What Does Relational Frame Theory
have to Contribute to Mainstream
Cognitive Science, and Vice Versa?
(Panel Discussion)
Sam Leigland
Gonzaga University
ACBS 2014, Minneapolis MN
Challenge-Based Scientific Progress
The Panorama of Psychology…
Cognitive Psychology & Cognitive Science—
(e.g., Simon, Chemero, Elman)…
These Comments—
Two Scientific Systems…
Possible Contributions between Fields…
Also—
Relational Frame Theory, and…
Functional Contextualism/Contextual Behavioral Science
Radical Behaviorism/Behavior Analysis
Context: “Cognitive” and “Behavioral” Sciences
3 Meanings of “Cognitive”…
Private Events…
Complex Verbal/Symbolic Relations…
Cognitive Theory in Psychology…
(vs. cognitive phenomena, e.g., Skinner)…
Framing of Difference: Contrasting Scientific Systems…
Methodological Behaviorism (GEP, CP/CS)
Radical Behaviorism/Functional Contextualism
(Behavior Analysis, Contextual Behavioral Science/RFT)
Methodological Behaviorism
The mainstream systematic perspective of
General Experimental Psychology…
Overt, publicly-observable behavior
Operational definitions (IV, DV)
Inferential theory
Testing theories: Experiment (large-N group designs,
inferential statistical analysis)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
…Applicable to all areas, all topics…
Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental
Psychology…
Characteristics of Radical Behaviorism (1)
re Subject Matter…”Behavior”
(“what is studied empirically”)
Methodological Behaviorism:
overt publicly-observable actions
Radical Behaviorism:
any and all actions, activities, or
experiences of the individual organism/person, whether
public or private, verbal or nonverbal, social or nonsocial
Characteristics of Radical Behaviorism (2)
re Goals & Explanation…
“the causes of behavior,” or,
the variables of which behavior may be
observed to be a function…
…A Functional Analysis of Behavior
Sources of variables: (Env-Beh Interactions)
Biology (observed)
History of environment-behavior interactions
Current/ongoing environmental context/conditions
Systems Comparisons: Explanation
As an example from Experimental Psychology,
Cognitive Psychology illustrates a "top-down" scientific strategy…
Starting with ordinary-language psychological terms (thinking,
perception) as names for processes, and then analyzing (through
experimentation) phenomena apparently associated with the terms…
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Behavior Analysis illustrates a "bottom-up" (or inductive) scientific
strategy…
Where initial empirical discoveries serve as the basis for further
research and the extension and expansion of the analysis to
increasingly complex phenomena…
Systems Comparisons: Explanation (cont’d)
All established sciences began as an inductive or "bottom-up"
enterprise…Measurement and discovery; observed order and
fundamental interactions/variables…
Galileo, Lavosier, Helmholz, Mendel, Darwin, Skinner…
e.g., Chemistry-Elements as "Earth Air Fire Water," & dominance for
centuries…
Lavosier & other early chemists, combining weight,
& the birth of modern Chemistry…
Systems Comparisons: Explanation (cont’d)
In Empirical, Inductive Science (all natural science):
A new technical vocabulary
(vs. "theoretical" terms from ordinary language)
is inevitable, as the important relations derived from an
empirical/experimental analysis have no terms available in
ordinary
language…
Behavior Analysis is the only field in the behavioral/psychological
sciences
With an empirically-based, functionally-defined technical vocabulary that
is coherent, integrative, extensive, generalizable, and useful.
General Experimental Psychology uses descriptive (for methods or
hypotheses) or theoretical (explanation) terms…
Researchers may offer new theoretical terms at any point, with definitions
normally couched in ordinary-language terms, and thus to compete with
other theoretical terms offered by other researchers (or to carve out new
theoretical areas)…
Cumulative Progress of Behavior Analysis
The Respondent-Operant distinction…
The ubiquitous 4-Term Operant Contingency…
Complex manifestations of reinforcement contingencies over multiple time scales
and complex stimulus conditions…
Extensions to Human Behavior, and especially Verbal Behavior…
Conditional Stimulus Control, Equivalence Relations and Derived Relational
Phenomena…
Hierarchical Relational phenomena and "Symbolic" stimulus functions…RFT…
(where "symbolic" relations can be defined, described, and used, for the first time,
without merely employing synonyms for the term "symbolic")…
WHERE ALL OF THESE INTERRELATED RESEARCH-BASED INTERACTIONS
HAVE FOUND USE IN APPLICATION TO HUMAN AFFAIRS…
Cognitive Science offers
Relational Frame Theory (CBS)
[Functional Analysis of Verbal Behavior (BA)]
Offer1—
Phenomena: Complex Human/Verbal Behavior…
Beyond everyday observation/phenomenology,
The experimental findings of cognitive psychology/cognitive science,
…Problem Solving (R-Gbeh), Sensory-Motor Skills (CORs),
Conversation Analysis, Proactive/Retroactive Interfer.,
“Mental Rotation” exp., etc….& RFT…
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Offer2—
Questions Regarding Complex Human/Verbal Behavior…
=>How to interpret the scientific explanations of CP/CS in
terms of RFT and a Functional Analysis of Verbal Behavior…
{example…}
Example: Recent Cognitive Theory
Precis of The Origin of Concepts (B&BS, 2011, 34, 113-167)
…a theory of concepts must specify what it is that determines the content
of any given mental symbol (i.e., what determines which concept it is,
what determines the symbol’s meaning). (In the context of theories of
mental or linguistic symbols, I take “content” to be roughly synonymous
with “meaning.”)
The theory must also specify how it is that concepts may function in
thought, by virtue of what they combine to form propositions and beliefs,
and how they function in inferential processes….
…The contents of our mental representations are partly constituted by the
set of entities they refer to. Some theories, (e.g., information
semantics) claim that reference is determined by causal
connections between mental symbols and the entities in their
extensions. To the extent this is so, all current psychological theories of
concepts are partly on the wrong track: Conceptual content is not
exhausted by prototypes, exemplar representations, or theories of
the entities in their extensions. (Carey, 2011, pp. 113-114; emphasis
added)
Relational Frame Theory (CBS)
[Functional Analysis of Verbal Behavior (BA)]
offers Cognitive Science
Offer1—(BA)
Methods for the further analysis of cognitive phenomena…
Well-documented problems with large-N group designs &
parametric inferential statistical analysis (e.g., replication!)…
…and a radical methodology built upon direct and systematic
replication, single-subject (N-of-1) experimentation (& medical res.)…
Challenges to research designs, but opportunities…
Note A. Ericsson’s STM res.; in Cognition, what would we find?...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Offer2—
Toward Effective Explanation—All Natural Sciences (inductive,
“bottom-up”) move in the direction of useful information/Applications,
A FUNCTIONAL/CONTEXTUAL PERSPECTIVE AS EXTENSION…
Conclusions/Possibilities
Cognitive Science (1950s)
Behavioral Science (1930s)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ordinary-Language Concepts
MB Theory & Experimentation
Complex Human Behavior
--[meet here…]-- Complex Human Behavior
Cumulative Pragmatic Development
Inductive Experimental Research