The nodal distance effect and behavioristic philosophy

The nodal distance hypothesis suggests that responding in accordance with emergent conditional discrimination decreases as number of nodes increases. A node can be defined as a stimulus that has been trained in two or more conditional discriminations. For instance, by establishing conditional discrimination between stimulus A and B (AB), stimulus B and C (BC), and C and D (CD). The AC relation has the B stimulus as a node and the AD relation has B and C stimulus as nodes. The hypothesis predicts that responding in accordance with AC relations is more likely to occur than AD relations – since, the AC relation is a 1-node relation and the AD relation is a 2-node relation. Responding in accordance with emergent conditional discrimination may decrease as number of nodes increases. However, the nodal distance hypothesis suggests that the cause of responding is due to the number of nodes and not functional variables. Structural explanations are rarely used in behavior analysis. This presentation will investigate different philosophical assumptions of behaviorism and different types of behaviorism to reinterpret the nodal distance hypothesis in order to develop a conceptual and philosophical sound description of the nodal distance effect that are in accordance with a functional approach. Specifically, interbehaviorism, radical behaviorism, teleological behaviorism, theoretical behaviorism, and functional contextualism will be used.