Instructional Effects on Performance in a Matching‐to‐sample Study

Abstract

Conducting studies using an undergraduate participant pool is fraught with difficulties. Among them are problems with adequately motivating subjects both to come to the study, and once there, to actively engage the experimental task. Thirty-one college students participated in a matching-to-sample (MTS) study involving substantial training, testing, retraining, and retesting of conditional discriminations and equivalence relations among four 4-member classes of nonsensical words. The study was conducted during the end of the semester, when performance often had been observed to be poorer than at other points in the semester. Eleven of the participants, in addition to standard instructions about the task, received additional instructions specifying molar consequences for high rates of "correct" responses throughout the procedure. This subset of participants displayed markedly improved performance as compared to those who did not receive the additional instructions. Results suggest that specification of molar contingencies improves participants' sensitivity to molecular contingencies within the study. Instructions that specify and increase the consequential functions of feedback provided during MTS trials may be one means of reducing unwanted variability in human MTS performance.

Effects of Mands on Instructional Control: A Laboratory Simulation

“…Alternatively, reducing control by maladaptive or inefficient rules may be beneficial, as in some forms of psychotherapy (Hayes 1993). Behavioral scientists have examined the variables associated with rule governance with much success (e.g., Catania et al 1982;Doll et al 2009;Drake and Wilson 2008;Hackenberg and Joker 1994;Hayes et al 1986a, b;Galizio 1979;Milgram 1963;Raia et al 2000;Schlinger and Blakely 1987;Schmitt 1998;Vaughan 1985). For example, Galizio (1979) examined whether a large discrepancy between instructions and actual contingencies of reinforcement would influence instruction following.…”

Measuring the “transfer of meaning” through members of equivalence classes merged via a class-specific reinforcement procedure

“…Follow-up studies should aim to examine effects of manipulating written instructions that precede MTS training. For example, research is needed to clarify the extent to which a set of instructions that specifies the molar features of contingencies of reinforcement might affect participants' sensitivity to the molecular features of the MTS procedure involving specific reinforcers (cf., Drake & Wilson, 2008). Would yields of stimulus class formation differ from those in the current research?…”

Arbitrarily applicable spatial relational responding

“…To increase the percentage of participants that acquire the requisite repertoire, additional studies might incorporate a simple‐to‐complex training via the gradual introduction of different trial types or include nonarbitrary support from the outset of training. These suggestions notwithstanding, it should also be considered that the behavior required was relatively complex and given constraints on time and remuneration for adult participants in the context of experimental work of this kind, a certain attrition rate is difficult to avoid (Drake & Wilson, ).…”