ABAT Verbal Behavior 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: According to Skinner's analysis, what distinguishes a mand from all other verbal operants?
- It is controlled by a verbal antecedent stimulus
- It specifies its own reinforcer and is controlled by relevant MOs (Correct answer)
- It requires formal similarity between stimulus and response
- It is always reinforced by social praise
Correct answer: It specifies its own reinforcer and is controlled by relevant MOs
The mand uniquely specifies its own reinforcer (e.g., 'cookie' produces a cookie) and is under the primary control of motivating operations.
Question 2: A child who can label objects (tact) but cannot request them (mand) demonstrates that verbal operants are:
- Interchangeable and automatically transfer across operants
- Functionally independent and require separate training (Correct answer)
- Acquired simultaneously through incidental learning
- Controlled by the same antecedent stimuli
Correct answer: Functionally independent and require separate training
Skinner emphasized that verbal operants are functionally independent; skill in one operant class does not automatically produce skill in another.
Question 3: Transcription involves which kind of correspondence between the verbal stimulus and response?
- Formal similarity only
- Point-to-point correspondence across different modes (auditory→written) (Correct answer)
- No correspondence between stimulus and response
- Formal similarity across the same mode
Correct answer: Point-to-point correspondence across different modes (auditory→written)
Transcription (e.g., taking dictation) has point-to-point correspondence between an auditory stimulus and a written response, but the modes differ.
Question 4: A behavior analyst wants to increase the complexity of a learner's intraverbal repertoire. The MOST appropriate next step after mastering fill-in-the-blank responses is to teach:
- Pure echoic responding
- Listener behavior only
- Conversational question-answering with varied question forms (Correct answer)
- Simple tact labels for new objects
Correct answer: Conversational question-answering with varied question forms
Progressing from fill-in-the-blank to answering varied conversational questions builds a more generative and flexible intraverbal repertoire.
Question 5: In verbal behavior analysis, the term 'audience control' refers to:
- A listener who physically controls the speaker's environment
- The influence of the presence or characteristics of a listener on verbal behavior (Correct answer)
- The speaker teaching the listener new behavior
- Reinforcing listeners for attending to verbal stimuli
Correct answer: The influence of the presence or characteristics of a listener on verbal behavior
Audience control describes how the presence, identity, or behavior of a listener functions as a discriminative stimulus that influences what a speaker says.
Question 6: When a child says 'more' to request additional food AND also says 'more' to describe continued action in a video, 'more' is functioning as:
- A pure mand in both contexts
- A mand in the first context and a tact in the second context (Correct answer)
- An intraverbal in both contexts
- A tact in both contexts
Correct answer: A mand in the first context and a tact in the second context
The same word can serve different verbal operant functions depending on the controlling variables: an MO controls the mand, a nonverbal stimulus controls the tact.
Question 7: Which of the following BEST describes a 'duplic' verbal operant?
- A verbal response evoked by a nonverbal discriminative stimulus
- A verbal operant category including echoic, copying-a-text, and transcription where point-to-point correspondence exists (Correct answer)
- An intraverbal chain linking multiple verbal responses
- A mand directed at a specific audience
Correct answer: A verbal operant category including echoic, copying-a-text, and transcription where point-to-point correspondence exists
Duplic is the superordinate class of verbal operants (echoic, copying-a-text, transcription) that share point-to-point correspondence between stimulus and response.
ABAT Verbal Behavior 5
According to Skinner's analysis, what distinguishes a mand from all other verbal operants?