Work through conditional discrimination, prompting and fading, measurement, and verbal behavior. Every response gets an immediate explanation—without an account or signup wall.
No account. Nothing stored.
Independent study resource. INTERLAZA is not affiliated with or endorsed by the BACB. These original practice questions are not official exam items and do not reproduce secure exam content.
Each explanation is available here as ordinary page content, so you can return to one concept without restarting the quiz.
Selecting a picture of a cup after seeing a different picture of a cup
Match-to-sample requires a sample stimulus and a selection from comparison stimuli. Choosing another picture of the same concept fits that arrangement.
Selecting a comparison based on its relation to the current sample
The controlling relation should be between the sample and the correct comparison. Position, prompt timing, or one repeated motor pattern should not determine the answer.
Arbitrary matching
In arbitrary matching, the correct comparison is defined by an established relation rather than physical identity—for example, a spoken word and its picture.
Whether correct positions were balanced and position cues were controlled
A persistent side preference suggests that position may be controlling responding. Review position balancing and the trial arrangement before attributing the pattern to the target relation.
Control must transfer from the prompt to the relevant stimulus
Prompts are temporary supports. Successful teaching transfers stimulus control to the cue or relation that should evoke the response outside instruction.
The prompt may not prevent errors and can become associated with an error chain
A prompt delivered too late cannot reliably prevent the error. Prompt timing should support the intended response before an incorrect response is completed.
Begin with effective assistance and systematically reduce it
Most-to-least prompting begins with a level likely to produce a correct response, then fades assistance as control transfers to the relevant cue.
The interval between the instruction and the prompt
Progressive time delay gradually increases the interval between the natural cue and the controlling prompt, creating an opportunity for independent responding.
Frequency
Frequency is a count of response occurrences. When observation periods differ, the count can be converted to rate so sessions can be compared.
Time from the onset of a cue to the start of the response
Latency is the elapsed time between a specified antecedent or cue and the beginning of the target response.
At any point during the interval
An interval is scored in partial-interval recording if the behavior occurs at any time during that interval, even briefly.
It preserves the response and prompt information for each teaching opportunity
Trial-by-trial recording retains information about each opportunity, such as accuracy and prompt level, instead of collapsing the whole session into one total.
Mand
A mand is evoked by a motivating operation and is reinforced by the specific item, action, or information requested.
Tact
A tact is evoked by a nonverbal stimulus and maintained by generalized conditioned reinforcement, such as social praise.
Intraverbal
An intraverbal response is controlled by verbal stimuli without point-to-point correspondence. The answer relates to the question but does not repeat it.
Go deeper
Read the complete guide to match-to-sample, stimulus control, prompting, common errors, and data collection.