Abstract
Recent research in verbal behavior. The functional role of verbal behavior with respect to other verbal and nonverbal behavior. Three research topics, into the conceptual frame of behavior analysis, have been developped during the last decade. These topics have in common the study of verbal behavior with regard to the formation of rules (stating the rule) and following the rule. The goal of the present paper is to briefly describe each of these topics, that is, Equivalence Relations, Say-Do and Do-Say, and Sensitivy and Insensitivity to the contingencies, which have to do, respectively whit (a) the emergence of new behavior without being explicitly trained, (b) the correspondence, on the one hand, between what a person says is going to do and what her or she actually does, and on the other hand, what a person dod and what he or she sayds he did, and (c) the changes in our actions as a function of the characteristics of our verbal descriptive repertoire, that is, the characteristics of rule-governes behavior, or instructional control. The main data are indicated and the interpretations about hem are discussed. Further research is also emphasized.
