Stimulus equivalence and exposure learning: a cross-disciplinary study of rapid vocabulary acquisition

Abstract

Cognitive/developmentalists and behaviour analysts have developed parallel
paradigms of relevance to the investigation of the exposure learning of vocabulary in three contexts: non-ostensive, ostensive, and fast mapping/exclusion. Researchers have claimed that young children are able to comprehend new words following a limited number of unreinforced exposures. However, methodological limitations of such studies render the researchers' conclusions equivocal: participants' accurate responses on comprehension tests may reflect false positive responses, and cognitive/developmental researchers have failed to demonstrate that word-referent relations acquired are symbolic, and thus linguistic. The behaviour analytic stimulus equivalence paradigm provides a methodology for assessing the symbolic properties of such relational responding. The present se1ies of studies thus investigates young children's
exposure learning of equivalence relations in rigorously controlled conditions.
Study 1 investigated the exposure learning of a single new word-object relation;
results highlighted the existence of false positive responding in such studies, and the necessity of exposing multiple relations. Studies 2 to 5 thus examined the exposure learning of two novel relations. Five children, aged 25 to 32 months, demonstrated the acquisition of word-referent relations following unreinforced non-ostensive, ostensive, or fast mapping/exclusion exposures; where tested, these children also demonstrated the derivation of symbolic -- equivalence -- relations. A history of conditional responding also facilitated some children's performances on subsequent test trials.
However, the majority of participants (17/22) failed comprehension and naming
tests. Given the paucity of methodological control implemented by cognitive/
developmentalists these results were not unexpected and question claims made by such researchers regarding the efficiency of exposure learning.

Date of Award	2001
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Wales, Bangor
Supervisor	Neil Dugdale (Supervisor)