Staats Chapter 15: Conditioned Responses of Linguistic Behavior Flashcards
Main points
This article was about conditioned responses of linguistic behavior
Started talking about the role of generalization in language
Conditioned reaction has been established to a stimulus object and generalization is obtained from its name
How conditioned reactions have been established to a word and generalization obtained to its object
Conditioned reactions to one word and generalization to other semantically or phonetically related words
Semantically similar words will elicit similar responses as a function of the degree of similarity (aka more similar meaning=more similar response)
- this also works for homophones (similar sounds words i.e. vain reinforced is generalized to vane)
If a word has more than one meaning, there might be additional gradients formed by the synonyms arising from different meanings and homophones from the new synonyms
Each of the new homophones might have new synonyms causing additional synonyms gradients to appear and they might have new homophones, etc… like a cycle of connected words by meaning or sound
Experiments
Amount of saliva excreted was measured while a subject thought of the word “saliva” in different languages
It was found that the largest amount was secreted when he thought of the word in his native language, Russian even though he was now more fluent in English
Flashed words having to do with saliva on a screen (semantic related or phonetically related words aka homophones) while subjects were eating and measured saliva and found that verbal conditioning was largely semantic and generalization was greater in synonyms
Another experiment found that conditioned single words lost some of their generalization strengths when combined in sentences
Also, the subjects opinions regarding the truth of the statements influenced the conditioning as well as generalization value of the sentence
Types of equivalence between stimuli that cause similar reactions, so that conditioned responses can generalize from one to another
Partial identity A-B similar to A-C →physical similarity
Sensory similarity
e.g. 2 colors more alike than a color and a tone →
meditated by primitive psychological process
Formal similarity e.g.
2 patterns of ascending pitch
Affective similarity
e.g. emotionally flavored process like “dark brown taste” and “blue Monday”
Mediated similarity
e.g. different sounds but common meanings -→ need to be similar only in the way they were previously conditioned to a similar response
