Emergence of Naming Relations and Intraverbals After Auditory Stimulus Pairing

Abstract

We analyzed the emergence of intraverbals, tacts, and selection in response to names spoken by the experimenter as a result of observing auditory stimulus pairing in 12 typical developing adults randomly assigned to two experimental and one control condition. In Part 1, four sounds of musical instruments were paired with their respective names spoken by the experimenter; in Part 2, the sounds were paired with their native country names spoken by the experimenter. Participants in Condition 1 received the pairing sequence of Parts 1 and 2; participants in Condition 2 received the pairing sequence of Parts 2 and 1. After pairing, tacts emerged in all participants and selections emerged in most participants. After the completion of the two pairing phases, intraverbals emerged in three participants of Condition 1. The participants of Condition 2 also demonstrated instances of emergence, but fewer than those of Condition 1. Thus, the sequence of the pairing phases influenced the emergence. Moreover, the intraverbals with the country as responses emerged more quickly than the intraverbals with the instrument as responses. The findings have direct implications on the teaching procedures to facilitate these types of emergence.