Equivalence Class Formation is Influenced by Stimulus Contingency

MENÉNDEZ, JOAQUÍN; SANTILLÁN, MATEO; IDESIS, SEBASTIAN; ALBERTO IORIO; AVELLANEDA, MATÍAS; SÁNCHEZ, FEDERICO JOSÉ

PSYCHOLOGICAL RECORD

Springer International Publishing

Año: 2016 vol. 66 p. 477 - 487

0033-2933

Three groups of subjects received training in stimulusequivalence classes with a respondent-type training procedure.Stimulus contingency was positive for the first group,zero for the second, and negative for the third. Afterwards, allparticipants were tested with a matching-to-sample task forfour baseline relations (A1-B1, A2-B2, C1-B1, and C2-B2),four symmetry relations (B1-A1, B2-A2, B1-C1, and C2-B2),and four combined symmetry and transitivity relations (A1-C1, A2-C2, C1-A1, and C2-A2). After this, they wereretrained and retested twice. Explicit reinforcement was notprogrammed during the training or testing phases. The numberof subjects who learned the baseline relations and showedthe emergence of derived relations was higher in the positivecontingency group than in the zero or negative contingencygroups, although in all cases at least one retraining phase wasrequired in order to reach the criteria. This finding contributesto the literature suggesting that stimulus pairing is the fundamentalvariable underlying emergent stimulus functions.