Interactions Between Equivalence Relations and the Development of Analytic Units

Abstract

Two experiments investigated possible interactions between existing equivalence relations among stimuli and the acquisition of simple discriminations involving the same stimuli. During the first phase of Experiment 1, two adult humans learned two sets of six conditional relations among arbitrary visual stimuli designed to produce two independent sets of three, three-member equivalence classes (Set 1 and Set 2). Subjects whose performance met accuracy criteria on tests for equivalence relations proceeded to a second phase in which subjects were taught, via reinforcement, to make the same response to a cluster of three stimuli (e.g., response 1 in the presence of A1, B1, and C1). The clusters of three stimuli were initially consistent with documented equivalence relations for both Set 1 and Set 2 stimuli. In the second half of this phase, the contingencies were realigned such that the simple discriminations being established were consistent with documented equivalence relations for Set 1 stimuli but inconsistent for Set 2 stimuli. Results showed that the simple discriminations were acquired faster for Set 1 stimuli than for Set 2 stimuli. Experiment 2 introduced a third set of stimuli as a control set and systematically replicated Experiment 1 with four subjects. This study found that three of four subjects acquired simple discriminations faster when the cluster of stimuli were drawn from within equivalence classes rather than across equivalence classes. The development of equivalence relations with Set 3 stimuli constrained the utility of the control condition in this experiment. The results are best interpreted as suggesting that existing equivalence relations among stimuli can interact with the development of analytic units such as simple discriminations to either facilitate or retard their development.Sidman's most recent exposition of a theory of stimulus equivalence (1994, 2000) considerably expanded the scope and origins of stimulus equivalence relations relative to his earlier writings (cf. Sidman and Tailby 1982; Sidman 1986). In these early formulations, Sidman and his colleagues described equivalence relations emerging at the level of four-term contingencies of reinforcement and involving the reversal and recombination of the discriminative and conditional stimulus functions established during the baseline matching-to-sample training (cf. Sidman and Tailby 1982;. In contrast, Sidman's latest treatments (1994, 2000) suggest that equivalence relations are an outcome of reinforcement contingencies and involve all positive elements of the analytic unit, including the response and the reinforcer (Sidman 1994(Sidman , 2000. Specifically, Sidman (2000) proposes that reinforcement contingencies produce at least two outcomes -the development of the familiar units of analysis such as three-term simple discrimination or four-term conditional discrimination, and the development of equivalence relations. Unlike earlier formulations in which equivalence relations were limited to the third and fourth terms of a matc...

Conditional discriminations, symmetry, and semantic priming

“…Ortu and colleagues, for example, found a relatively greater N400 effect given violations of more commonly used two-word expressions (stronger history of associative pairing) than less commonly used two-word expressions (relatively weaker history of associative pairing). Prior research shows that the development of equivalence relations among stimuli can influence the development of simpler analytic units (Vaidya & Brackney, 2014). Future studies should attempt to more precisely control the instantiation of associative and non-associative (e.g., equivalence) relations among stimuli to more precisely identify the conditions necessary and sufficient for the semantic-priming effect.…”