A functional analysis of mentalistic terms in human observers

Abstract

This paper, and the following paper by M.J. Dougher (1989), were originally given as part of a symposium presented at the 1984 meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis (R. Schnaitter, Chair). The symposium included two other papers on the same theme by Diane Spooner and Diane Mercier, and the discussant was Willard Day. The concept of the symposium was to use the following paper (Leigland) as a basis for a demonstration of what has been termed the "Reno methodology," a method for the interpretation of verbal behavior developed by Willard Day and his students at the University of Nevada, Reno. Essentially, the project may be described in the following way: the controlled environment-behavior interactions of a pigeon in an operant chamber gave rise to explanatory verbal behavior on the part of observing human subjects, and the controlling relations with respect to the latter gave rise to the verbal behavior contained in Leigland's report. The controlling relations to be discriminated with respect to Leigland's verbal behavior were then the subject of Dougher's analysis in the report that follows. Dougher's report, then, uses Leigland's report as a source of verbal behavior to be interpreted, using the practices developed by the Reno group as a method.

An analysis of procedures that affect response variability

“…For responses simple to transduce, a simple application that can operate on a mobile electronic device may be useful. For responses more difficult to transduce, such as certain forms of verbal behavior (e.g., explanations of causes of behavior—see Leigland, , ), researchers should investigate how automatic transduction can be used to quickly and easily score responses (e.g., computerized dictation or computerized photo comparisons).…”

PRAGMATISM, SCIENCE, AND SOCIETY: A REVIEW OF RICHARD RORTY'S OBJECTIVITY, RELATIVISM, AND TRUTH: PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS, VOLUME 1

“…The behavior of a pigeon in a standard operant chamber may be described and explained in different ways. Anyone who has taught an undergraduate laboratory course has observed the ease with which new students describe the behavior of the observed pigeon in ordinar y-language intentional terms (e.g., ''He wants to figure it out, and he has the idea, but he doesn't quite understand it yet''), and such descriptions or explanations would be interpreted by the radical behaviorist as the product of an extensive history in a particular verbal community in conjunction with the interactions under observation, and they may in fact be analyzed as such (e.g., Leigland, 1989). In the laboratory course, the representationalist view might be argued in the following way: The pigeon doesn't really have any ''ideas'' or ''understanding,'' of course, because the reality is that the interactions are the effects of contingencies of reinforcement.…”

Método Reno: uma proposta para análise comportamental do discurso

“…A proposta de Skinner (1957de Skinner ( /1978) para comportamento verbal e o entendimento deste como comportamento operante, mediado por um ouvinte treinado por uma comunidade verbal, mostram-se relevantes ainda hoje para os behavioristas radicais. São vários os desdobramentos desses pressupostos em diferentes campos de atuação e dentre eles encontram-se aqueles autores que buscam entender as implicações dos princípios defendidos no behaviorismo radical para a análise comportamental do dis-curso (ACD) (Borloti, Iglesias, Dalvi, & Silva, 2008;Borloti, 2004;Dougher, 1989;Leigland, 1989).…”

“…Conforme antecipado, o objetivo do artigo foi delimitar e descrever, de forma introdutória e didática os pressupostos do Método Reno. Para isso, foram analisados a proposta de Skinner (1957Skinner ( /1978) para a análise verbal e alguns artigos escritos por Day (1969) e por seus alunos (Dougher, 1989;Leigland, 1989) sobre o Método Reno. Buscamos, ainda, descrever em oito passos uma possibilidade de realizar a análise do discurso, com base no Método Reno.…”

“…Buscamos, ainda, descrever em oito passos uma possibilidade de realizar a análise do discurso, com base no Método Reno. Para ilustrar tais passos, foram utilizados trechos do artigo publicado por Leigland (1989).…”