Ambiguity and the Abstract Tact: A Signal Detection Analysis

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior 1995, 12, 1-11

Ambiguity and the Abstract Tact: A Signal Detection Analysis

Joanne K. RobbinsUniversity of Illinois at Chicago

T. V. Joe LayngMalcolm X College

Hilary Jo KarpUniversity of Houston Clear Lake

Four observers who had completed a formal course in projective test techniques were asked todiscriminate House-Tree-Person (H-T-P) drawings made by psychiatric patients from thosemade by nonpatients. A 4.5 kHz tone presentation was made contingent upon one of twoclasses of errors, failure-to-tact errors or false-tact errors, depending on the experimental condi-tion in effect. The observers were instructed that a 2 second tone presentation would occur eachtime the experimenters disagreed with the observer. The duration of tone presentation wasvariable depending upon the number of disagreements that occurred after blocks of either 5 or10 responses. All observers showed some degree of abstractional control by the set of patientdrawings. The likelihood of a correct tact was shown to vary as a function of the consequencescontingent upon each type of error for 3 of the 4 observers. However, the discriminability indexd'e remained unchanged for all observers throughout all experimental conditions.

A tact: a verbal response under control of anonverbal stimulus where there is no point-to-point correspondence between the stimulus andthe response.While essentially correct, this apparently

simple definition does not fully convey thecomplexity of this basic verbal unit. Forexample, Skinner (1957) and others writingabout the tact have suggested that it maybe a product of multiple sources of control;it may be "distorted" by punishment con-tingencies or made "impure" by certaindeprivation variables; it may be accompa-nied by autoclitic verbal elements (Layng& Andronis, 1984; Skinner, 1957); it may beestablished through rule-based or instruc-tional procedures (Goldiamond, 1966;Markle, 1969; Markle & Tiemann, 1973),contingency shaping or stimulus fading(Goldiamond, 1964, 1966), or contingency

Portions of this paper are based on a thesis submit-ted by the first author to the University of HoustonClear Lake in partial fulfillment of the requirementsfor a Master of Arts degree. Requests for reprintsshould be sent to the first author at 6355 N. NewarkAvenue, Chicago, IL 60631.

adduction (Layng & Andronis, 1984); andits probability may be altered as a functionof reinforcing or punishing alternativeverbal relations (Goldiamond, 1964; Layng& Andronis, 1984). Consequently, thestudy of the tact is a complex undertakingwith many subtleties and nuances (seeSundberg, 1991).This complexity is even further

increased when extended tacts are consid-ered. Skinner made the distinction betweena tact controlled by a generally invariantstimulus, (e.g., saying "Mona Lisa" in thepresence of the collection of properties thatcomprise that painting or in the presenceof a print of that painting), and a tact con-trolled by varying stimuli, (e.g., saying"Impressionist" in the presence of a newexample of Impressionist art [Tiemann &Markle, 1990]). Skinner (1957) called theformer a simple tact; he called the latter anextended tact. One form of extended tact isthe abstract tact; exemplified by the"Impressionist" example given above.Abstract tacts are those tacts that are under

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2 JOANNE K. ROBBINS et al.

control of properties or features of a stimu-lus rather than the entire stimulus itself,that is, the brush strokes and subject mat-ter which define Impressionism rather thanthe individual painting itself. While manyabstract tacts may be controlled by a singleproperty of a stimulus others may be con-trolled by a "subcollection" of properties,all of which, however, must be present.Abstract extension requires that a speakerbe able to distinguish between paintingsthat are examples of Impressionism andthose that are not, even where they sharesome Impressionistic properties. This finalrequirement distinguishes abstract exten-sion from generic extension which does nothave the latter requirement (Skinner, 1957).One set of variables which may make the

analysis of abstract tacts difficult are thoserelated to ambiguity. That is, there are con-ditions under which the verbal communityor the individual emitting an extendedabstract tact are uncertain about whichproperties of a stimulus event are guiding(after Donahoe & Palmer, 1994) the tact.These abstract tacts may be guided bystimuli lacking in salience, by stimuli thathave properties or features that overlapwith other stimuli, or by stimuli that areprimarily defined by agreement with avague standard. Skinner (1957) suggestedthat "beauty" was one such abstract stimu-lus. Skinner notes that one interpretation ofthe abstract tact "beauty," or "yes" to thequery, "Isn't that beautiful?" involves com-ing under the control of aspects or proper-ties of beauty that may be hard to define orshare with someone else. Such a responsemay reflect a very special history of rein-forcement for tacting beauty in the world,or perhaps it may reflect reinforcement forsimply agreeing that something is beauti-ful.'

Part of the difficulty in explaining whysomething is or is not beautiful may not berelated to control by obscure properties,but instead to the difficulty in rationalizingwhy it is tacted as beautiful when thoseproperties are absent or not very salient.Further, such ambiguity in tact (stimuluscontrol) relations makes it difficult for theverbal community to reinforce responses to

specific instances of agreement or to pun-ish disagreements (Skinner, 1957). Sincemany of these abstract tacts may be, there-fore, the product of complex rules andinstructions arranged by the verbal com-munity, the issue of the sensitivity to con-tingent consequences may also be raised.Whereas behavior analysts may have not

yet formally investigated many of thesevariables, other investigators interested ina variety of biobehavioral processes havedeveloped procedures relevant to theinvestigation of some of these relations.One such set of procedures is subsumedunder the methods used to investigate per-ceptual behavior characterized by SignalDetection Theory (SDT) (Green & Swets,1973; Swets, 1964). In SDT the stimuliinvestigated are often quite ambiguous;rules or instructions are often (but notalways) used to establish stimulus control;experimental subjects are usually welltrained observers; consequences may bemade contingent on the correctness orincorrectness of the observer's responses;and autoclitic processes may be evaluatedthrough the use of confidence interval rat-ing systems. Accordingly, these proceduresmay be of great value in investigatingissues surrounding tact governance.This report uses SDT procedures to

begin to experimentally analyze some ofthe variables governing abstract extendedtacts in the category of Skinner's "beauty".The stimuli chosen were drawings ofhouses, trees, and persons made by bothhospitalized adult psychiatric patients andadult nonpatients. Experimental subjectswere asked to tact the presence or absenceof H-T-P (house, tree, person) drawingsmade by patients with a psychiatric diag-

'Tacts of beauty may also be guided by variablesrelated to yet other behaviors. This is illustrated, inpart, by the story of an Italian army officer trying tolead his men out of a deep foxhole and into battle (G.Presti, personal communication). He draws hissword, steps to the first step of the ladder leading outof the foxhole and yells, "Avanti!" He goes to the nextstep, raises his sword still higher and yells, "Avanti!"Seeing no response he climbs to the top of the foxholewhere he draws a deep breath, thrusts his sword evenhigher, and in his best baritone voice calls out,"Avaaaanti!" At this, one soldier in the foxhole looksto another and with obvious admiration says, "Oh,what a beautiful voice!"

AMBIGUITY AND THE ABSTRACT TACT 3

nosis. Presumably the presence or absenceof "indicators of psychopathology" in thedrawings may guide such tacts (Buck,1948; Hammer, 1958). These stimuli are ofinterest because of their necessary ambigu-ity, and for their inclusion in the domain ofprojective psychological tests.This report sought to experimentally

analyze: a) whether observers who suc-cessfully completed a full semester courseon projective principles, which specificallyincluded the clinical application of the H-T-P test, could tact patient H-T-P draw-ings; b) whether the observers would besensitive to the effects of consequencesindicating disagreement with the experi-menter contingent on "patterns of incorrecttacts" rather than on "discrete instances ofincorrect tacts"; c) whether the use of pre-scribed autoclitics accompanying eachabstract tact would affect observer sensitiv-ity to the imposed consequential arrange-ments, and d) the effects, if any, of thoseconsequences on sharpening tact stimuluscontrol topographies (after Ray & Sidman,1970), or on altering tact frequencies (afterGoldiamond, 1964).

METHOD

Overview

A sample of one hundred H-T-P draw-ing forms (completed by 50 psychiatricpatients and 50 nonpatients) was presentedto each of four art therapy graduate stu-dents. The drawing forms were presentedone at a time. After viewing each H-T-Pdrawing form, the observer made twoclasses of responses: 1) a tact, either a"Yes" or "No" verbal response, that indi-cated whether the drawing was made by acurrent psychiatric patient or a nonpatient,and 2) an autoclitic response (Skinner,1957) in the form of a spoken rating as tocertainty of the tact. After a baseline periodof several sessions, a tone was soundedafter each block of five or ten trials in eachsession to indicate occurrences of observererrors in those blocks. The effects of tonepresentations on stimulus control (discrim-inability), frequency of "Yes" responding

(response bias), and percent correct tactingof patient drawings were assessed.

Observers

The observers were four female art ther-apy graduate students whose ages rangedfrom 23 to 40 years old. Three of theobservers had completed their first year ina two year program, the fourth had onesemester to complete before graduating.All had completed a graduate course inprojective principles, and all were volun-teers.

Stimuli and Signal-Noise Distribution

Signal Detection Theory (Green & Swets,1973) requires a minimum of two states ofthe environment which can be respondedto in at least two ways. In most instances,the signal (the item to be detected, in thiscase indicators of psychopathology) issuperimposed on a background of noise(here, the normal variation in drawingsresulting from differing drawing skill,technique, etc.). The task for the observer isto decide whether a stimulus presentationcontained the signal (signal plus noise,SN), or if the noise alone (N) was pre-sented, and to indicate the presence of thesignal by saying "Yes" (or some other indi-cator response) and the absence of the sig-nal by saying "No." This creates a two bytwo matrix, with at least four possible out-comes: 1) "Yes" when the signal is present(a true tact, or "Hit"); 2) "Yes" when thesignal is absent (a false tact, or "FalseAlarm"); 3) "No" when the noise alone ispresent (another type of true tact, or"Correct Rejection"); and 4) "No" when thesignal plus noise is present (a failure totact, or "Miss").The noise distribution comprised 50 non-

patient drawing forms. They wereobtained from persons ranging in age from17 to 59 years old. The signal-plus-noisedistribution comprised 50 drawings byhospitalized adults with a current psychi-atric diagnosis. These diagnoses includedborderline syndrome, chronic and acuteschizophrenia, manic-depression, depres-sion, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.Patients' ages ranged from 17 to 55 years


old. All of the patient and nonpatientdrawings were obtained on a voluntarybasis by one of the experimenters trained inthe H-T-P projective technique. The admin-istration of all of these drawing formsfollowed the specifications of the H-T-Ptest as described by Hammer (1958).

Apparatus

The observer was seated at a table facinga room partition. An experimenter wasseated at a table on the opposite side of thepartition. A sonalert module which pro-duced a tone of 4.5 kHz was mounted onthe partition in front of the observer, onemeter above the table. An experimenterpresented the tone by depressing a tele-graph key which closed a switch connectedto a power supply in an adjoining room.The H-T-P drawing forms were individ-

ually encased in transparent plastic. The100 drawing forms were placed on thetable in front of the observer. The experi-menter scored the observer's responses ona score sheet by first circling a "Y" for"Yes" response, or "N" for "No"response, and then recording the numberof the observer's rating score. At no timewas the observer able to see the experi-menter while the session was in progress,but the partition allowed for the observer'sverbal response to be audible to an experi-menter.

Procedures

Observer response. Observers each madethree types of responses to each H-T-Pdrawing form presented. First, they ver-bally reported the number of the drawingform. After viewing the drawing form,they verbally responded "Yes" or "No,"and made a verbal rating of certainty oftheir response. The ratings ranged from 1 =no, very certain to 6 = yes, very certain (seeAppendix).

Experimental treatments. Three experi-mental treatments were used andeach observer underwent all three. Theywere as follows:

Baseline. The drawing forms were pre-sented and the observers made theresponses described above. Since tone pre-

sentation was to be used as a consequencepotentiated by instructions, random toneswere programed into the baseline sessionsto assess their effects when presented non-contingently.

Tone presentation contingent on false-tacterror patterns. A response of "Yes" in thepresence of an N drawing form wasdefined as falsely tacting a nonpatientdrawing as a patient drawing. After blocksof five or ten responses, a tone of varyingduration was presented contingent on thetotal number of false-tact errors whichoccurred during that block of responses. Atwo-second tone was presented for eachfalse tact, thus determining the duration ofthe tone. If only one "Yes" responseoccurred per block of five, and that "Yes"response was made in the presence of an Ndrawing form, then the experimenterextended the block to ten responses so asto reduce the probability of an observermemorizing which drawings were SN andwhich drawings were N.

Tone presentation contingent on failure-to-tact error patterns. The procedure was thesame as that described above, except that atone presentation of varying duration waspresented contingent on the total numberof failure-to-tact errors which occurredduring that block of responses. A failure-to-tact error was defined as a "No"response when an SN drawing form waspresent.

Sequence of experimental treatments. Singleorganism strategy was employed, requir-ing stabilization of behavior before a newtreatment was introduced. Stability wasdefined when a minimum of four consecu-tive sessions showed no clear upward ordownward trend in SDT discriminabilitymeasures for a given condition. Observerratings were used to determine p(Yespatient drawings) values and p(Yes non-patient drawings) values used in plottingROC (see below) curves for individual ses-sions (Green & Swets, 1973). The ROCcurves were used to determine the discrim-inability measure d'e (pronounced dee-prime-e, a non-parametric measure of dis-criminability or sensitivity) for each


experimental session (Green & Swets,1973).For Observers 1 and 2, the order of pre-

sentation was baseline, tone presentationcontingent on false-tact error patterns, thentone presentation contingent upon failure-to-tact error patterns. For Observers 3 and4, the sequence was baseline, tone presen-tation contingent upon failure-to-tact errorpatterns, then tone presentation contin-gent on false-tact error patterns. Thesequence of H-T-P drawing forms waschanged after each session.

Instructions. Instructions were read toeach observer at the beginning of eachexperimental condition. (Instructionsare included in the Appendix.) Practice tri-als were run until the experimentersjudged that the observer understood theexperimental procedures.

Sessions

A minimum of twelve sessions of 100presentations was agreed upon by eachobserver with the maximumnumber depending on how quickly theirbehavior stabilized at any given treatmentcondition. Observer 1 was run for 15 ses-sions; Observer 2 was run for 19 sessions;Observer 3 was run for 17 sessions; andObserver 4 was run for 16 sessions. One tothree sessions occurred on any given day,and the day varied according tothe observer's schedule.

RESULTS

The results of this study will be pre-sented in two sections: (a) ROC curves; and(b) percent of drawings correctly tacted.

ROC Curves: Discriminabilityand Response Bias

Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC)curves were plotted from the correct-tactrates and the false-tact rates for each of thelast three sessions in each condition. Thecorrect-tact rate is the "conditional proba-bility of a 'yes' given 'patient drawing"' orp[Yes I patient drawing]; the false-tact rateis the "conditional probability of a 'yes'given 'nonpatient drawing'" orp[Yes nonpatient drawing]. To produce

an ROC curve, the correct tact rate is plot-ted against the false-tact rate at several cri-terion points for a single observer. Pointswhich fall along the same ROC curve indi-cate that the observer has a stable discrim-inability index; that is, the observer's abil-ity to discriminate the signal plus noise(patient drawing) from the noise (nonpa-tient drawing) does not change eventhough the observer's overall likelihoodof saying "yes" or "no" may change.Changes in where the criterion points fallalong the ROC curve indicate changes inthe frequency of the "Yes" response. Pointsthat fall above the negative diagonal (seeFigure 1) indicate a response bias towardsaying "Yes" to the stimulus; points thatfall below the negative diagonal indicate aresponse bias toward saying "No."

If the underlying N and SN distributionsare normal, then the ROC curve fits astraight line when plotted on probability-probability paper. If the slope of this linedeviates from 1.00, then the underlyingdistributions of N and SN are not of equalvariance. When the slope of the ROCcurve does not equal 1.00, the measure ofd'e (Green & Swets, 1973) may be used asan index of observer discriminability sinced'e makes no assumption of equal vari-ance. This measure, d'e, is taken from thepoint of no bias, where the ROC curvecrosses the negative diagonal. Since theempirical ROC curves obtained in thisstudy deviated from a slope of 1.00, themeasure d'e was used. As determinedfrom a table provided by Swets (1964), ad'e of 0.00 indicates chance responding; ad'e of 4.64 indicates near perfect discrim-inability.ROC curves for Observers 1, 2, 3, & 4 are

shown in Figure 1. On each ROC curve thecriterion points for each of the three condi-tions are indicated separately. The baselinecondition is indicated by the dosed squares;the tone presentation contingent uponfalse-tact error patterns condition is indi-cated by closed triangles; and the tone pre-sentation contingent upon failure-to-tacterror patterns condition is indicated byclosed squares.


Observer 1 Observer 2-9.9

41 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~41

. * I 1\ I IVlI,~*1\.5.9I .5 .9P(Yes Nonpatient Drawings) P(Yes Nonpatient Drawings)

Observer3 Observer4

3 .5 _5 .005

p4 p4 _ _

$1 41111 $ 11

.1 .5 .9 .1 .5 .9P(Yes Nonpatient Drawings) P(Yes Nonpatient Drawings)

Fig. 1. ROC curves for Observers 1, 2, 3, & 4 derived from the last three sessions in each experimental condition.Points falling above the major diagonal, depicted by the thick diagonal line, indicate greater than chance discrim-inability. Points falling to the left of the minor diagonal, depicted by a thin diagonal line, indicate a bias towardsaying "Yes"; points falling to the right of the minor diagonal indicate a bias toward saying "No." Closed circlesrepresent baseline conditions; dosed triangles represent tone presentation contingent upon false-tact error pattems;closed squares represent tone presentation contingent upon failure-to-tact error patterns.

Observers 1 & 2

Observers 1 & 2 began with a biastoward saying "Yes," as indicated by thefilled circles which are all to the right ofthe negative diagonal in Figure 1. Randomtone presentations appeared to have nodiscernible effects. Condition 2, whichmade tone presentation contingent uponfalse-tact error patterns, resulted in a defi-nite shift, for both observers, toward say-ing "No," as indicated by the closed trian-gles which are all to the left of the negativediagonal. The third condition, whichmade tone presentation contingent uponfailure-to-tact error patterns, resulted in a

shift in criterion back toward, but notreaching, baseline levels (indicating noclear bias for "Yes" or "No" responding),as is represented by the closed squares.The measure of discriminability or sensi-tivity (d'e), determined by where the ROCcurve crosses the negative diagonal at thepoint of no bias, was .72 for Observer 1,and .51 for Observer 2.

Observers 3 & 4

Observers 3 & 4 responded with a slightbias toward saying "Yes" in baseline ses-sions, as indicated by the filled circles,which are all to the right of the negativediagonal in Figure 1. Random tone presen-


tations appeared to have no discernibleeffects. As indicated by the filled squares inFigure 1, there was an increase in "Yes"responding for both Observers 3 & 4 dur-ing the second condition (tone presentationcontingent upon failure-to-tact error pat-terns). As indicated by the filled triangles,tone presentation contingent on false-tacterror patterns resulted in a substantial shiftin response bias toward saying "No" forObserver 3, but resulted in no shift inresponse bias for Observer 4. A d'e of .30was obtained for Observer 3. A d'e of .51was obtained for Observer 4.

Discussion ofROC Results

The discriminability indices obtained inthe present study, while not very high,were somewhat above chance (d'e of 0.0)for all observers. Since a single best fit(least-squares) line could be drawn for allof the criterion points across all three con-ditions for all observers, discriminabil-ity did not appear to change in the variousconditions. This indicates that the pro-gramed consequences resulted in shifts inthe likelihood of saying "Yes" or "No"(response bias) but did not result in shiftsin the discrimination of patient from non-patient drawings, or perhaps, of "psy-chopathology." Abstractional controlappeared to remain largely invariantthroughout the experiment.All observers responded with a bias

toward saying "Yes" to the drawing formsduring baseline sessions. When the tonepresentation was made contingent uponfalse-tact error patterns, Observers 1, 2,and 3 notably increased their frequency ofsaying "No." Tone presentation contingenton failure-to-tact error patterns resulted inincreases in "Yes" responding for all fourobservers. Observers 1 and 2, who had aprior exposure of tone presentation contin-gent on false-tact error patterns increasedtheir "Yes" frequency, but did not return tobaseline rates. Observers 3 & 4, who didnot have that prior exposure, exceededtheir baseline rates. The data suggest thathistory of prior exposure to tone presenta-tion contingent on false-tact error patterns

may have affected "Yes" preference forObservers 1 & 2.

Percent ofDrawings Correctly Tacted

Research investigating verbal behaviormay not always separate whetherobservers are correctly tacting the SD orcorrectly rejecting the SA, or both (seeSidman, 1980, 1992). Measures of accuracy,such as percent correct, may provide anincomplete account of the stimulus controlrelations involved (Sidman, 1980). In thisstudy no consequences were ever explicitlymade contingent on correct tacts. That is,the consequences for saying "Yes" whenpatient drawings were present were neverchanged during the experiment. Only con-sequences for other verbal patterns,namely, false-tact error patterns, or failure-to-tact error patterns, were changed.Further, if consequences explicitly madecontingent upon the failure-to-tact or false-tact error patterns are shown to affect cor-rect tact occurrence, then, a full account oftact governance may require the considera-tion of the effects nonlinear contingencyrelations (Goldiamond, 1975,1979,1984).

Observer 1 & 2

During the last three baseline sessions,Observer 1 correctly tacted an average of81% of patient drawings; Observer 2 cor-rectly tacted an average of 73% of patientdrawings. For the last three sessions ofcondition two (with tone presentation con-tingent on false-tact error patterns), theaverage of correctly tacted patient draw-ings for Observer 1 dropped to 46%; theaverage of correctly tacted patient draw-ings for Observer 2 dropped to 41%. Forthe third condition (with tone presentationcontingent on failure-to-tact error pat-terns), the correct tacts of patient drawingsfor the last three sessions increased to anaverage of 66% for Observer 1; and to 57%for Observer 2.

Observers 3 & 4

During the last three baseline sessions,Observer 3 correctly tacted an average of63% of the patient drawings; Observer 4correctly tacted an average of 73% of the


patient drawings. For the last three ses-sions of condition two (with tone presenta-tion contingent on failure-to-tact error pat-terns), the average of patient drawingscorrectly tacted increased to 80% forObserver 3; and to an average of 81% forObserver 4. For the last three sessions ofcondition three (with tone presentationcontingent on false-tact error patterns),Observer 3 correctly tacted an average ofonly 33% of the patient drawings.Conversely, Observer 4 showed a slightincrease, to an average of 85% of patientdrawings correctly tacted.

Discussion ofPercent Correct Results

During baseline sessions, all observerscorrectly tacted a high percentage ofpatient drawings. For Observers 1, 2, and3, a far greater (nearly double) percent ofcorrectly tacted patient drawings occurredduring the condition when tone presenta-tion was contingent on failure-to-tact errorpatterns than during the condition whentone presentation was contingent on false-tact error patterns. Although overall dis-criminability of the abstract stimulus (asmeasured by d'e) remained relatively con-stant for all observers throughout all con-ditions, the separate percentages ofpatient drawings correctly tacted variedsystematically for three of the observers inall conditions and in two of the three con-ditions for the fourth observer . Further,these changes were observed even thougha confidence interval rating system wasused throughout the experiment.Confidence interval rating systems havepreviously been shown to have a mitigat-ing effect on certain aversive consequencescontingent on verbal behavior (seeGoldiamond, 1964).

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Abstract tacts, saying "Yes" in the pres-ence of drawings made by a psychiatricpatient, and saying "No" in the presence ofdrawings made by a nonpatient, wereshown to be both a function of the abstractproperties of these ambiguous stimuli andof the consequences made contingent onfalse-tact error patterns and failure-to-tact

error patterns. The behavior of allobservers showed a slight sensitivity to thedifferences in the drawings as measuredby d'e. It is not known what properties ofthe patient drawings as compared to non-patient drawings accounted for this sensi-tivity. The use of stimulus variation proce-dures (after Ray & Sidman, 1970) toinvestigate this question was beyond thescope of the present experiment. It isimportant to note, however, that abstrac-tional control did not change throughoutthe experiment for any observer, evenwhen the likelihood of emitting one type oftact versus another did change. Simpleobservation of the frequency of "tact"occurrence in the presence of a stimulusmay be insufficient to infer that a verbalevent is under the control of a nonverbalstimulus.Consequences contingent upon "error

patterns," either failure-to-tact error pat-terns or false-tact error patterns, had a siz-able effect on the frequency of correctlytacting patient drawings for 3 out of 4observers. Further, these consequenceswere never directly contingent upon aresponse, but instead they were contingentupon a pattern of responding. Variabletone presentation occurred after a block ofresponses, often following correct answersrather than incorrect answers. Instructionsappeared sufficient to potentiate (afterGoldiamond & Dyrud, 1968) or establish(after Michael, 1982) the programed conse-quences, tone presentation in this case, asan aversive event, and to extend that con-trol over a pattern of verbal responding.Data from this experiment suggest thatinstructions may not only make individualresponses more sensitive to consequentialcontingencies (Chase & Danforth, 1991;Layng, 1991; LeFrancois, Chase, & Joyce,1988), but may extend consequential con-tingency control to a pattern of respondingin rather atypical ways (Andronis, 1991).At least under the conditions of this study,one class of verbal behavior, which waslargely rule-established through a formalprogram of study, can, through the use ofinstructions, be made to be very sensitiveto its consequences.


As noted earlier, this sensitivity was evi-dent even though a rating "autocitic" wasrequired. The absence, in at least 3 out of 4observers, of a pronounced autocitic effectis of some interest. Perhaps making theduration of tone presentation contingentupon rating certainty would have gener-ated different results (i.e., different fre-quencies of "Yes" responses). The ratingsthemselves, although appearing to haveautoclitic characteristics, may not havebeen entirely true autoclitic verbalresponses. For a verbal operant to be con-sidered autoclitic, it must modify theeffects other verbal behavior has on a lis-tener. While expressions of uncertainty orcertainty are usually considered to serve anautoclitic function (Skinner, 1957), in thisexperiment no such effect was explicitlyprogramed. Although, some autocliticfunction was probably involved; that is,the ratings were not ignored by theobservers, the ratings had no effect on tonepresentation duration or frequency ofoccurrence. Making a required autocliticunit explicitly consequential, removing,and then reinstating that contingencywhile maintaining consequential contin-gencies for other elements of a verbalepisode may provide a basis for furtherexploration of autoclitic processes.

This study is yet another demonstrationof the potential usefulness of SDT proce-dures for the study of verbal behavior(Critchfield, 1993a, 1993b; Goldiamond,1962, 1964). Further, it demonstrates thecomplex nature of tact governance in theso-called "real world" where stimuli areoften ambiguous. One such area of com-plexity is the role of consequences contin-gent not only upon a single verbal relation,but also upon alternative verbal relations.As with many other more "purely" psy-chophysical studies (Goldiamond, 1962,1964, 1966), this study has shown thatbehavior may be a function of not only-linear relations, but of nonlinear relationsas well (Layng & Andronis, 1984;Goldiamond, 1974, 1975, 1984). That is, theoccurrence of a correct tact in one situationmay be a function not only of the conse-quences of the tact in that situation, but of

the consequences of "falsely tacting" inother situations (see Goldiamond [1975] &Layng & Andronis [1984] for a discussionof those situations where a verbal operantthat results in an aversive event may haveto occur if another verbal unit, in a differ-ent situation, is to be reinforced. Chance[1988] refers to this phenomenon as"Goldiamond's Paradox").Accordingly, this experiment may have

implications for the clinic where ambiguitymay be more the rule than the exception. Itsuggests that a least one class of verbalbehavior may be altered by nonlinear con-sequential relations.- Verbal behavior whichmay appear to be "out-of-sync" withobserved "reality" may instead be the sen-sible outcome of unobserved (by the clini-cian and the client) nonlinear consequen-tial contingencies. Second, it suggests thata client may be perfectly able to discrimi-nate one event from another, even wherethere appears to be a discrepancy in howthe client sees the world versus how thetherapist sees it (see Layng & Andronis,1984). Where nonlinear consequentialrelations are overlooked, there may be atendency to explain what appears to bepathological or maladaptive behaviorthrough the postulating of defective self-instructions, abnormal schema, the effectsof rule-governed behavior, governance byprivate events, or some other inferred pro-cess (Goldiamond, 1974, 1984; Layng &Andronis, 1984).The apparent complexity involved in

understanding verbal relations, especiallyin the context of nonlinear contingencyrelations, suggests a cautious approach tothe interpretation of variables governingverbal behavior outside of the laboratory.This study sounds this note of caution, andsuggests one way of addressing the com-plexity posed by nonlinear relations for thestudy of verbal behavior.

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APPENDIX

Instructions

General. "Look at each House, Tree, thenPerson. Decide if they were drawn by aperson who is a psychiatric patient or bya person who is a nonpatient. Respond firstby calling the number printed on the labelbeside the Person drawing. Next, Respond"Yes" or "No," "Yes" = psychiatric patient,"No" = nonpatient. The final response willbe a number which indicates certainty: 1, 2,or 3 will be used with the "No" response;4, 5, or 6 will be used with the"Yes" response. The rating system isprinted and mounted on the wall beforeyou. Drawings were done by persons aged17-59 years old. A tone, which will be usedfor feedback later in the experiment, willbe presented randomly throughout thesebaseline sessions."

Tone presentation contingent on false tacterror patterns. "We are now going to use atone to indicate when we disagree aboutwhat is a drawing by a psychiatric patient.The amount of tone you receive will bebased on the number of times you say"Yes" to a picture drawn by a non-patient. Sometimes you will receive thenoise after blocks of ten responses andsometimes you will receive noise afterblocks of five responses; usually it will beafter every five. The amount of tone aftereach block will be based on the number oferrors; the more errors, the longer you willhear the tone. Your task is to try to be as


accurate with your decisions as you canand eliminate the tone."Tone contingent on failure to tact error

patterns. "We are now going to use a toneto indicate when we disagree about what isa drawing by a nonpatient. The amount oftone you receive will be based on the num-ber of times you say "No" to a picturedrawn by a patient. Sometimes you willreceive the noise after blocks of tenresponses and sometimes you will receivethe noise after blocks of five responses;usually it will be after every five. Theamount of tone after each block will be

based on the number of errors; the moreerrors, the longer you will hear the tone.Your task is to try and be as accurate withyour decisions as you can and eliminatethe tone."

Rating System

6 = yes, very certain5 = yes, certain4 = yes, not certain3 = no, not certain2 = no, certain1 = no, very certain

Ambiguity and the Abstract Tact: A Signal Detection Analysis

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