A Derived Transfer of Functions and the Implicit Association Test

Abstract

Participants were trained in a series of interrelated conditional discriminations that aimed to establish four 4-member equivalence classes (i.e., A1-B1-C1-D1, A2-B2-C2-D2, A3-B3-C3-D3, A4-B4-C4-D4). During this training, the four A stimuli (i.e., A1, A2, A3, and A4) were compounded with pictures containing positive or negative evaluative functions (A1/A2 negative & A3/A4 positive). The transfer of evaluative functions to directly and indirectly related members of the equivalence classes (i.e., B, C, and D stimuli) was measured using an Implicit Association Test (IAT). During consistent test blocks, participants were required to press the same response key for target words that were related to those A stimuli that possessed similar evaluative functions (A1/A2-left key & A3/A4-right key). During inconsistent test blocks, target words that were related to those A stimuli with different evaluative functions were assigned to the same response key (A1/A4-left key & A2/A3-right key). Results showed that all 8 participants, who passed a matching-to-sample equivalence test following the IAT, responded more rapidly on consistent relative to inconsistent test blocks. This typical IAT effect was not observed for those participants who did not pass the equivalence test. The results suggest that the IAT effect may arise from formally untested derived relations, and supports the argument that such relations could provide a valid behavioral model of semantic categories in natural language.

Testing the Validity of the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure and the Implicit Association Test: Measuring Attitudes Toward Dublin and Country Life in Ireland

“…This outcome was somewhat unexpected, given the extremely well-established status of the IAT and the fact that previous studies from our research group have yielded strong and predicted effects for the measure (Barnes-Holmes et al, in press;O'Toole et al, 2007). On balance, one of the main procedural differences between the IAT and the IRAP may well help to explain why the former measure produced a relatively weak effect in the current study.…”

“…A detailed description of this generic IAT procedure has been provided elsewhere (O'Toole, Barnes-Holmes, & Smyth, 2007), and thus a less detailed version will be presented here.…”

A Derived Transformation of Valence Functions Across Two 8-Member Comparative Relational Networks

“…The results from both IATs were consistent with the authors' prediction, in that participants who had demonstrated mutual and combinatorial entailment paired stimulus A (relative to D) and stimulus B (relative to C) with happy words more readily than vice versa. Critically, Amd and Barnes-Holmes's (2014) was the first study to show a transformation of derived valence functions across a comparative relational network using a performance-based measure of so-called implicit attitudes (but see O'Toole et al 2007, for a study employing the IAT as a measure of the derived transfer of functions across equivalence classes).…”

Electrophysiological investigation of the functional overlap between semantic and equivalence relations.

“…More recently, the validity of stimulus equivalence as a behavioral model of symbol and meaning has been supported by studies involving different techniques such as semantic differential (Bortoloti & de Rose, 2009), semantic priming (BarnesHolmes et al, 2005;Bortoloti & de Rose, 2011a), Implicit Association Test (O'Toole, Barnes-Holmes, & Smyth, 2007), and Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (Bortoloti & de Rose, 2012).…”