Place, U. T. (1989h). Relational frames and the role of logic in rule-governed behaviour. [Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group, Cambridge, 1989. Revised in 1997.]
[Abstract]The concept "relational frame" has been proposed by Steve Hayes (1991) as a higher order category in which Murray Sidman's concept of "equivalence class" is subsumed as a special case. Like equivalence, the relational frame concept was originally conceived as an interpretation of the behaviour of human subjects on a matching to sample task. While not denying the reality of relational frame abstraction in the case of intelligent human adults, it is suggested that this may be an over intellectual interpretation of the equivalence responding of children and less intelligent adults. It is proposed that the relational frame concept should instead be seen as an important contribution (a) to relational logic, and (b) to our understanding of the role of logic in rule governed behaviour, and that the ability to abstract relational frames is something that appears much later in the process whereby linguistic competence is acquired than equivalence class responding on the matching to sample task.
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