Extensions
The tact is said to be capable of generic extension. Generic extension is essentially an example of stimulus generalization. The novel stimulus contains all of the relevant features of the original stimulus. For example, we may see a red car and say "car" as well as see a white car and say "car". Different makes and models of cars will all evoke the same response "car".
Tacts can be extended metaphorically; in this case the novel stimulus has only some of the defining features of the original stimulus. For example, when we describe something as "exploding with taste" by drawing the common property of an explosion with the response to our having eaten something (perhaps a strong response, or a sudden one).
Tacts can undergo metonymical extension when some irrelevant but related feature of the original stimulus controls a response. In metonymical extension one word often replaces another; we may replace a part for a whole. For example, saying "refrigerator" when shown a picture of a kitchen, or saying "White house" in place of "President."
When controlling variables unrelated to standard or immediate reinforcement take over control of the tact, it is said to be solecistically extended. Malapropisms, solecism and catachresis are examples of this.
Skinner notes things like serial order, or conspicuous features of an object, may come to play as nominative tacts. A proper name may arise as a result of the tact. For example, a house that is haunted becomes "The Haunted House" as a nominative extension to the tact of its being haunted.
A guess may seemingly be the emission of a response in the absence of controlling stimuli. Skinner notes that this may simply be a tact under more subtle or hidden controlling variables, although this is not always the case in something like guessing the landing side of a coin toss where the possible alternatives are fixed and there is no subtle or hidden stimuli to control responding.
Read more about this topic: Tact (psychology)
Famous quotes containing the word extensions:
“If we focus exclusively on teaching our children to read, write, spell, and count in their first years of life, we turn our homes into extensions of school and turn bringing up a child into an exercise in curriculum development. We should be parents first and teachers of academic skills second.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)
“The psychological umbilical cord is more difficult to cut than the real one. We experience our children as extensions of ourselves, and we feel as though their behavior is an expression of something within us...instead of an expression of something in them. We see in our children our own reflection, and when we don’t like what we see, we feel angry at the reflection.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)