How the Listener Half of Naming Leads to Multiple Stimulus Control
Creators: Lo, Crystal
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2016
Subjects: Sensory stimulation
Learning, Psychology of
Auditory perception
Listening
Language and languages
Education

description: In Experiment I, I tested for the demonstration of Naming after presentation of Naming experiences that included an additional sensory experience (i.e., auditory non-speech stimulus) not presented during previous Naming studies. Probes were then conducted to test for the 4 dependent variables: 1) presence of listener half of Naming to visual stimuli, 2) the presence of the speaker half of Naming to visual stimuli, 3) the presence of the listener half of Naming to auditory non-speech stimuli, and 4) the presence of the speaker half of Naming to auditory non-speech stimuli. Following the first round of probes, all 6 participants demonstrated the listener half of Naming for visual stimuli, indicating that visual stimuli functioned as conditioned reinforcement for observing. In addition, following 3-4 probe sessions with the same set of stimuli, all participants emitted criterion-level responses for each of the four dependent variables. In Experiment II, using a multiple probe design across participants with participants who demonstrated conditioned reinforcement for observing visual stimuli, I tested whether repeated probes with sets of stimuli as an intervention would function to establish conditioned reinforcement for spoken and non-spoken auditory stimuli. In addition, I conducted two sets of probes during each pre and post- intervention probe session, one using a non-contrived stimuli set and another using a contrived stimuli set, to test whether there is a difference in the demonstration of Naming when assessed with non-contrived versus contrived stimuli. Results indicated overall increases in correct untaught listener and speaker responses during post-intervention probe sessions to novel sets of both contrived and non-contrived visual and auditory non-speech stimuli across all participants. In Experiment III, using a multiple probe design across participants, I tested the effects of the repeated probe procedure on the emergence of Naming for contrived visual and auditory stimuli, with 6 participants who demonstrated full Naming with non-contrived stimuli. During pre-intervention probes, all 6 participants demonstrated the listener half of Naming for contrived visual stimuli, but did not demonstrate the listener half of Naming for contrived auditory stimuli nor the speaker half of Naming for both contrived visual and auditory stimuli. Intervention was conducted in the same way as in Experiment II, but with only contrived stimuli sets. During post-intervention probes, all participants demonstrated criterion-level or close to criterion-level responding for untaught listener and speaker responses with a novel set of contrived visual and auditory stimuli. Results of the three studies combined suggested that simply having the listener component of Naming for visual stimuli and repeated exposures to visual and auditory stimuli may establish stimulus control for spoken and non-spoken contrived auditory stimuli. These increases in stimulus control are educationally significant, as they allow individuals to contact new stimuli in the environment, allowing for possibilities of learning multiple responses as well as multiple features of stimuli. Results also suggested that the demonstration of Naming with contrived stimuli may be a type of Naming cusp that is not necessarily present in individuals who demonstrate Naming with non-contrived stimuli. Educational implications of these findings, limitations, and future research are then discussed.