Deictic Relational Responding and Perspective-Taking in Autistic Individuals: A Scoping Review.

Perspective-taking skills are crucial for successful social interactions and some autistic individuals seem to demonstrate great difficulty in this area. The concept continues to generate clinical and research interest across mainstream psychology and within behavior analysis. Within behavior analysis, relational frame theorists have argued that deictic relational responding is critically involved in perspective-taking. We conducted a systematic search of the behavior analytic studies on deictic relational responding and perspective-taking in autistic individuals to highlight methods used to test perspective-taking and deictic relations, methods to train these if deficits were observed, and evidence for a relationship between deictic relational responding and perspective-taking. Seven studies met inclusion criteria and we conducted a descriptive analysis of these studies. We found some variation in the methods used to test and train perspective-taking through deictic relations. Only three of the studies attempted to demonstrate a link between deictic relational responding and perspective-taking. Overall, our review highlighted a need for more research into deictic relational responding and perspective-taking in autistic individuals, and we discussed specific areas for future research.

Deriving relations at multiple levels of complexity following minimal instruction: A demonstration.

Recommendations for achieving generalized instructional outcomes often overlook the capacity for generative learning for most verbally competent humans. Four children (ages 5-8) participated in this project. In Study 1, we provided decontextualized discrete trial teaching to establish arbitrary relations between colors, pictures of characters, and researcher motor actions. All participants engaged in derivative responding, providing evidence of relational framing. Subsequently, we demonstrated that, with no additional instruction, these derivatives contributed to effective action within a socially valid context (i.e., Candyland gameplay). Study 2 extended the demonstration by teaching frames of opposition. Following teaching, all participants engaged in novel and contextually appropriate responding that entailed the derivation of both coordination and opposition between untrained stimuli. This outcome demonstrates how teaching simple relations can result in learning that manifests at higher levels of complexity (i.e., relational networking), providing some evidence that there can be socially valid benefits to decontextualized discrete trial instruction.

Behavior Analysts' Relationship to Relating Relations: A Survey on Perceptions, Acceptability, Knowledge, and Capacity for Derived Stimulus Relations Research and Practice.

The study and application of procedures that result in stimulus relations via relational frame theory (RFT) and stimulus equivalence (applied as equivalence-based instruction; EBI), have made tremendous strides in contemporary behavior analysis. However, applications at scale lag basic and translational research. We turn our attention inward to investigate potential causes. We replicated and extended Enoch and Nicholson (Behavior Analysis in Practice, 13(3), 609-617, 2020) by conducting a survey of behavior analysts (n = 129) to determine their perceptions, experiences, and barriers in carrying out research and practice based on RFT and EBI. Participants indicated an interest in RFT and EBI, and mostly perceive both within the scope of behavior analysis. A majority of behavior analysts reported formal education in EBI (78.3%), in contrast to a minority in RFT (15.5%). Adoption of procedures derived from RFT and EBI may be in proportion to formal education. Compounded with a lack of accuracy on basic knowledge questions, there is a potential gap in capacity in the field in addressing behavior related to complex verbal behavior.

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.

Establishing Foundational Nonarbitrary Distinctive and Categorical Relational Responding in Children with Autism.

The present study sought to evaluate a sequence of training procedures on the emergence of foundational relational responses that underly more complex distinctive (i.e., difference) and hierarchical (i.e., categorical) relational frames. In a multiple baseline design, an initial baseline period with three children with autism showed that the participants did not select nonidentical stimuli from an array when presented the contextual cue "different." Simple discrimination training was efficacious in establishing this response and the skill transferred to a novel set of stimuli without reinforcement. In a second baseline period, participants did not demonstrate conditional identical/nonidentical relational responses when provided the contextual cues "same" and "different." Conditional discrimination training with all three participants was again efficacious in establishing the conditional reflexive and distinctive responses and the skill transferred to untrained stimuli. In a third baseline period, participants did not demonstrate correct conditional categorization/sorting. Like in the prior two training conditions, training was efficacious in establishing the target response with a generalized transfer to untrained stimuli.

Conceptual, Psychometric, Methodological and Value Problems in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Introduction to the Special Section, "A Critical Appraisal of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy".

There is a voluminous and expanding literature regarding ACT, from descriptions of its theory to its stated roots in relational frame theory, the particulars of its therapy techniques and exercises, favored metaphors, randomized controlled trials, to many self-help books for a wide variety of problems. The therapy is widely marketed through workshops and many self-help books. ACT is associated with its own journal and its own professional organization, the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS). This literature is interpreted by ACT proponents as demonstrating the causal efficacy of ACT for a wide range of problems and, at times, even being superior to treatment as usual, which are often more traditional forms of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). This special section contains a series of 6 papers examining these claims. Correctly understanding and evaluating the claims of ACT proponents is warranted because these can have direct implications for treatment decisions by therapists attempting to deliver the most effective treatment for their clients' problems. The papers, individually and as a whole, urge considerable caution, particularly because much of its research has involved serious measurement problems, problematic research designs, and a unique and problematic conceptualization and perhaps the practice of values and ethics. These papers call for methodological improvements and a commitment to more traditional values associated with science so that ACT can be more fairly evaluated to accurately understand its assets and limitations.

ACT: A Process-Based Therapy in Search of a Process.

A large array of randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses have determined the efficacy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). However, determining that ACT works does not tell us how it works. This is especially important to understand given the current emphasis on Process-Based Therapy, the promise of which is to identify manipulable causal mediators of change in psychotherapy, and how their effectiveness is moderated by individual contexts. This paper outlines four key areas of concern regarding ACT's status as a Process-Based Therapy. First, the relationship between ACT and Relational Frame Theory has been widely asserted but not yet properly substantiated. Second, most of the studies on ACT's core process of change, psychological flexibility, have used invalid measures. Third, while lots of research indicates means by which individuals can be helped to behave consistently with their values, there is virtually no research on how to help people effectively clarify their values in the first instance, or indeed, on an iterative basis. Finally, the philosophy underlying ACT permits a-moral instrumentalism, presenting several ethical challenges. We end by making several recommendations for coherent methodological, conceptual, and practical progress within ACT research and therapy.

Corrigendum: A multiple-baseline evaluation of acceptance and commitment therapy focused on repetitive negative thinking for comorbid generalized anxiety disorder and depression.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00356.].

The Application of Relational Frame Theory to Teaching Early Piano Skills to Children on the Autism Spectrum.

Music is a unique form of verbal stimuli (Reynolds & Hayes, The Psychological Record, 67(3), 413-421, 2017) and the literature has indicated some success in using procedures involving the frame of coordination or stimulus equivalence to teach early piano skills to learners with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Hill et al., Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 53(1), 188-208, 2020). However, these studies only targeted narrow skills rather than a complete repertoire. Also, whether such teaching procedure is effective for young children with ASD at different ages, with different needs, and with common accompanied diagnosis, is unknown. The current study (a) explored the possibility of applying relational frame theory (RFT; Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001) in piano program development that aims to teach a complete early piano repertoire, and (b) confirmed the effectiveness of an adjusted teaching procedure using the frame of coordination on teaching early piano skills to six young children on the autism spectrum. A multiple probe across participants design was used. After direct training of two relations (AC & AE), post-instructional tests were conducted on eight relations. The results showed that with remedial training, five out of six participants demonstrated mutual entailment, combinatorial entailment, and transformation of stimulus function in these relations. All participants could read and play the song on keyboard without extra training. The study provided practical guidance on applying the procedure to these young learners. Implications of RFT in piano curriculum development were also discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40616-022-00175-8.

Understanding Pedophilia: A Theoretical Framework on the Development of Sexual Penchants.

Pedophilia is a significant public health problem. Despite its cost to society, little effort has been directed toward understanding idiographic differences in the development and maintenance of pedophilia. Extant literature emphasizes biological underpinnings and predictors of re-offense. In this article, we posit that pedophilic penchants in males originate due to language, cognition, emotions, and emotion regulation. Adverse childhood experiences, such as emotional and sexual abuse, are posited as a major contributor to the etiology of pedophilia. However, not all individuals attracted to minors present with similar childhood adversities. The development of pedophilia, in the absence of such direct training (childhood adversities), is difficult to comprehend. Relational frame theory, a comprehensive account of human language and cognition, aids in deciphering the idiographic underpinnings of pedophilia. The role of maladaptive emotion regulation in maintaining pedophilia is also described. This article presents examples of how relational frames are established and activated in distressing contexts. Finally, implications for future research are discussed.

Relating relational networks: An initial experimental analysis.

Studying relating of relational networks is a complex and challenging task. The main objective of the present study was to demonstrate relating within and across relational networks based on same/opposite and bigger/smaller contextual cues and establish antecedent control. After nonarbitrary pretraining of the contextual cues, two nonsense stimulus classes were established based on comparative relations. Participants were trained to select stimuli from an array of options based on a symbolic rule that established a relation between two stimuli: one of Network 1 and one of Network 2. Training involved relating Network 1 to Network 2, and testing assessed relating Network 2 to Network 1. Seven of eight participants reached the mastery criterion in training and responded accordingly in test. In a final stage, reinforcing and punishing consequences were varied systematically in the presence of two novel stimuli and antecedent control was observed for all 7 participants. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 but using contextual cues taken from natural language, and Experiment 3 sought to understand the effects of pretraining relational responding using natural language. The mastery criteria were reached by four of seven participants in Experiment 2 and by all eight participants in Experiment 3. Future studies could develop and refine the methods employed here in analyzing the relating of relational networks, thus allowing for an increasingly sophisticated behavior-analytic account of human language and cognition.

Grappling with the Complexity of Behavioral Processes in Human Psychological Suffering: Some Potential Insights from Relational Frame Theory.

Relational frame theory (RFT) has historically been considered the basic explanatory science behind acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). However, some have argued that there has been an increasing separation between the two in recent years. The primary aim of the current article is to explore the extent to which RFT concepts, particularly those that have been proposed recently in the context of "up-dating" the theory, may be used to build stronger links between basic and applied behavior analyses in which there is a shared language of relatively precise technical terms. As an example of this strategy, we outline RFT process-based experimental and conceptual analyses of the impact of one of the most widely used sets of interventions employed in the ACT literature, defusion. In addition, we suggest a potential experimental methodology for analyzing the basic behavioral processes involved. Overall, the current article should be seen as part of a broader research agenda that aims to explore how RFT may be used to provide a functional-analytic abstractive treatment of the behavioral processes involved in human psychological suffering.

What if you could see yourself with my eyes? A Pilot study of the impact of a virtual reality-environment on relational Responding to Self

People’s sense of self plays an important role in psychological wellbeing and it is often targeted by perspective taking interventions in psychological treatments. The present study investigated if seeing oneself from the outside perspective in a virtual reality (VR) environment could be used to influence the patterns of relational responding that constitutes the sense of self. Changes in participants’ (N= 9) patterns of relating themselves vs. others with positive attributes and negative attributes were investigated using an Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) that was delivered before and after the one session perspective-taking intervention in VR. In addition, participants’ self-ratings about their experience of the VR intervention were investigated immediately after and one month after the VR-intervention. The results showed changes specifically in seeing oneself more positively, reflected by the increase in the Me – positive trial type in the IRAP. No systematic changes were seen in participants’ relational responding to themselves as being “negative” (i.e. bad, unloved, incompetent) or in patterns of relational responding considering others. In addition, participants experienced moderate positive emotions during the VR-intervention and evaluated the experience as meaningful based on their self-ratings. Together these results suggest that seeing oneself in the VR promoted positive experiences relating to oneself (AU)

Verbal behavior development theory and relational frame theory: Reflecting on similarities and differences.

Relational frame theory and verbal behavior development theory are two behavior-analytic perspectives on human language and cognition. Despite sharing reliance on Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior, relational frame theory and verbal behavior development theory have largely been developed independently, with initial applications in clinical psychology and education/development, respectively. The overarching goal of the current paper is to provide an overview of both theories and explore points of contact that have been highlighted by conceptual developments in both fields. Verbal behavior development theory research has identified how behavioral developmental cusps make it possible for children to learn language incidentally. Recent developments in relational frame theory have outlined the dynamic variables involved across the levels and dimensions of arbitrarily applicable relational responding, and we argue for the concept of mutually entailed orienting as an act of human cooperation that drives arbitrarily applicable relational responding. Together these theories address early language development and children's incidental learning of names. We present broad similarities between the two approaches in the types of functional analyses they generate and discuss areas for future research.

Using Relational Frame Theory to Examine Racial Prejudice: A Tool for Educators and an Appeal for Future Research.

Canadian colleges and universities have begun to acknowledge systemic and institutionalized racism by developing equity statements and policies in support of diverse and accessible learning environments. To encourage these equitable statements and policies as actionable, analysis of racial bias and methods for reducing its occurrence are warranted. In this article, literature on relational frame theory in the context of racial prejudice is reviewed, including treatment approaches shown to be less effective and those that appear promising. The integration of a functional contextual approach into pedagogy is considered with an aim to better understand the origins of racial prejudice. Finally, recommendations on the examination of personal and sociocultural bias among educators and their students are provided.

From direct contingencies to derived relations: the ever-developing nature of theory and practice in behavior analysis.

Purpose: To illustrate the processes of development within the behavioral theory and the corresponding expansion of the areas in which it is applied, especially the advancement (conceptual developments) of the functional analysis of language inspired by Relational Frame Theory (RFT) research. Views: Classical and operant conditioning are well-established behavioral learning processes, discovered and described at the beginning of the twentieth century. They provide the tools for analyzing, establishing and modifying the functions of stimuli and responses of the organisms through manipulation of the environment. Although B. F. Skinner provided grounds for the functional analysis of complex behaviors such as language, it was not until the beginning of the twenty-first century that RFT was introduced. From this moment behavior analysts could use behavioral principles to explain how stimulus functions may change without direct learning. The practical application of the growing knowledge about Arbitrarily Applicable Relational Responding (AARR), a basic generalized operant described within RFT, allows us to analyze, explain and change behaviors that had hitherto been beyond the scope of behavioral therapy. The continued growth and development of behavior theory and practice holds the promise for an expansion of its application to new areas and populations in need. One such development is the functional analysis of verbal behavior e.g., relational frames, ROE (relating-orienting-evoking). Conclusions: It seems useful to add advancements proposed by RFT to the behavioral toolbox with which we could effectively describe, explain and change behavior with precision, scope and depth.

Top-Down Attentional Processing and Relational Density Evident in Word Search Performance of Children.

Relational frame theory and extensions (e.g., relational density theory; Belisle & Dixon, 2020a, 2020b) provides a behavioral model for top-down attentional processing, where attention is oriented in terms of arbitrarily applicable verbal relations through the transformation of stimulus function. Children's games may provide a strategy for testing transformations of stimulus function when developing new language skills, such as when working with children with autism. Three children with autism underwent relational training to establish lean and dense arbitrary classes. Prior-to relational training, participants were more likely to locate familiar words over unfamiliar words within a word-search task. Following relational training, participants were more likely to locate words that participated in high-density relational classes over neutral or low-density relational classes. These results support the use of common games to supplement relational training with children with autism and provide evidence that top-down attentional processing may involve transformations of stimulus function and can be predicted and influenced through relational training to establish high-density relational classes.

Assessing Psychological Inflexibility Pertaining to Self in Patients With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Using an Indirect Measure of (Nonassociative) Propositions.

Relational frame theory (RFT) is a modern behavioral account of human language and cognition, which focuses on relations or propositions, rather than associations, as core explanatory constructs. In an attempt to measure such propositions, RFT researchers have developed the implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP). It has been argued that the size of an IRAP effect may provide a metric for psychological inflexibility. The current study aimed to determine whether psychological inflexibility, as measured by the self-focused Natural Language-IRAP (NL-IRAP), would be higher in a clinical sample of individuals with a diagnosis of PTSD (N = 29) when compared to a nonclinical sample. Subsequently, the study investigated whether the self-focused NL-IRAP could be used to predict the presence of a clinical diagnosis, using a ROC analysis. As predicted, higher levels of psychological inflexibility were observed for the clinical group. The self-focused NL-IRAP also correctly classified the presence of PTSD (AUC = 76%) with a sensitivity level of 79.3% and a specificity level of 59.2%. Overall, the use of the IRAP as a nonassociative clinical measure appears promising.

The IRAP as a Measure of Implicit Cognition: A Case of Frankenstein's Monster.

The implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) was initially developed as a way to assess the strength and probability of natural verbal relations, as defined within relational frame theory (RFT), and was conceptually rooted within the behavior-analytic tradition. However, the IRAP quickly became employed primarily as a measure of implicit cognition, more in line with mainstream psychology than behavior analysis. In doing so, research using the IRAP increasingly employed ill-defined mainstream psychological terms, focused on correlational analyses with traditional psychometry, and thus emphasized prediction over the prediction-and-influence of behavior. Although perhaps beneficial to the study of implicit cognition, this approach could be argued to have limited the IRAP's utility in behavior analyses of human language and cognition. In the current article we will reflect on this suggestion, on the IRAPs place and current use in the field of behavior analysis, and on its potential future within behavioral psychology in light of recent conceptual and empirical advances in RFT. In doing so, it is hoped that the measure may be refined into a better understood, more precise, functional-analytic tool.

An Open-Source Relational Network Derivation Script in R for Modeling and Visualizing Complex Behavior for Scientists and Practitioners.

Relational models of cognition provide parsimonious and actionable models of generative behavior witnessed in humans. They also inform many current computational analogs of cognition including Deep Neural Networks, Reinforcement Learning algorithms, Self-Organizing Maps, as well as blended architectures that are outperforming traditional semantic models. The black box nature of these computer models artificially limits scientific and applied progress and human computer interaction. This paper presents a first in the field attempt to model relational processes using logical derivation scripts and network graph visualizations written in the open-source R language. These tools are presented as a way for researchers and practitioners to begin to explore more complex relational models in a manner that can advance the theory and empirical science, as well as prepare the field for future collaborations with advanced computational models of cognition.