The rule-based insensitivity effect: a systematic review

Analyses of relational coherence and rule following: Consistent liars are preferred over occasional truth tellers

The current study explored the influence of different levels of speaker coherence on rule following and speaker preference. In Experiment 1, rules provided by three different speakers were either 100% accurate, 0% accurate, or 50% accurate/inaccurate. Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1 except that the speaker's coherence was adjusted to 80% accurate, 20% accurate, and 50% accurate/inaccurate, respectively. Overall, participants tended to follow coherent speaker rules and avoid following incoherent speaker rules during training and testing phases. The results also indicated that following and not following rules provided by speakers may be generalizable to novel stimuli and maintained in the absence of differential reinforcement (i.e., in experimental test phases). Additionally, in a preference test, participants tended to prefer coherent over incoherent and partially coherent speakers. Furthermore, participants tended to prefer the relatively more incoherent speaker (i.e., 0% or 20% accurate) over the 50% accurate coherent speaker in both experiments. Finally, a comparison of the results of both experiments indicated that different levels of relational coherence affected the variability of rule-following and speaker preference behaviors. These findings are discussed in the context of the complexities that appear to be involved in rule-following behaviors and speaker preference.

Relating different perspectives on how outcomes of behavior influence behavior

Many researchers have tackled the question of how behavior is influenced by its outcomes. Some have adopted a nonmechanistic (functional) perspective that attempts to describe the influence of outcomes on behavior. Others have adopted a mechanistic (cognitive) perspective that attempts to explain the influence of outcomes on behavior. Orthogonal to this distinction, some have focused on the influence of outcomes that a behavior had in the past, whereas others also consider the influence of outcomes that a behavior might have in the future. In this article, we relate these different perspectives with the goal of reducing misunderstandings and fostering collaborations between researchers who adopt different perspectives on the common question of how behavior is influenced by its outcomes.

Exploring a Training IRAP as a single participant context for analyzing reversed derived relations and persistent rule-following

Rule-governed behavior and derived stimulus relations have always shared strong conceptual links within behavior analysis. However, experimental analysis linking the two domains remains limited. The current study consisted of three experiments that aimed to continue to bridge this experimental gap. The first experiment sought to establish the extent to which a training version of the implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) could be used to establish and successfully reverse experimentally established derived relations. The results suggested that the Training IRAP could successfully produce derived reversals. Experiments 2 and 3 explored the extent to which reversed derived relations would control rule-governed behavior when the contingencies for rule-following competed with the rule. In Experiment 2, the task contingencies were immediately in opposition to the (reversed) derived rule, and participants generally responded in accordance with the task contingencies, rather than the rule. In Experiment 3, the task contingencies were initially rule-consistent before a contingency reversal that later made them rule-inconsistent. Here evidence of rule-persistence emerged. The results of the research are considered within the context of a recent framework that has emerged out of RFT for analyzing the dynamics involved in derived relational responding.