EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF NAMING BEHAVIOR CANNOT EXPLAIN NAMING CAPACITY

Abstract

An explanation like this is impossible from just the experimental analysis of behavior: one must also hypothesize and then analyze the internal structures and processes that generate the capacity to exhibit the behavior (Harnad 1982, 1984). It is only from such research that we will come to understand the origins of naming and symbolic behavior (Harnad 1995b). -- An internal representational analysis of the honest-toil vs. symbolic-theft distinction might even cast some explanatory light on Skinner's named but unexplicated distinction between contingency-based and ruled-governed behavior (Skinner 1984b).