The role of mediating verbal behavior in selection-based responding.

Michael (1985) distinguished between two kinds of verbal behavior which he identified as selection-based (SB) and topography-based (TB). Research has shown substantial differences between the two types of verbal behavior for nonverbal participants, but little differences has been found with highly verbal participants. This study arranged for highly verbal participants (college students) to engage in a SB task while "talking aloud," one of Ericsson & Simon's (1993) techniques for conducting protocol analyses. The transcripts of these sessions were analyzed in terms of Skinner's (1957) elementary verbal operants. Very consistent types of statements were found to precede correct selections in the SB task. This finding lends support to the possibility that some SB conditional discriminations, and related emergent equivalence relations, are mediated by TB vocal responding when using highly verbal participants. These data also account for some of the differences observed in the SB and TB research.