The effect of prior selection of verbal descriptions of stimulus relations upon the performance in conditional discrimination in human adults

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate the effects of choosing verbal descriptions prior to the matching response in a second-order matching-to-sample situation. Twelve subjects were distributed in two groups under different conditions. The experimental group was exposed to textual descriptions of stimulus arrangements prior to the matching response, while the control group was exposed to the stimulus display without those descriptions. A pretest and three transfer tests measuring intramodal, extramodal and extrarelational variations were presented in separate sessions. Subjects in the experimental group performed with a higher percentage of correct responding in both the training and test sessions. Nevertheless, an analysis of the textual descriptions selected and the type of errors made in the matching situation suggests that experimental subjects did not develop rules in responding to the discrimination tasks. Some theoretical considerations are outlined regarding the usefulness of distinguishing between verbal and nonverbal behaviors.