Horne, P. J., & Lowe, C. F. (1996).
On the origins of naming and other symbolic behavior.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
65, 185-241.
We identify naming as the basic unit of verbal behavior,
describe the conditions under which it is learned, and outline
its crucial role in the development of stimulus classes and,
hence, of symbolic behavior. Drawing upon B. F. Skinner's
functional analysis and the theoretical work of G. H. Mead and L.
S. Vygotsky, we chart how a child, through learning listener
behavior and then echoic responding, learns bidirectional
relations between classes of objects or events and his or her own
speaker-listener behavior, thus acquiring naming - a higher order
behavioral relation. Once established, the bidirectionality
incorporated in naming extends across behavior classes such as
those identified by Skinner as the mand, tact, and
intraverbal so that each becomes a variant of the name
relation. We indicate how our account informs the specification
of rule-governed behavior and provides the basis for an
experimental analysis of symbolic behavior. Furthermore, because
naming is both evoked by, and itself evokes, classes of
events it brings about new or emergent behavior such as that
reported in studies of stimulus equivalence. This account is
supported by data from a wide range of match-to-sample studies
that also provide evidence that stimulus equivalence in humans is
not a unitary phenomenon but the outcome of a number of different
types of naming behavior.
Key words: naming, verbal behavior, language, symbolic
behavior,stimulus equivalence, listener behavior, rule
governance, speech for self, consciousness, match to sample,
children
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Note: This Special Article served as the target for a series of
26 Commentaries, which themselves served as targets for a Reply
by Lowe and Horne.