Effects of Prompting and Reinforcing Single and Multiple Tacts on the Accuracy of Children's Reports of Past Events

• Grant number: 25/10565-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2025
• End date: September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Mariéle de Cássia Diniz Cortez
• Grantee: Sofia Rosana Zappa Lodi
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This study will investigate the effects of prompting and reinforcement single tact and multiple tact responses on the accuracy of reports of past events in children. Four typically developing preschool children will participate. During the sessions, children will be exposed to a card game (past event), in which the experimenter will present six different colored figures. Then, the children will be asked to report, in the absence of the cards and after different time intervals (0 s, 2.5 min, 5 min, 10 min, and 15 min), which figures had been previously presented. Three experimental conditions will be implemented using an adapted alternating treatments design. In the "Single Tact" condition, the child will be prompted, during the card game (i.e., exposure to the event) to emit only one tact response per card (i.e., say the name of the figure), and correct responses will be followed by praise. In the "Multiple Tact" condition, the child will be required to emit three tact responses per card (i.e., name, color, and function of the stimulus) in order to access social consequences. In the "Tact Blocking" condition (control), the child will be prompted to emit verbal responses (e.g., intraverbals or echoics) unrelated to the visual stimuli during the card game, in order to prevent the emission of covert tacts. The results will be analyzed based on the number of accurate reports of past events across the different experimental conditions and as a function of the different time intervals.