An Experimental Analysis of Verbal Behavior: The Effects of Auditory Stimuli and Competing Verbal Behavior on the Completion of Math Problems
Mentor 1
Mike Harman
Mentor 2
Tiffany Kodak
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
28-4-2017 1:30 PM
End Date
28-4-2017 4:00 PM
Description
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the role of attending to one’s own verbal behavior while solving addition problems. If a final target response is dependent on attending to covert behavior, introducing tasks that (a) disrupt, or (b) block these responses should significantly affect responding. Participants were asked to solve math problems (such as 24+12+36), within one minute, while overtly vocalizing what they were thinking. This allowed researchers the capacity to directly measure behavior that is typically observable. The math problem is either presented exclusively as an auditory stimulus or as both an auditory and visual stimulus. Within each of these conditions, there were also sub-conditions including the playing of an audio recoding containing the ABC’s, the participant reciting the ABC’s, and a control where no experimental stimuli was presented. Participants’ latency to respond and number of attempts were measured as main dependent variables along with the measurement of different types of responses emitted during the response interval. The data indicate that both the auditory and verbal stimuli affected response latency. Specifically, auditory stimuli during the Hear ABCs trials seemed to control faulty listener behavior indicated by slight increases in latency and decreases in accuracy. Competing verbal behavior during the say ABC trials blocked listener behavior, indicated by large increases in latency and decreases in accuracy. Future research may investigate how other behaviors are affected by different types of auditory or verbal stimuli during a response interval (e.g., reading out loud for comprehension).
An Experimental Analysis of Verbal Behavior: The Effects of Auditory Stimuli and Competing Verbal Behavior on the Completion of Math Problems
Union Wisconsin Room
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the role of attending to one’s own verbal behavior while solving addition problems. If a final target response is dependent on attending to covert behavior, introducing tasks that (a) disrupt, or (b) block these responses should significantly affect responding. Participants were asked to solve math problems (such as 24+12+36), within one minute, while overtly vocalizing what they were thinking. This allowed researchers the capacity to directly measure behavior that is typically observable. The math problem is either presented exclusively as an auditory stimulus or as both an auditory and visual stimulus. Within each of these conditions, there were also sub-conditions including the playing of an audio recoding containing the ABC’s, the participant reciting the ABC’s, and a control where no experimental stimuli was presented. Participants’ latency to respond and number of attempts were measured as main dependent variables along with the measurement of different types of responses emitted during the response interval. The data indicate that both the auditory and verbal stimuli affected response latency. Specifically, auditory stimuli during the Hear ABCs trials seemed to control faulty listener behavior indicated by slight increases in latency and decreases in accuracy. Competing verbal behavior during the say ABC trials blocked listener behavior, indicated by large increases in latency and decreases in accuracy. Future research may investigate how other behaviors are affected by different types of auditory or verbal stimuli during a response interval (e.g., reading out loud for comprehension).
