Resumen de Contribuições de B. F. Skinner para a interpretação comportamental de termos cognitivos

Roberto Júnior Marques Delfino Veloso, Bruno Tonet, Alexandre Dittrich

• English

  Behavioral analysts tend to rely on B. F. Skinner’s arguments about cognitive explanations, and it is recognized that such positioning is critical, especially in combating the use of mentalistic explanations. It has been neglected, on the other hand, that Skinner also analyzes the meaning of psychological terms by identifying the variables that control their emission.

  Interpreting cognitive terms, rather than just denying them, can contribute to the conceptual, theoretical and technological improvement of behavior analysis, and also enable new strategies for its dissemination and the creation of new resources for its teaching. The goal of this literature review was to identify the behavioral interpretations of cognitive terms proposed by B. F. Skinner in his work. A review of the author’s texts published in his books was conducted, in which words that refer to the term ‘cognition’ and its derivations were identified. The excerpts containing such words were read and those in which behavioral interpretations were presented comprised the results of this research. Skinner used to interpret cognitive terms referring to behavior, its properties and components, and contingencies - either in a general or specific sense. Many cognitive terms, according to Skinner, refer to processes investigated in the area of Stimulus Control (discrimination, generalization, abstraction, etc.), or to the precurrent behaviors by which an organism manipulates the stimuli under control of which other behaviors are more effective. Still other cognitive terms refer to properties of behavior investigated in the area of Rule-Governed Behavior (readiness and economy of acquisition, compared to behavior directly shaped by contingencies, for example). At other times, Skinner interpreted cognitive terms as referring to phenomena traditionally studied in Psychology, such as ‘thinking’ or ‘knowledge’, and on these occasions we examined the interpretations that the author had already presented for such terms. For Skinner, ‘thinking’ refers to the behavior emitted in situations in which one needs to make a decision between two or more available contingencies, to emit again a response that was learned on another occasion (‘to remember’), to solve a problem or, when behavior that solves a problem is not known, to emit it in a way we tend to call “to have an idea”. Skinner also interpreted thinking as covert verbal behavior in which both speaker and listener are the same person. Regarding knowledge, Skinner refers to repertoires directly shaped by contact with contingencies or governed by rules, emphasizing that the “transmission of knowledge” consists of the contingencies that make certain verbal repertoires common between a speaker and a listener, or fail to do it. We conclude that Skinner presents a wide critique of cognitive explanations, but also presents many relevant interpretations for important cognitive terms. In examining such interpretations, one can note that certain aspects of it, such as references to precurrent behaviors or to the inaccessibility of certain behavioral processes, have not been systematically examined by other behaviorists. We suggest that such topics deserve further investigation.

• português

  O objetivo desta revisão de literatura consistiu na identificação das interpretações comportamentais de termos cognitivos realizadas por B. F. Skinner em sua obra. Foi conduzida uma revisão dos textos do autor publicados em seus livros, nos quais foram identificadas palavras que se referiam ao termo ‘cognição’ e derivadas. Os trechos que continham tais palavras foram lidos e aqueles nos quais interpretações comportamentais foram apresentadas compuseram os resultados desta pesquisa. Ao interpretar termos cognitivos Skinner referia-se ao comportamento, suas propriedades e componentes, e a contingências - no sentido geral ou como contingências específicas. Muitos termos cognitivos, segundo Skinner, referem-se a processos investigados na área de Controle de Estímulos, e outros ainda a processos investigados na área de Controle por Regras. Em outras ocasiões, Skinner interpretou termos cognitivos como se referindo a fenômenos tradicionalmente estudados pela Psicologia, como ‘pensamento’ ou ‘conhecimento’ - e nessas ocasiões examinou-se as interpretações que o autor já havia apresentado para tais fenômenos. Conclui-se que Skinner, ao se posicionar em relação aos termos cognitivos, não oferece apenas críticas, mas também interpretações comportamentais alternativas e, ao examiná-las, é possível identificar aspectos que podem passar despercebidos ao se investigar os complexos processos comportamentais aos quais psicólogos de outras tradições teóricas se referem com o termo ‘cognição’.