Luis Antonio Pérez-González

• Ph D
• Professor (Full) at University of Oviedo

We hypothesized that a three‐sample conditional discrimination can emerge as a result of learning conditional discriminations with relational stimuli. After learning three first‐order conditional discriminations AB, PQ, and CD, we taught a second‐order conditional discrimination XAB in which X1 indicated selection of related stimuli (e.g., A1 and B...

We studied the effect of prior learning of symmetrical intraverbals on the emergence of complex intraverbals after reading a text. In Experiment 1, eighteen 7- and 8-year-old children read a text with sentences in which A and B stimuli and B and C stimuli were related (e.g., “The Alps” to “Mont Blanc,” and to “Falcon”). Thereafter, all ABC intraver...

We explored the emergence of relations between stimuli learned as discriminative, responses, and consequences with intraverbals. In Experiment 1, five 9- and 10-year-old children learned intraverbals that related a country (A) with a city (B)—e.g., “Name a city of Switzerland”; “Davos”—and that country with a predator animal (C). Correct responses...

We studied the effect of learning two symmetrical verbal relations in areading comprehension task. We explored emergence of intraverbals after 7- and 8-year-old children read ashort text with sentences in which a word A was related to B and B to C(e.g., “Argentina,” “Buenos Aires,” and “El Botánico”). Thereafter, all ABC intraverbal combinations (e...

This study explored learning and generalization of a third-order conditional discrimination. Two 8-year-old children learned two auditory–visual conditional discriminations in which they selected visual Japanese syllabic symbols in response to syllables spoken by the experimenter. Then, they learned a third-order conditional discrimination in which...

We replicated and extended studies showing that contextual cues for matching stimuli from 2 separate equivalence classes control the same derived relations as contextual cues for opposition frames in RFT studies. We conducted 2 experiments with 6 college students. In Phase 1, they received training in a conditional discrimination AB. Then, they rec...

This is my best paper. It has been recommended for publication by excellent reviewers from JEAB, Psych. Record, and other lead journals, including Conductual. Some big guys, related to their theories, do not like people read it. The paper has strong theoretical foundations and has clear practical derivations.

Intraverbal emergence has been broadly studied. The aim of this paper was analyzing discriminative and related processes involved in that emergence. The variables and results of all known articles that demonstrated emergence were analyzed by comparing the discriminative and related procedures used by the researchers and the emergence outcomes. Disc...

Individuals with autism lack flexibility to emit novel language. We explored the emergence of the skills that define the naming capacity in four young children with autism who received an early intensive behavioral intervention. They learned to tact objects or pictures (i.e., saying the name when seeing the object) then we probed, with no prompts o...

El objetivo del trabajo consistió en comprobar el número de tactos visuales que emergían después de que los participantes fueran expuestos a la observación de estímulos visuales y auditivos mediante el naming por emparejamiento. Se trató de comprobar si después de inducir el naming con una serie de conjuntos de entrenamiento se producía la emergenc...

We analyzed the emergence of selections in response to names heard, tacts, and intraverbals as a result of observing auditory stimulus pairing in 11 typical developing adults, as an extension of a previous study by Carnerero and Pérez-González (The Psychological Record, 65(3), 509–522, 2015). In Part 1, four sounds of musical instruments were paire...

We evaluated whether contextual control over equivalence and nonequivalence and responding by exclusion can explain the outcomes of relational frame theory (RFT) studies on sameness and opposition relations. We trained nine college students to maintain and reverse conditional discriminations with X1 and X2 as contextual stimuli. In Experiment 1, X1...

We explored transfer between two types of intraverbals with 26 five- and six-year-old children. We taught Exemplar intraverbals, in which she asked for an exemplar of a category – e.g. “Name a city” – “Buenos Aires” and probed the emergence of Categories, by asking without reinforcement for the category of the corresponding exemplar – e.g. “What is...

Introducción: Estudios sobre la emergencia de intraverbales (habilidades verbales en las que la persona escucha estímulos verbales y emite una respuesta verbal diferente de los estímulos) han permitido analizar procesos de razonamiento y de comprensión lectora. El objetivo del presente estudio fue analizar la emergencia de intraverbales después de...

Estudios sobre la emergencia de intraverbales han permitido analizar procesos de razonamiento y de comprensión. El estudio presente se basa en el anterior (Comunicación 1). En ese estudio se analizó la emergencia de intraverbales tras la lectura de textos que relacionan elementos A y B, por una parte, y B y C y se mostró que enseñar previamente int...

We evaluated whether contextual control over equivalence and nonequivalence (i.e., selecting comparisons equivalent to the samples in the presence of a contextual cue, and excluding the selection of comparisons equivalent to the samples in the presence of another contextual cue) can account for apparent arbitrarily applicable relational responding...

The present research studied the emergence of intraverbals with antonyms (e.g., “Name the opposite of empty”–“Full”) derived from learning skills with verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Five 3-year-old children learned to select the nonverbal comparison identical to a sample stimulus or of an opposite category from the sample, with a conditional discrim...

The effects of learning tacts and intraverbals with the same response of probed intraverbals on the emergence of symmetrical intraverbals was analyzed in 2 experiments (e.g., “Name the country of the Kalash”–“Pakistan” was probed after learning the intraverbal with the stimulus–response functions interchanged—such as, “Name the tribe of Pakistan”–“...

This research explored the effects of teaching tacts with two procedures on the emergence of intraverbals in 5- and 6-year-old children. Three children in Experiment 1 learned 2 verbally controlled tacts in the presence of a picture of a woman. For example, when they were asked “Name the country,” they learned to say her country (e.g., Pakistan); w...

This research aimed to explore the effect of teaching Categories on the emergence of the intraverbals studied by Pérez-González, Herszlikowicz, and Williams (The Psychological Record 58;95–-129, 2008). Ten 6- and 7-year-old children were recruited and divided into 2 conditions. In Condition 1, 5 children learned intraverbals in which they had to sa...

We analyzed the emergence of intraverbals, tacts, and selection in response to names spoken by the experimenter as a result of observing auditory stimulus pairing in 12 typical developing adults randomly assigned to two experimental and one control condition. In Part 1, four sounds of musical instruments were paired with their respective names spok...

A novel learning process that does not require stimulus associations was explored in humans. The hypothesis was that two contextual stimuli taught in separate settings, with different stimuli, become equivalent if they accomplish identical functions with regard to the relations between the stimuli presented with them. The procedure consisted of : (...

This investigation explored whether a blocked-trial procedure would serve to teach a simple discrimination to a child with autism with problems of overselectivity due to location preference. A series of AB designs were used. The child learned first to select positive stimulus (a card with his name) regardless of its location on a screen. Thereafter...

Naming consists of tacting an object and selecting it upon hearing its name as a result of emergence. After acquiring naming, children learn object–name relations more quickly and, hence, it is an important achievement in development. We studied the acquisition of the two skills that define naming, using two procedures, in seven typically developin...

This research explored some factors involved in the emergence of intraverbals as demonstrated by Pérez-González, Herszlikowicz, and Williams (2008) in three experiments. Eleven adults learned to say the chemical elements corresponding to two chemical groups (the A-B relations) and to say the atomic numbers of two elements (the B-C relations). There...

The effects of observing an adult emitting tacts on children’s rate of uninstructed (i.e., “spontaneous”) tacts were examined in three children diagnosed with autism. Each participant was exposed to two conditions in four settings each: in condition 1, participants received 20 trials of teacher-initiated interactions in which the child was asked to...

Transfer of three functions of contextual stimuli to novel conditional discriminations was explored in two experiments conducted with four adults each. In Experiment 1, we taught to select comparison B1 in the presence of sample A1 and comparison B2 in the presence of sample A2 (the AB conditional discrimination). Then, we presented X1 or X2 as a c...

In Part 1 of the present research, three college students were trained in four interrelated conditional discriminations in which unitary stimuli were presented as samples and as comparisons. Subsequently, participants were presented with symmetry and equivalence tests that evaluated the formation of four intersecting equivalence classes, with each...

The aim of this study was to evaluate a procedure to reveal the emergence of full naming in typically developing children. In Experiment 1, five 6-year-old children (a) learned tacts of pictures and the emergence of the selection of these pictures upon hearing their names was tested; and (b) the selection of other pictures was taught and the emerge...

A matching-to-sample procedure was used to investigate whether 9-year-old children would demonstrate the emergence of a derived compound-sample conditional discrimination following training in four interrelated single-sample conditional discriminations and vice versa, as adults did in previous studies. In Experiment 1, three out of three children d...

We analyzed the emergence of intraverbals with vocal stimuli after teaching conditional discriminations with visual stimuli. Two children with autism and an adolescent with Down syndrome learned conditional discriminations in which one of two written words was randomly presented as a sample across trials and two words were presented as comparisons...

In three experiments designed to analyze the emergence of untaught operants with a spoken response in normally developing 5- to 6-year-old children, verbal operants with the names of countries, cities, and parks were used as stimuli or responses—intraverbals. Children learned Country-City intraverbals and City-Park intraverbals. The authors then pr...

We tested whether teaching control by single stimulus samples in conditional discriminations would result in common control of two-stimuli compound samples, and vice versa. In Experiment 1, 5 participants were first taught four single-sample conditional discriminations. The first conditional discrimination was as follows: given sample stimulus P1,...

To study concept formation based on relations, adults were taught and tested on complex discriminations involving figures that varied in colors, forms, and orientations. In Experiment 1, participants learned to select figures with values A1 and B1 or values B1 and C1; thereafter, they consistently selected figures with values A1 and C1. Selections...

Eighteen undergraduates participated in studies designed to examine the factors that produce transfer of contextual functions to novel stimuli in second-order conditional discriminations. In Study 1, participants selected comparison B1 given sample A1 and comparison B2 given sample A2 in a matching-tCi-sample procedure. Contextual stimuli X1 or X2...

In the type of intraverbal that consists of saying the opposite of a word, two intraverbals are related to one another because the response form of each intraverbal functions as part of a discriminative stimulus for the other (e.g., "cold" in response to "name the opposite of hot," and vice versa). Moreover, the contextual cue "Name the opposite of...

The goal of the present study was to explore the emergence of verbal behavior resulting from the joint control of two antecedent stimuli that are presented together for the first time. Conditional discriminations were used for teaching and for probing. Four stimuli P1, P2, 01, and 02 were samples and four stimuli A 1, A2, 81 , and 82 were the compa...

This intervention compared the effects of two procedures on the generalization of a tacting repertoire (labeling) in 6 children with autism spectrum disorder. In one procedure the verbal antecedent stimulus "What is she doing?" appeared together with a person performing an action; in the other procedure, the antecedent stimulus was just the presenc...

The term noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) refers to time-based schedules that have demonstrated to be effective to reduce undesired behavior. My opinion is that hypotheses based in satiation or extinction alone do not encompass all the processes involved in behavior reduction. Instead, the empirical data are coherent with the hypothesis that the s...

Esta investigación tuvo el objetivo de probar un sistema integral para enseñar a niños con el diagnóstico de autismo. Tres niños recibieron enseñanza intensiva durante aproximadamente tres meses, con programas adaptados individualmente a su nivel funcional. Esos programas se habían demostrado eficaces, en investigaciones anteriores, para enseñar a...

A combined blocking procedure was used to teach a child with autism to select two colors on request. First, two color cards were placed at fixed locations on a table and the experimenter repeatedly requested the child to touch one of the colors. After 10 consecutive correct selections, the child was asked to touch the other color. Blocks of trials...

Esta investigación tuvo el objetivo de probar un sistema integral para enseñar a niños con el diagnóstico de autismo. Tres niños recibieron enseñanza intensiva durante aproximadamente tres meses, con programas adaptados individualmente a su nivel funcional. Esos programas se habían demostrado eficaces, en investigaciones anteriores, para enseñar a...

Este estudio fue una réplica sistemática del estudio de Williams, Pérez-González y Vogt para enseñar a un niño con autismo a hacer preguntas. Presentamos al niño cajas con objetos agradables dentro. Enseñamos al niño a preguntar: «¿Qué hay en la caja?», para saber el nombre del objeto, «¿Me lo enseñas?», para verlo, y «¿Me lo das?», para obtenerlo....

This study was a systematic replication of Williams, Pérez- González, and Vogt's study aimed to teach a child with autism to ask questions. We presented to the child boxes with pleasant objects inside. We taught him to ask, «What is in the box?» to know the name of the object, «Can I see it?» to see it, and «Can I have it?» to retrieve it. The chil...

This research asked whether performance engendered by contextual control procedures would generalize to novel matching-to-sample stimulus arrangements. Two studies were conducted with young adult participants. In Study 1, participants first were trained to perform the contextually controlled conditional discrimination, X-AB, where the sample-compar...

Three adolescents and 4 children participated in studies designed to examine contextually controlled conditional discrimination performance. In Study 1, participants selected Comparison B1 in the presence one stimulus (A1) and Comparison B2 in the presence of another stimulus (A2) using a matching-to-sample procedure. Next, contextual stimuli X1 or...

This research replicated and extended a study by Williams, Donley, and Keller (2000). In that study, children with autism received a box with an object inside and learned to ask "What's that?," "Can I see it?," and "Can I have it?" to have the name of the object, to see the object, and to get the object, respectively. The purpose of the present res...

Five children with autism with a history of failing to acquire conditional discriminations learned to discriminate objects in response to spoken names or to match amounts to numbers with a combined blocking procedure. The procedure for teaching object discriminations involved (a) presenting the same spoken word until 10 consecutive correct response...

A complex discrimination procedure was used to test class formation with multi-component figures in college students. First, selections of a red-+45°-oriented rectangle (A1B1) instead of a red −45°-oriented rectangle (A1B2) and of a green −45°-oriented rectangle (A2B2) instead of a green-+45°-oriented rectangle (A2B1), were reinforced. Second, sele...

In the last decade many studies have been published about the basic processes involved in conditional discrimination learning. Most people learn conditional discriminations when 4-term contingencies are applied; however, people with learning difficulties only learn with more elaborated procedures. Studies about learning without errors allowed knowi...

En la última década se han publicado muchos estudios sobre los procesos básicos involucrados en el aprendizaje de discriminaciones condicionales. La mayor parte de las personas aprende discriminaciones condicionales cuando se aplican contingencias de cuatro términos; sin embargo, personas con dificultades de aprendizaje sólo aprenden con procedimie...

En la última década se han publicado muchos estudios sobre los procesos básicos involucrados en el aprendizaje de discriminaciones condicionales. La mayor parte de las personas aprende discriminaciones condicionales cuando se aplican contingencias de cuatro términos; sin embargo, personas con dificultades de aprendizaje sólo aprenden con procedimie...

This study was designed to determine whether the acquisition of second-order conditional discriminations becomes more rapid across new discriminations. Three normal grade-school children served as subjects. In general, performances improved across sets of second-order discriminations. Moreover, there was little disruption of performance when the se...

La formación de clases de equivalencia en ancianos. Para explorar la formación de equivalencia de estímulos en ancianos, diez personas de diversas edades aprendieron las discriminaciones condicionales necesarias para la equivalencia y se probaron la simetría, la transitividad y la equivalencia. Primero, se presentaron las muestras A1 o A2 con las c...

Los procedimientos de discriminaciones condicionales han permitido analizar diversos procesos de emergencia de conductas no entrenadas directamente. La investigaciones de este tipo han llevado a definir las clases de estímulos como los conjuntos de estímulos que son intercambiables entre sí en un contexto dadas ciertas condiciones. Además de las cl...

Four adults were trained, using instructions and a matching-to-sample procedure, to select Stimulus B1 in the presence of Stimulus A1, B2 in the presence of A2, and B3 in the presence of A3 (the AB relations). Analogous PQ relations were trained. Afterwards, one stimulus in Set A and another stimulus in Set B appeared together as a sample, and nove...

La metodología del análisis de la conducta permite realizar experimentos con un grado elevado de control sobre procesos de discriminación en personas. En las décadas de los setenta y de los ochenta, se han realizado un gran número de experimentos sobre procesos complejos de discriminación partiendo de los procedimientos de igualación a la muestra....