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| Cluster 1: Symbolic Processes |
| Monday, October 28, 2024 |
| 8:10 AM–12:20 PM |
| The Drake Hotel; Lobby Level; Grand Ballroom |
| Area: PCH; Domain: Theory |
| Chair: Carol Pilgrim (University of North Carolina Wilmington) |
| Discussant: Manish Vaidya (IBSTR) |
| CE Instructor: Carol Pilgrim, Ph.D. |
| Abstract: Symbolic Processes |
| Instruction Level: Intermediate |
| Target Audience: Behavior Analysts |
| Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the presentation, participants will be able to: (1) Explain how an analysis of verbal behavior components, rooted in early social development, can account for the phenomena said to reflect “theory of mind.”; (2) Provide an overview of the traditional relational frame approach to human language and cognition; (3) Describe more recent conceptual and empirical developments that have the potential to move RFT analyses into new and exciting areas; (4) Describe the role of automatic reinforcement in language acquisition and how consideration of multiple sources of control over autoclitic frames is central to a behavioral interpretation of grammatical phenomena. |
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| Contacting Leads to Knowing: A Verbal Behaviour Analysis of Theory of Mind |
| FRANCESCA DEGLI ESPINOSA (ABA Clinic) |
| Abstract: Theory of Mind is typically used as an umbrella term to refer to, but also to interpret, a collection of responses that involve humans’ ability to explain and predict others’ behaviour based on an understanding of others’ mental states, such as beliefs and desires. Not only is the construct of Theory of Mind universally accepted in the field of psychology, but it has also come to represent a theoretical system from which to explain additional social and cognitive processes in both typical and atypical children and adults, with false-belief tasks becoming its litmus test. Challenging the basic premise that mental states cause behaviour, I will firstly deconstruct false-belief tasks into their individual verbal components. Secondly, I will attempt to answer the question of what it is that we as humans do when we engage in the complex verbal behaviour regarding another person’s behaviour through an analysis of its component controlling repertoires. Rooted in early social responding, I will thirdly provide an account of its development from infancy to early childhood and show how an applied technology can further and validate both a conceptual and experimental analysis of the subject matter. |
 Francesca gained her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Goldsmith’s College, University of London and her Ph.D. at the University of Southampton, under Prof. Bob Remington. She was the Lead Clinician for the first UK-based EIBI outcome study (Remington et al., 2007) at the University of Southampton and within that context developed the Early Behavioural Intervention Curriculum (EBIC) an intervention framework derived from functional analyses of language to establish generative multiply controlled verbal behaviour, which subsequently formed the principal focus of her Ph.D. Currently, she runs a small diagnostic and assessment clinic in the UK, teaches advanced behaviour analysis in a number of postgraduate programmes in Italy, the UK and the US, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the B.F. Skinner Foundation.
Originally schooled in cognitive developmental psychology, Francesca’s academic pursuit is the translation of cognitive and developmental descriptions of key processes in language and childhood development into an analysis of controlling variables, with the aim of deriving a technology to remediate deficits in children with autism. Her clinical and research work focuses on early social responding, generative verbal behaviour and theory of mind. |
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| Back to the Future With Relational Frame Theory (RFT): Is it Now More Kantor Than Skinner? |
| DERMOT BARNES-HOLMES (Ulster University) |
| Abstract: The basic idea of relational frame theory, as a behavior analytic account of human language and cognition, was presented almost 40 years ago (Hayes & Brownstein, 1985), and it is approaching a quarter of a century since the publication of the seminal volume (Hayes et al., 2001). In that time, both conceptual and empirical progress has been made. In particular, the last eight or so years have seen a period of intense empirical and conceptual updating of the account (see Barnes-Holmes & Harte, 2022, for a detailed description of some of these updates that are directly relevant to the core thesis of the current presentation). Paradoxically, however, these recent advances appear to be drawing on early and much underplayed features of RFT, including field theoretical (interbehavioral) analyses and concepts, which are assisting in recent RFT-based experimental analyses. Although these analyses are just beginning to evolve, they may have the potential to help move the behavior-analytic study of human language and cognition into new and exciting areas. The current presentation will begin with a brief overview of the “traditional” RFT approach to human language and cognition, thus providing an appropriate context in which to introduce and consider the more recent, field-based, conceptual and empirical developments within the theory. |
 Dr. Dermot Barnes-Holmes graduated from the University of Ulster in 1985 with a B.Sc. in Psychology and in 1990 with a D.Phil. in behavior analysis. His first tenured position was in the Department of Applied Psychology at University College Cork, where he founded and led the Behavior Analysis and Cognitive Science unit. In 1999 he accepted the foundation professorship in psychology and head-of-department position at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. In 2015 he accepted a life-time senior professorship at Ghent University in Belgium. In 2020 he returned to his alma mater as a full professor at Ulster University. Dr. Barnes-Holmes is known internationally for the analysis of human language and cognition through the development of Relational Frame Theory with Steven C. Hayes, and its application in various psychological settings. He was the world's most prolific author in the experimental analysis of human behaviour between the years 1980 and 1999. He was awarded the Don Hake Translational Research Award in 2012 by the American Psychological Association, is a past president and fellow of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, and a fellow of the Association for Behavior Analysis, International. He is also a recipient of the Quad-L Lecture Award from the University of New Mexico and became an Odysseus laureate in 2015 when he received an Odysseus Type 1 award from the Flemish Science Foundation in Belgium. In 2024 Professor Barnes-Holmes will receive the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis (SABA) award for the International Dissemination of Behavior Analysis. |
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| A Behavioral Interpretation of English Grammar |
| DAVID C. PALMER (Smith College) |
| Abstract: Can the orderly arrangement of words in sentences—grammar—be interpreted in terms of familiar behavioral principles? In the face of the novelty, subtlety, complexity, and speed of acquisition of verbal behavior, this position will remain difficult to defend until the field can show that a representative range of relevant phenomena is within reach of its interpretive tools. Using modern English as a case in point, this talk points to the important role of automatic reinforcement in language acquisition and suggests that the concept of autoclitic frames (e.g., X is taller than Y) is central to a behavioral interpretation of grammatical phenomena. An enduring puzzle facing this interpretation is how stimulus control can shift from term to term in such frames as one speaks, for such permutations of verbal forms are often novel and rapidly emitted. A possible solution to the puzzle is offered by a consideration of contextual cues, prosodic cues, and the stimulus properties of the roles played by the content words that complete the frames. That these roles have discriminable stimulus properties is supported by considering that in Old English such roles directly controlled case inflections that correspond to positions in autoclitic frames. |
 With undergraduate degrees in geology and English, Dave Palmer knew nothing about behaviorism until he stumbled on Skinner’s Walden Two. He was electrified and soon became a public nuisance trying to persuade all-and-sundry of the merits of a behavioral interpretation of human problems. After a decade of fruitlessly attempting to start an experimental community, he turned to graduate school. He studied inter-response times and conditioned reinforcement in pigeons at the University of Massachusetts under John Donahoe in the early 1980s. Upon graduation, he took a job teaching statistics and behavior analysis at Smith College, from which he retired in 2018. His interests in behavior analysis are broad, but his main contributions have all been attempts to extend Skinner's interpretive accounts of human behavior, particularly in the domains of language, memory, problem solving, and private events. Together with John Donahoe, he authored the text, Learning and Complex Behavior, which attempts to offer a comprehensive biobehavioral account of such phenomena. |
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Perspectives on Behavioral Complexity Involving Symbolic Processes |
| MANISH VAIDYA (IBSTR) |
| Abstract: Dr. Vaidya’s presentation will offer: 1) analysis of each contribution to this cluster; 2) consideration of the commonalities and differences represented; and 3) discussion of the implications of these for furthering understanding of behavioral complexity involving symbolic processes. |
 Dr. Manish Vaidya earned his master’s degree with Dr. Sigrid Glenn at the University of North Texas and his doctorate with Dr. Tim Hackenberg at the University of Florida. His experience with these and other foundationally impactful teachers left a deep and long-lasting interest in generative learning and verbal behavior. These interests found partial instantiation in research related to stimulus equivalence and conditional discrimination learning which he had the good fortune to pursue with his students at the University of North Texas. Dr. Vaidya has recently retired from his position as Chair of the Department of Behavior Analysis to pursue his current interest in integrating applied behavior analysis with rehabilitation science to optimize health outcomes for patients. Beginning January 2024, he will serve as the Executive Director of the Institute for Behavior Science and Technology in Rehabilitation (IBSTR). |
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