Stimulus Control as an Instance or an Inference: Commentary on Remarks by Murray Sidman

Abstract

You are at a dinner table with unknown people, and you say to the person sitting across from you ―Pass the salt, please‖; with no hesitation the person passes the salt, and you say ―Thank you.‖ You come with your dog to a street corner and say ―sit‖; the dog immediately sits, and you pat it on the head. You are in the clinic working with a child with developmental disabilities, and you ask the child to ―Pick up the red crayon‖; the child picks it up, and you say ―very good‖ and smile. Later, you ask the child to ―Pick up the green crayon‖ and the child picks up the green crayon and you again say ―very good‖ and smile. You sit in front of your computer and work your way through the many icons and buttons, all with their different signs, and eventually get to where you want to be. Throughout the day we encounter situations where we either ask someone to react to what we say or we react to what other people say or to icons on our computer, etc. These are all instances where a single stimulus requires a single act followed by an immediate consequence. Usually one can judge on the spot whether or not the stimulus controls the behavior. Sometimes a failure to react promptly or correctly to a single stimulus can have serious consequences. An athlete who once in his life starts a fraction of a second too late after the start signal can lose his career. A worldfamous musician who begins on an incorrect note when the conductor lifts his baton may produce a gasp in the audience. A child who misspells a single word in a strange way may be sent to the school psychologist for evaluation. Daily life is a continuous flow of expected and timely reactions to an array of changing, individual stimuli around us. So-called abnormal behaviors often are not a matter of problems with the behavior itself but rather a matter of failures of stimulus control, with behaviors occurring out of context—to the ―wrong‖ stimuli. As a child I was often curious about other people, and in a public bus I once asked my mom why an old man with a wild beard was laughing so much even though no one was sitting next to him; my mom answered that it is because ―he is insane.‖ Later, as a psychology student working temporarily at a psychiatric ward, I followed the psychiatrist on his round. One day a nurse told the psychiatrist that a deeply psychotic patient was improving because he was now reading a newspaper and