription