Distinguishing the roles of verbal events in metacontingency experiments

Abstract

The concept of metacontingency arose as an application of the selection by consequences explicative mode at the cultural level, describing a contingent relation between a culturant and cultural consequences. Since then, many studies have discussed the role of verbal events (i.e., verbal interactions, responses or stimuli) in metacontingency selection. In experimental studies, verbal events are constantly pointed out as important to allow or facilitate the selection of culturants by consequences. In this context, recent conceptual proposals argue for the need to expand terms related to metacontingencies to include verbal events. The present work describes and discuss a selection of metacontingency experiments that manipulated or controlled verbal events to explain their functions in this type of cultural selection. The studies were selected mainly from previously published systematic reviews of metacontingency experiments. The studies demonstrate that culturants selection by cultural consequences occurs in the absence of any type of verbal event. However, these events facilitate coordination among the responses composing the culturant, allowing for faster contact and greater production of cultural consequences. Verbal events also contribute to determine the distribution of culturants and operants in situations of concurrent metacontingencies or concurrent metacontingency and operant contingency. Verbal interactions among participants also seem essential for the emergence of response coordination in macrocontingency experiments with humans. In addition to interactions among participants, verbal events also function as antecedents or consequents in metacontingencies, affecting variability and contributing to the selection of certain culturants. Based on these results, we conclude that the basic terminology traditionally employed in the field is still sufficient to account for the selection by metacontingency. However, studies with humans need to recognize the importance of these verbal events and pay attention to the roles they can play in a metacontingency, as this is the only way to understand in detail the functioning of certain cultural dynamics.