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Alo and Cancado's (this issue) primary argument is that motivation should be described in terms of an intervening variable. Furthermore, they raise secondary points concerning the status and usage of technical terms and the scope of the motivational concept in behavior analysis. We agree with Alo and Cancado that a clear definition of motivation is essential. However, we disagree with their analysis on a number of fundamental points, such as the correct use of technical terms, the range of phenomena that should be considered as motivational, and we argue that the concept of the intervening variable is incompatible with radical behaviorism. We contend that motivation is best conceptualized as factors that influence the rate of operant responding but that are not part of the operant contingency and that, as with the term reinforcement, the terms operation and process are useful distinctions that should be employed. Key words: motivation, consequence-valuing operation, consequence-valuing process, intervening variable, Alo and Cancado (this issue) make the case that the concept of motivation is best described in terms of an intervening variable. Although we agree with some aspects of Alo [...]

Research suggests that the relational completion procedure (RCP) is effective for studying derived relations of same and opposite. Previously, procedural parameters, such as the presence or absence of a confirmatory response requirement, were found to have a facilitative effect on the number of training trials to criterion and overall arbitrary test pass rate (i.e., yield). These experiments report on the manipulation of additional potentially important parameters--the presence or absence of selection-based feedback, 4 vs. 8 trial types and of a linked nonarbitrary and arbitrary training phase--across both the RCP and matching-to-sample (MTS) protocols with either 3 or 5 comparisons. During selection-based feedback, after the production of the confirmatory response, the sample, contextual cue, and selected comparison were presented along with corrective feedback. During the linked nonarbitrary and arbitrary phase, in the presence of the sample stimulus and the same and opposite contextual cues, respectively, selections of a nonarbitrary comparison stimulus at either end of a specified physical dimension were reinforced. Findings indicated a trend for improved performance with the inclusion of selection-based feedback and the linked nonarbitrary and arbitrary phase. There was a significant difference in yield between the RCP and MTS conditions (84% vs. 56%, respectively). The implications of the findings for contemporary research on derived relational responding are discussed. Key words: derived relational responding, matching-to-sample, relational completion procedure, relational frames, same, opposite, adult humans, Research on derived stimulus relations has grown exponentially over the past few decades (e.g., Dymond & Critchfield, 2001; Dymond, May, Munnelly, & Hoon, 2010; Rehfeldt, 2011). In 1991, Steele and [...]

Investigators examined the role of deictic complexity in the context of false-belief understanding. Deictic relations (i.e., I and YOU, HERE and THERE, and NOW and THEN) are used to describe one's perspective on events in the environment. Differences in complexity between responding in accordance with 'I' (self) and 'YOU' (other) relations are thought to be critical in explaining the relative difficulty of false-belief tasks in which taking the perspective of another plays a central role. Reaction times for false-belief tasks in which the presence of self and other relations was systematically manipulated were compared. A significant difference emerged between mean reaction times for these two sets of tasks, thus providing direct evidence that deictic relations are involved in false-belief tasks., False-belief understanding may be defined as the ability to know that someone can have a misconception about an event (Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg, & Cohen, 2000). Consider the following example of a [...]