Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of intraverbal bidirectional naming during equivalence class formation. Fourteen participants underwent tact and baseline intraverbal training (A’B’/B’C’/C’D’) with autoclitic frames. Formation of three, four-member classes (A1B1C1D1, A2B2C2D2, A3B3C3D3) was assessed using visual-visual matching-to-sample (MTS) and intraverbal tests for symmetrical (BA, B’A’, CB, C’B’, DC, D’C) and transitive (AC, A’C’, CA, C’A’, BD, B’D, DB, D’B, AD, A’D, DA, D’A) relations. In Experiment 1, eight participants completed an additional MTS transitivity posttest while talking aloud. In Experiment 2, we exposed eight participants to a blocking condition to disrupt verbal behavior and evaluate its effects on MTS performance. Twelve out of 14 experimental participants passed all emergent intraverbal and MTS posttests. Our results suggest that tact and intraverbal training alone are sufficient to establish four-member equivalence classes and that participants engaged in behaviors consistent with I-BiN to solve the MTS tasks.