Resumen de Promoviendo fluidez y flexibilidad en comportamiento analógico en adolescentes, universitarios, y ancianos
- español
Analogy occupies a central place at the very heart of human cognition (Hofstadter, 2001). It has been present in theoretical reflection since ancient times. For example, we find it in the writings of Aristotle (Metaphysics, Aristotle). Analogy has been shown to be a common element across various disciplines and is a central aspect of human language. It could be said that its importance is transversal, both when it comes to its use in everyday language and when it comes to its linguistic analysis and its analysis as verbal behavior. The study of analogical behavior is important in all these areas because it is one of the most useful tools for communication between humans. Take the following example: when someone tells us that the oranges they have bought are like soccer balls, it is easy for us to visualize that the oranges are large without having to have them in front of us. In the same way when, without knowing Luis, we hear that Luis is "cinnamon stick" we can imagine that he is probably an exquisite person. If they also tell us that Luis and Carlos, whom we don't know either, are like night and day, we get the first impression that Carlos has nothing to do with Luis and that this person is everything contrary to what we understand by " be exquisite”. Logically, what we derive from what they tell us about oranges and Luis and Carlos is subject to the experience that each one of us may have of "a soccer ball" or the meaning we give to the expression "cinnamon stick ”. The affirmation of Gentner (1983) stands out, who defined this behavior as a transfer of information from a known domain to an unknown one. In other words, in the examples indicated, the information we have about the balls would have been transferred to the oranges, and the information we have about being “cinnamon sticks” would have been transferred to Luis and Carlos according to the relationship that has been specified between them.
In a general way, analog behavior has been identified as an intelligent behavior signal.
On the one hand, since Spearman (1923) he used items in the form of analogy (for example: "...is to sour as honey is to..." -to select lemon/sweet) that have continued to be used repeatedly in tests aimed at evaluating behavior. intelligent. On the other hand, research in the last decade has shown an increase in intelligence test scores associated with training in making relationships between elements (Vizcaíno-Torres et al, 2015). Along the same lines, there has also been evidence between levels of intelligence and the ease of establishing analogical relationships at an experimental level. However, although the studies are scarce and the results are tangential, it is possible to combine the information from both lines of work and consider what could be the effect on the level of intelligence and other measures related to intelligence, if a training is carried out. systematic in the practice of analogies of different types, that is, a fluid repertoire of making and understanding analogies is generated.
That is the main question that this thesis addresses, evaluating the influence of practice in making analogies on intelligence measures among other measures. This objective will be carried out with three types of participants that differ by their evolutionary moment.
More specifically, adolescents, university students, and the elderly.
At the service of these objectives, Chapter 1 focuses on a brief approach to the concept of analogy and its evolution both in the field of philosophy and from psychology to end by pointing out the centrality of analogy in human language. The chapter highlights the functional psychological approach in the field of language, focusing on the Relational Frame Theory, a theory that explicitly formulates the analogy as an equivalence between characteristics of stimuli. For example, and returning to the example already mentioned, lemon is related to the sour taste in an equivalent way as honey does to the sweet taste. The information collected in this brief review shows the studies that have been carried out. On the one hand, studies oriented towards explicit training to improve fluency in relating through the keys of equality, comparison and opposition (Stewart et al, 2001; Stewart et al, 2004;
Stewart, 2009). On the other, the analysis of how the practice of establishing relationships improves intelligence scores (Cassidy, 2008; O`Hara, 2008; Vizcaíno-Torres et al, 2015;
Castro, 2020). The study that comes closest to the analogy experimentally is the study by Ruiz and Luciano (2011) in which it was observed that those subjects who were quicker to link networks scored higher on intelligence tests. Taking all this into consideration, one question that might be asked is whether the systematic practice of making analogies, of various types and formats, would influence the values of standardized measures of intelligence, as well as other non-standardized measures, such as tests of analogies created automatically. professed or other measures of daily activity.
The objectives of the thesis were in this direction. Specifically, to design a protocol of analogies of different types (some with stimuli of linguistic content and others, with stimuli based on physical properties) and formats (selecting or producing analogies), to evaluate their effectiveness in standardized intelligence tests and other measures, in three types of participants, adolescents, college students, and elderly people.
Chapter 2 presents the empirical study 1 in which the design and application of the protocol to the adolescent population is addressed. Twenty-eight adolescents participated, randomly divided into two conditions. The participants in the experimental condition completed the three phases of the study: pre-test, application of analogue flexibility and fluency training (FFA 1), and post-test. In the control condition, only the pre-test and posttest measurements were completed. The measures applied during the pre-test and the post-test were the same for both groups and consisted of two standardized intelligence tests: Verbal Reasoning Subtest of the Differential Aptitudes Test, Version 5 (DAT-5), Level 1 (Be nnet, Seashore & Wesman, 2000), and General Intelligence Test D-70 (Kowrousky, F. & Rennes, P., 1970). The qualifications of the participants in 2 school subjects were also considered:
Social Sciences and Mathematics. The FFA 1 protocol was composed of multiple examples that included different relationship keys (coordination, opposition, comparison, inclusion, temporal, causal, and deictic) with selection and production response formats. All items were linguistic in this protocol. The training was organized in four blocks; each block made up of 30 examples of linguistic analogies (20 in a selective format and 20 in a productive format). Each block was applied, respectively, in four weeks, in group sessions lasting 60-90 minutes by the same experimenter.
The mixed pre-post test design allowed for both intragroup and intergroup analysis.
The results indicated that both the control and the experimental conditions were equivalent in the pre-test. At post-test, participants in the experimental condition showed significant increases on both standardized tests, while participants in the control condition showed a significant decrease in DAT-5 scores. The improvement in Social Science and Mathematics grades in the experimental condition was not significant.
These promising, albeit limited, results correlated with improvements in intelligence scores relative to overall relational fluency. Therefore, the following study aimed to improve the protocol by adding more variety in the relational cues of the analogies with non-linguistic items (in order to minimize the impact of the pre-experimental history) and, in addition, to carry out the application directly in computer (in order to provide individualized rather than group feedback).
The data from this second study are described in Chapter 3. The second study consisted of 40 students in the last year of Psychology at the University of Almería, aged between 21 and 35 years. As in the previous study, there were two conditions with 20 participants respectively, experimental and control. On this occasion, the pre-test and post-test consisted of two standardized tests: Verbal Reasoning Subtest of the Differential Aptitudes Test, Version 5 (DAT-5), Level 1 (Bennet, Seashore & Wesman, 2000), and the Similarities Subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV, Wechsler, 2012). In addition, three analogy tests were used, created expressly, and were applied on a computer. The tests used in each test were the following: test of analogies based on physical properties (PA-PropFcas), test of linguistic analogies in selective format (PA-Ling/Sel) and test of linguistic analogies in productive format (PA-Ling/ Pro). The intelligence tests were applied by an experimenter while the analogy tests were carried out on a computer. The computer program made it possible to record both the responses given by the participants and the latencies of their responses.
The analogical fluency and flexibility protocol used in this second study (FFA 2) was based on Multiple Exemplar Training (MET) with three training blocks. Each block contained training trials and testing trials. In the first block, 32 training items based on physical properties and 20 test items were used. In the second block, the training was carried out with 32 items based on physical properties and 25 linguistic items in a selective format, ending again with 20 test items. In the third block, 32 items based on physical properties were used, 25 linguistic in a selective format and 25 linguistic in a productive format, ending with 20 verification items. The answers given by the participants were followed by feedback. The protocol was applied for three days in individual sessions lasting 60-90 minutes.
The results obtained showed that both groups, control and experimental, were equivalent in the pre-test in all tests except the WAIS Similarity Subtest. After the application of the protocol, a significant improvement was achieved in the S-WAIS test of the experimental condition and, unlike what happened with the adolescent population, there were no significant changes with the DAT-5 test. On the other hand, in all the analogy tests the impact of the training was observed, which led them to be considered good indicators of its effectiveness as relational training.
The results in university students, after those obtained in adolescents, led to extending the design and application of a protocol of these characteristics to other participants at a vital moment in which there are no previous studies of this type. In this way, the analysis of the impact of the protocol at different vital moments was completed, which allows us to have a more global vision of the possibilities offered by a protocol of these characteristics.
The third empirical study is described in Chapter 4. The protocol was applied to the elderly population and its impact was evaluated through standardized intelligence instruments, among other measures. The application of the protocol at these ages is of special relevance if we take into account the growth forecast of this population in the coming years and the relationship between cognitive performance and successful aging. Ten voluntary residents of a nursing home participated in this study, with an age range of 67-89 years. Five of them were assigned to a control condition while the other five received the experimental protocol. All of them responded to five tests in the pre-test: two standardized tests (test of verbal comprehension and WAIS perceptual reasoning test) and three tests specially designed (test of analogies based on physical properties, test of linguistic analogies in selective format and test of linguistic analogies in productive format). The FFA 2 protocol was applied to the subjects of the experimental condition, completing the three training blocks already described in study 2. It is important to note that the standardized tests used in the initial evaluation were not the same as in study 2, it is In other words, in this last study the DAT-5 test was not applied and the complete WAIS tests were used instead of a subtest as in the previous study.
The results of this third study coincide with those of previous studies, evidencing the improvement of the linguistic and cognitive abilities of the participants after the application of the training protocol with multiple examples, with the particularity that in this case the improvement of the analogical reasoning in a sample of elderly, who would be, in general, in a process of decline at many levels. Also noteworthy is the design of an analogy protocol that incorporates and combines the necessary conditions to improve fluency and flexibility, with different types of tasks that incorporate multiple and varied examples, with a variety of stimuli, with different relational keys (coordination, distinction , opposition, comparison, hierarchical, temporal and deictic) and with different response formats (comprehensive and productive), aspects that had not been previously used in protocols analyzed in other studies.
The positive evaluation of the results does not exempt from pointing out certain limitations or weaknesses. The number of participants was small, because the access and disposition of the elderly as participants in a study of these characteristics is not without difficulties. Perhaps this is one reason to explain the scarcity of research in this area with a population of these characteristics. The non-adaptation of the items to the type of population is also considered a limitation, either due to their content or their mode of presentation. Since both study 2 and study 3 were performed quasi-synchronously, the protocols are the same.
The main conclusions of these 3 studies are collected in Chapter 5. In the first place, the contributions of the thesis that are related, on the one hand, to the designs of fluency and flexibility protocols, their variety of items, stimuli, as well as keys and formats do not exist together to date. Its presentation is also valued through a computer program that avoids biases in the application of feedback by the experimenter while facilitating the application and collection of information. On the other hand, the choice of intelligence tests according to the type of behavior that could be influenced by the protocols is also indicated. In addition, the design of new tests that are sensitive to the protocol. The methodological strengths of the study are described both in terms of the type of participants and the pre-post design itself, with the arrangement of variables both at the intragroup and intergroup level, allowing to observe the effects not only comparatively with other subjects who have not gone through the experimental condition but in the subject himself from his initial point of departure.
Secondly, the most relevant limitations of the protocols designed both at the level of the linguistic items and based on physical properties, as well as at the level of their sequential organization, are detailed.
Thirdly, the possible applications of the research are analyzed both in the educational field to improve students' reasoning, and when it comes to limiting, stopping or reducing the cognitive deterioration associated with certain ages. It ends with proposals for future studies that are aimed at refining the protocol, replicating it in different conditions, and analyzing the partial effect of the different levels of the protocol.
In conclusion, it should be noted that these three studies contribute to the design of an analogical fluency and flexibility protocol that has been tested with a positive impact on improving analogical reasoning in populations at different times of life. New possibilities are opened for working with analogy protocols in different presentation formats, with different stimuli and relationship keys. Both its feasibility and the advisability of basic and applied research going hand in hand have been revealed so that the impact is both in controlled and natural contexts.
Finally, these studies join many others of functional equivalence, in this case, of relating relationships, a higher level of complexity (Törneke et al., 2016) which, in this case, has analogical practice as a reference, becoming in yet another example of the importance of developing applied studies based on relational behavior (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes & Roche, 2001).
- español
La analogía ocupa un lugar central en el corazón mismo de la cognición humana (Hofstadter, 2001). De un modo general, el comportamiento analógico se ha identificado como una señal de comportamiento inteligente. De una parte, desde Spearman (1923) utilizó ítems en forma de analogía que han continuado usándose repetidamente en los test encaminados a evaluar el comportamiento inteligente. De otra parte, la investigación en la última década ha mostrado un incremento en las puntuaciones de los test de inteligencia asociado al entrenamiento en hacer relaciones entre elementos (Vizcaíno-Torres, 2015). En la misma línea, también ha habido evidencias entre los niveles de inteligencia y la facilidad para establecer relaciones analógicas a nivel experimental. Esta tesis aborda aunar ambas líneas y evaluar la influencia de la práctica en hacer analogías sobre las medidas de inteligencia entre otras medidas. Este objetivo se llevará a cabo con tres tipos de participantes que difieren por su momento evolutivo. Más específicamente, adolescentes, universitarios, y ancianos.
El Capítulo 1 se centra en una breve aproximación al concepto de analogía y su evolución tanto en el ámbito de la filosofía como desde la psicología para terminar señalando la centralidad de la analogía en el lenguaje humano. El capítulo resalta la aproximación psicológica funcional en el ámbito del lenguaje centrándose en la Teoría del Marco Relacional, teoría que formula explícitamente la analogía como una equivalencia entre características de estímulos. Desde esta perspectiva encontramos estudios orientados a entrenamientos explícitos para mejorar la fluidez en relacionar a través de claves de igualdad, comparación y oposición (Stewart et al, 2001; Stewart et al, 2004; Stewart, 2009) y análisis de cómo la práctica en establecer relaciones mejora las puntuaciones en inteligencia (Cassidy, 2008; O`Hara, 2008; Vizcaíno et al, 2015; Castro, 2020).
Los objetivos específicos de esta tesis son diseñar un protocolo de analogías de diferentes tipos (unas con estímulos de contenido lingüístico y otras, con estímulos basados en propiedades físicas) y formatos (seleccionando o produciendo analogías), para evaluar su efectividad en pruebas estandarizadas de inteligencia y en otras medidas, en tres tipos de participantes, adolescentes, universitarios, y ancianos.
El Capítulo 2 presenta el estudio empírico 1 en el que se aborda el diseño y la aplicación del protocolo a población adolescente. Participaron 28 adolescentes divididos aleatoriamente en dos condiciones. Los participantes de la condición experimental completaron las tres fases del estudio: pre-test, aplicación del entrenamiento en fluidez y flexibilidad analógica (FFA 1), y post-test. En la condición control se completaron únicamente las medidas pre-test y post-test. Las medidas aplicadas durante el pre-test y el post-test fueron las mismas para sendos grupos y consistieron en dos pruebas estandarizadas de inteligencia: Subtest de Razonamiento Verbal del Test de Aptitudes Diferenciales, Versión 5 (DAT-5), Nivel 1 (Be nnet, Seashore & Wesman, 2000), y Test de Inteligencia General D-70 (Kowrousky, F. & Rennes, P.,1970). También se consideraron las calificaciones de los participantes en 2 materias escolares: Sociales y Matemáticas.
El protocolo FFA 1 estaba compuesto de múltiples ejemplos que incluían diferentes claves de relación (coordinación, oposición, comparación, inclusión, temporal, causal y deícticas) con formatos de respuesta de selección y producción. Todos los ítems fueron de tipo lingüístico en este protocolo.
El diseño mixto pre-post test permitió tanto un análisis intragrupo como intergrupo. Los resultados indicaron que, tanto la condición control como la experimental fueron equivalentes en el pre-test. Al post-test, los participantes de la condición experimental mostraron incrementos significativos en las dos pruebas estandarizadas, mientras que los participantes de la condición control mostraron un descenso significativo en las puntuaciones del DAT-5. La mejoría en las calificaciones de Ciencias Sociales y Matemáticas en la condición experimental no fue significativa.
Estos resultados prometedores correlacionaban con la mejora en puntajes de inteligencia en relación a la fluidez relacional en general. Por tanto, el siguiente estudio se dirigió a mejorar el protocolo añadiendo más variedad en las claves relacionales de las analogías con ítems no lingüísticos (con el fin de minimizar el impacto de la historia pre-experimental) y, además, realizar la aplicación directamente en ordenador (con el fin de proveer un feedback individualizado en vez de grupal).
El segundo estudio que se aborda en el Capítulo 3 estuvo formado por 40 alumnos del último curso de Psicología de la Universidad de Almería, con edades comprendidas entre los 21 y los 35 años. Como en el estudio anterior, hubo dos condiciones con 20 participantes respectivamente, experimental y control.
En esta ocasión, el pre-test y el post-test consistieron en dos pruebas estandarizadas: Subtest de Razonamiento Verbal del Test de Aptitudes Diferenciales, Versión 5 (DAT-5), Nivel 1 (Bennet, Seashore & Wesman, 2000), y la Subprueba de semejanzas de la Escala Wechsler de Inteligencia para Adultos, cuarta edición (WAIS-IV, Wechsler, 2012). Además, se utilizaron tres pruebas de analogías, creadas exprofeso, y fueron aplicadas en ordenador. Las pruebas utilizadas en sendos test fueron las siguientes: prueba de analogías basadas en propiedades físicas (PA-PropFcas), prueba de analogías lingüísticas en formato selectivo (PA-Ling/Sel) y prueba de analogías lingüísticas en formato productivo (PA-Ling/Pro). Las pruebas de inteligencia fueron aplicadas por un experimentador mientras que las pruebas de analogías se realizaron en ordenador. El programa informático permitió registrar tanto las respuestas dadas por los participantes como las latencias de sus respuestas.
Los resultados obtenidos mostraron que ambos grupos, control y experimental, eran equivalentes en el pre-test en todas las pruebas excepto en la Subprueba de Semejanzas del WAIS. Tras la aplicación del protocolo se consigue una mejora significativa en la prueba de S-WAIS de la condición experimental y, a diferencia de lo que ocurría con la población adolescente, no se produjeron cambios significativos con la prueba DAT-5. Por otro lado, en todas las pruebas de analogías se observó el impacto del entrenamiento, lo que llevó a considerarlas buenos indicadores de la eficacia del mismo como entrenamiento relacional.
Los resultados en universitarios, tras los obtenidos en adolescentes, llevaron a ampliar el diseño y aplicación de un protocolo de estas características a otros participantes en un momento vital en el que no existen estudios previos de este tipo. De esta manera se completaba el análisis del impacto del protocolo en distintos momentos vitales, lo que nos permite tener una visión más global de las posibilidades que ofrece un protocolo de estas características.
El tercer estudió empírico se describe en el Capítulo 4. Se aplicó el protocolo a población anciana y se evaluó su impacto a través de instrumentos estandarizados de inteligencia, entre otras medidas. En este estudio participaron diez residentes voluntarios de una residencia de mayores, con un rango de edad de 67-89 años. Cinco de ellos se asignaron a una condición control mientras que los otros cinco recibieron el protocolo experimental. Todos ellos respondieron a cinco pruebas en el pre-test: dos pruebas estandarizadas (prueba de comprensión verbal y prueba de razonamiento perceptivo del WAIS) y tres pruebas diseñadas exprofeso (prueba de analogías basadas en propiedades físicas, prueba de analogías lingüísticas en formato selectivo y prueba de analogías lingüísticas en formato productivo). El protocolo FFA 2 se aplicó a los sujetos de la condición experimental, completando los tres bloques de entrenamiento ya descritos en el estudio 2. Señalar que tanto en el pre-test como en el post-test de este último estudio no se aplicó la prueba DAT-5 y se utilizaron las pruebas completas del WAIS en lugar de una subprueba como en el estudio previo.
Los resultados obtenidos muestran que no hay diferencias entre la condición experimental y la condición control en las medidas pre-test. Atendiendo a la condición experimental, las comparaciones pre-test y post-test mostraron un incremento en todas las medidas tras la aplicación del protocolo, siendo significativas estas diferencias en la Subprueba CV-WAIS y en la PA- PropFcas. En cuanto a la condición control bajaron las puntuaciones obtenidas en el pos test con las pruebas PA-Ling/Sel y PA-Ling/Pro, lo que apuntaría a la importancia e influencia del protocolo de entrenamiento en la mejora de la condición experimental.
Los resultados de este tercer estudio coindicen con los de estudios previos, evidenciando la mejora de las habilidades lingüísticas y cognitivas de los participantes tras la aplicación del protocolo de entrenamiento con múltiples ejemplos. Destaca asimismo, el diseño de un protocolo de analogías que incorpora y combina las condiciones necesarias para la mejora en fluidez y flexibilidad, con diferentes tipos de tareas que incorporan múltiples y variados ejemplos, con variedad de estímulos, con claves relacionales diferentes (coordinación, distinción, oposición, comparación, jerárquicos, temporales y deícticos) y con distintos formatos de respuesta (comprensiva y productiva), aspectos que no habían sido utilizados con anterioridad en protocolos analizados en otros estudios.
Las principales conclusiones de estos 3 estudios se recogen en el Capítulo 5. Cabe señalar que estos tres estudios aportan el diseño de un protocolo de fluidez y flexibilidad analógica que ha sido testado con un impacto positivo en la mejora del razonamiento analógico de poblaciones en diferentes momentos vitales. Se abren nuevas posibilidades para el trabajo con protocolos de analogías en diferentes formatos de presentación, con diferentes estímulos y claves de relación. Se ha puesto de manifiesto tanto su viabilidad como la conveniencia de que la investigación básica y la aplicada vayan de la mano para que el impacto sea tanto en contextos controlados como naturales.
