Arbitrary conditional discriminative functions of meaningful stimuli and enhanced equivalence class formation

Roxana I. Nedelcu · Lanny Fields · Erik Arntzen

31 citations0/0 files storedJournal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior

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Behavioral and Psychological Studies Memory Processes and Influences Categorization, perception, and language

Abstract

Equivalence class formation by college students was influenced through the prior acquisition of conditional discriminative functions by one of the abstract stimuli (C) in the to-be-formed classes. Participants in the GR-0, GR-1, and GR-5 groups attempted to form classes under the simultaneous protocol, after mastering 0, 1, or 5 conditional relations between C and other abstract stimuli (V, W, X, Y, Z) that were not included in the to-be-formed classes (ABCDE). Participants in the GR-many group attempted to form classes that contained four abstract stimuli and one meaningful picture as the C stimulus. In the GR-0, GR-1, GR-5, and GR-many groups, classes were formed by 17, 25, 58, and 67% of participants, respectively. Thus, likelihood of class formation was enhanced by the prior formation of five C-based conditional relations (the GR-5 vs. GR-0 condition), or the inclusion of a meaningful stimulus as a class member (the GR-many vs. GR-0 condition). The GR-5 and GR-many conditions produced very similar yields, indicating that class formation was enhanced to a similar degree by including a meaningful stimulus or an abstract stimulus that had become a member of five conditional relations prior to equivalence class formation. Finally, the low and high yields produced by the GR-1 and GR-5 conditions showed that the class enhancement effect of the GR-5 condition was due to the number of conditional relations established during preliminary training and not to the sheer amount of reinforcement provided while learning these conditional relations. Class enhancement produced by meaningful stimuli, then, can be attributed to their acquired conditional discriminative functions as well as their discriminative, connotative, and denotative properties.

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References

1994Equivalence Relations and Behavior: A Research Story 1987THE STRUCTURE OF EQUIVALENCE CLASSES 2012Training and Testing Parameters in Formation of Stimulus Equivalence: Methodological Issues 2012EFFECTS OF A MEANINGFUL, A DISCRIMINATIVE, AND A MEANINGLESS STIMULUS ON EQUIVALENCE CLASS FORMATION 2007Naming and equivalence: Response latencies for emergent relations 2004Probability of Equivalence Formation: Familiar Stimuli and Training Sequence 1998Erratum: Stimulus familiarity and the delayed emergence of stimulus equivalence or consistent nonequivalence 2009Equivalence Relations and Behavior: An Introductory Tutorial

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2018Mastery of Echoics in Chinese Establishes Bidirectional Naming in Chinese for Preschoolers with Naming in English 2015Sorting: An Alternative Measure of Class Formation?2017Meaningful Stimuli and the Enhancement of Equivalence Class Formation

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