Lowe, C. F., Horne, P. J., Harris, F. D. A., & Randle, V. R. L. (2002).
Naming and categorization in young children: Vocal tact training.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
78, 527-549.
In three experiments, 2- to 4-year-old children, following
pretraining with everyday objects, were presented with arbitrary
stimuli of differing shapes. In Experiment 1A, 9 subjects were
trained one common tact response, "zag," to three of
these and a second tact, "vek," to another three. In
category match-to-sample Test 1, 4 subjects sorted accurately
when required only to look at the sample before selecting from
five comparisons. The remaining 5 subjects succeeded in Test 2,
in which they were required to tact the sample before selecting
comparisons. Experiment 1B showed, for 2 of these subjects, that
tact training with 12 arbitrary stimuli established two
six-member classes that were still intact 6 weeks later. In
Experiment 2, 3 new subjects participated in a common tact
training procedure that ensured that none of the exemplars from
the same class were presented together prior to the test for
three- member classes. Two subjects passed category Test 1 and
the third passed Test 2. Tests showed subjects' listener behavior
in response to hearing /zog/ and /vek/ to be
in place. These experiments indicate that common naming is
effective in establishing arbitrary stimulus classes and that
category match-to-sample testing provides a robust measure of
categorization.
Key words: naming, categorization, stimulus classes, stimulus
equivalence, tacting, category match to sample, children