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Access Type
WSU Access
Date of Award
January 2024
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
John L. Woodard
Abstract
ABSTRACTLEARNING WITHOUT BEING TAUGHT: EVALUATING RELATIONAL FRAMING ABILITIES IN YOUNG ADULTS By BRADLEY J. DIXON November 2024 Advisor: Dr. John L. Woodard Major: Psychology (Clinical) Degree: Master of Arts Background. Relational Frame Theory (RFT) is an explicit behavioral theory of language development and functioning that has been applied to children and individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., Autism Spectrum Disorder) to facilitate language development. Few studies have applied RFT principles to healthy adult populations, and RFT’s utility as a neuropsychological instrument remains mostly unexplored. The purpose of this study was to determine how training conditions impact learning arbitrary and non-arbitrary relationships in the fundamental relational frame of opposition. Methods. 50 young adults were tested on measures of crystallized intelligence, auditory working memory, associative verbal memory, and processing speed, as well as a novel opposition relations task developed according to RFT principles. During the opposition task, participants were taught two relations and asked to derive four other relations based on these trained relationships. 25 participants received congruent training where both relationships where trained as “opposites,” while 25 participants received incongruent training, training where one relationship was trained as “opposite” and the second relationship was trained as “equivalent.” Accuracy rates and response times were obtained when identifying all trained and derived relations. Results. Overall, Bayesian independent samples t-tests found moderate evidence of no differences in accuracy when identifying higher-order derived arbitrary and non-arbitrary relations between the two training groups. There was also very strong evidence that participants in the incongruent training condition took longer to identify higher-order non-arbitrary relations, with inconclusive evidence of any response time differences when identifying higher-order arbitrary relations between training groups. Additionally, there was evidence of strong positive associations between accuracy in identifying non-arbitrary relations with auditory working memory and a strong positive association between accuracy in identifying arbitrary relations with associative memory. Conclusions. These findings suggest that manipulating how stimulus relations are presented does not impact young adults’ ability to derive relationships accurately in the RFT paradigm, but it does appear to impact response time for non-arbitrary relationships. This study's novel application of relational framing principles also showed promising relationships with existing associative and working memory measures.
Recommended Citation
Dixon, Bradley James, "Learning Without Being Taught: Evaluating Relational Framing Abilities In Young Adults" (2024). Wayne State University Theses. 960.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_theses/960