Controle instrucional e classes de estímulos equivalentes que incluem verbos e ações / Instructional control and equivalence classes which include verbs and actions

Instruções podem evocar comportamentos novos, sem uma longa história prévia de aprendizagem por exposição a contingências de reforçamento, mas poucos estudos tem investigado a compreensão de instruções. Considerando o paradigma de equivalência de estímulos como um modelo de estudo do significado, esta pesquisa investigou se instruções incluídas em uma classe de estímulos equivalentes passam a ter o mesmo significado que os demais estímulos da classe. As instruções eram frases curtas com verbo no infinitivo. Os estímulos significativos eram ações (filmadas em videoteipe). O procedimento incluiu: (a) ensinar discriminações condicionais entre verbos falados e ações e entre verbos e figuras abstratas; (b) avaliar a formação de classes entre videoteipes e figuras; e (c) verificar o seguimento de instruções orais e das figuras equivalentes. Quatorze de 15 crianças formaram classes. A maioria também seguiu instruções. A formação de classes de equivalência estabeleceu o "significado" de instruções e favoreceu o comportamento de seguir instruções tanto orais e quanto pictóricas. O controle instrucional pelas figuras foi ligeiramente menor que o controle pelas instruções orais; porém, considerando-se que tal controle só poderia ocorrer por derivação das classes de estímulos, os resultados são conclusivos de que a equivalência é uma via para a compreensão de instruções.

Instructions may evoke novel behavior, without a previous history of learning by exposure to contingencies of reinforcement; however a few studies have investigated the comprehension of instructions. Based on the stimulus equivalence paradigm as a model for the study of meaning, this research investigated whether instructions included as members of a class of equivalent stimuli acquire the same meaning as the other stimuli in the class. The experimental instructions were short sentences. The meaningful stimuli were actions (filmed on videotape). The procedure included: (a) teaching conditional discriminations between spoken verbs and actions and between spoken verbs and abstract pictures, (b) assessing the formation of classes between actions and pictures, and (c) verifying instruction following evoked by oral instructions and by the equivalent pictures. Fourteen of 15 children showed class formation. Most children also followed the instructions. The formation of equivalence classes established the "meaning" of instructions and fostered instruction-following behavior for both oral and pictorial instructions. The control by pictorial instructions was slightly lower than the control by oral instructions, but considering that such instructional control could only occur if derived from the stimulus classes, the results are conclusive: equivalence leads to the comprehension of instructions.

Efectos en la ejecución durante una tarea de igualación a la muestra según el tipo y el orden de exposición a las pruebas de transferencia / Effects on the performance during a matching-to-sample task due to the type and order of exposition to the transference tests

Se evaluó el efecto de manipular el tipo y el orden de presentación de pruebas de transferencia intramodal, extramodal, extrarrelacional y extradimensional, después de un entrenamiento en relaciones de discriminación condicional. Se entrenó a 28 estudiantes universitarios en un procedimiento de igualación a la muestra de segundo orden con retroalimentación continua. Luego los participantes fueron divididos en cuatro grupos experimentales que variaron en el orden de presentación de las pruebas de transferencia. Las condiciones de exposición fueron: orden de complejidad/dificultad ascendente, descendente, y dos grupos en donde el orden de las pruebas fue establecido aleatoriamente. Se analizaron los porcentajes de efectividad y una medida poco explorada en este tipo de estudios, el tiempo de latencia de respuesta, que fue propuesto como una variable sensible a la dificultad de una tarea de igualación. Se evidenció heterogeneidad en la velocidad de adquisición de las discriminaciones en la fase de entrenamiento, a pesar de que todos los sujetos fueron expuestos a la misma tarea. La exposición a las secuencias de prueba ascendente y descendente no favoreció el ajuste efectivo del comportamiento, mientras que la exposición a una de las secuencias asignadas de forma aleatoria pareció ser la que favoreció desempeños más altos y homogéneos. El orden en que se expusieron los participantes a los diferentes tipos de prueba de transferencia, en interacción con la historia de adquisición temprana durante el entrenamiento, dan cuenta de los resultados del estudio. Se discute la necesidad de abordar sistemáticamente el estudio de los factores implicados en las pruebas de transferencia.

This study evaluated the effects of manipulating the type and order of presentation of transference tests. Twenty eight undergraduate students divided in 4 groups were exposed to a second order matching to sample procedure. The conditions of exposition were: ascending difficulty/complexity order of the tests, descending order and two randomly assigned orders. Results are discussed in terms of percentages of effectiveness; additionally, the latency is proposed as an alternative measure sensitive to the level of difficulty of this kind of tasks. Findings showed heterogeneity in the velocity of acquisition of the conditional discriminations during the training phase, even though the conditions of thetask were equal for all the subjects. The exposition to the ascending and descending order seemed to affect negatively the effective behavioral adjustment, whereas one of the randomly assigned sequences seemed to be the best condition. The order of exposition to transference tests, in interaction with a history of early acquisition in the training phase, served to understand the findings of this study and to discuss the necessity of a systematical evaluation of the factors implied in the transference tests. It is suggested to assess the validity of different kind of transference tests and the convenience of some of them to be use in the investigation of the phenomena related to the effective and variable behavior.