The role of verbal behavior in the establishment of comparative relations.

Twelve college students received conditional discrimination training with nonarbitrary and arbitrary stimuli, and derived comparative and transformation of function tests with a think-aloud condition across 2 experiments. Participants who failed these tests received remedial verbal operant training. Four control participants received verbal operant training alone. Across both experiments, only 1 participant passed the derived comparative test after conditional discrimination training. However, all participants passed derived comparative tests and 11 out of 12 participants passed transformation of function tests following verbal operant training, including the 4 control participants. Participants who passed derived comparative tests engaged in a high percentage of correct vocalizations during the think-aloud condition, while participants who failed did not. These results suggest that mediating verbal behavior could have played a crucial role in participants' responses during derived stimulus relations tests.

An evaluation of matrix training to teach college students piano notes and rhythms.

Twelve college students learned to tact the names of notes and rhythms and play them when presented with compound stimuli (visuals of notes and rhythms on a musical staff). In Experiment 1, we assessed generalization by presenting novel notes, rhythms, and compound stimuli not previously paired together. In the second experiment, we added a metronome that played at 60 beats per minute in all conditions for 3 out of 6 participants to ensure consistent tempo. Across both experiments, participants passed almost all posttests with the exception of tacting and playing in the presence of sound clips. Our data suggest that matrix training is an effective procedure to teach music skills to college students.