Conceptual remarks in Psychological explanation systems can be worked on by the search of
the terms and defining conditions of a certain concept or phenomenon. Studies in conceptual
analysis aim to verify which terms are not part of a concept, the correct application of an
already existent concept, and in which contexts this concept can be applied. The aim to
achieve the discrimination between classes of events and intra-class generalization. The
acquisition and maintaince of behavioral chains has received the name of chaining, referring
to a succession of responses in which one response produces the stimuli conditions to the next
response. In can be assessed that a great part the repertoire of organisms seems to occur
organized in sequence, in a continuous succession. Ordinal behavior has been studied
through the examination of the effect of different variables. However, the operant literature
has presented different terms to refer to the continuous flux and the succession of responses.
This research had the proposal to investigate the logical behavior of some concepts about
ordinal behavior by investigating the level of instrumentality through the specifications of
controlling variables of procedures applied in the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. By the
means of some keywords, the bibliographical material was searched in data-banks of
scientific journals and books of the area. Following this, the papers were divided in six
different groups, according to similarities in their titles and abstracts. At last, they were
analyzed with a distinction towards the major variables in each type of procedure. 82 papers
were selected; 14 national articles, 65 foreign articles, and 3 book chapters, being one national
and two foreign. The descriptive analysis of the research showed that in groups 2, 5 and 6 it
was possible to access information common to all studies. Besides that, it was verified that the
behavior-analytical model of response chains seemed to be present in the studies of the first
four groups. Therefore, the verification of the procedural variations present in the experiments
made the organization and delimitation of variables involved in studies on ordinal responding
possible. Such information can function as a parameter of experimental control in the
development of future studies, as well as subsidize investigations that aim to verify the effects
of procedural variations inside a same group over the performance found in the results of the
studies. Besides, was noticed that the use of one term can be defined by the context wich
knowledge is produced, because the sources of the scientific term are results of complexity of
one social context that produce changes in way to see a certain study object.
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