Horne, P. J., & Lowe, C. F. (1997).
Toward a theory of verbal behavior.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
68, 271-296.
This paper is a reply to an accompanying set of six commentaries
by Sidman; Hayes and Barnes; Schusterman, Kastak, and Reichmuth;
Tonneau and Sokolowski; Lowenkron; and Moerk. Those commentaries
were prompted by our article "On the Origins of Naming and
Other Symbolic Behavior" (1996), which was, in turn,
followed by 26 commentaries and a reply. In the course of the
present reply, we further develop the naming account to embrace
more complex verbal relations such as same, different, more,
and less. We also examine what we see as the lack of
conceptual coherence in equivalence theories, including
relational frame theory, and the disparities between these
accounts and the findings from empirical research.
Key words: naming, verbal behavior, language, equivalence,
relational frame theory, mediation, match to sample