Analysis of writing as a linguistic modality

Abstract

Enabling is defined as the set of conditions that permits an active response form when the contact with the stimulus events occurred under reactive modalities. Thirty undergraduate students of psychology participated. Experiment 1 evaluated the enabling effect of the verbal written response in a first-order matching-tosample procedure in which stimuli were presented in three reactive modalities (Group 1 observing mode, Group 2 reading mode, Group 3 listening mode). In all three cases, the matching response was written. The results showed that all reactive modalities enabled the matching-to-sample writing response. However, a higher level of enabling was noted from observing mode to writing mode, while reading and listening modes showed a similar level of enabling. The rationale of Experiment 2 was the same as Experiment 1 but in this case the reactive mode was introduced with the talking active mode. The results followed the same trend in Experiment 1, but the enabling was lower in all cases. The results are discussed in terms of the concept of enabling and the linguistics modes.