Luciano, M. C., Herruzo, J., & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2001). Say-Do Generalization. The Psychological Record, 51, 111-130.
Eleven pre-school children participated (3y10m to 5y) to form arbitrary say-do relations with one behavior while testing for generalization. Two consecutive baselines phases showed the lack of say-do correspondence in four behaviors (two similar and two dissimilar responses). Then, social consequences were applied to correct say-do correspondence for behavior 1 (involving three responses with the same automatic consequences –touching up, middle, down figure-). Then, this correspondence was maintained thinning consequences in all the children but in 5 children, saying was changed from a vocal to a symbolic modality. Say-do relations was observed in new behavior, either similar or dissimilar with most of the children in the last condition, achieving correct generalization in the first trial. This is a first attempt to establish experimentally pliance rule-governed behavior and shed light on the history required for the emergence of say-do generalized arbitrary relationships, particularly where saying “what to do” establishes derived or verbal properties of stimulus control for nonverbal stimuli.