Acquired equivalence of correct alternatives after verbal discrimination learning.

Transfer following regular and irregular sequences of events in a guessing situation.

“…The response sequence hypothesis, as outlined here, may be conceived as a somewhat more explicit statement of the discrimination hypothesis (Mowrer & Jones, 1945), in that the discriminability of transfer schedules is tied not only to stimulus variables, i.e., schedule of trial outcomes, but also to response variables, i.e., response sequences, as well. Such an approach appears to be compatible with other recent statements of a modified discrimination hypothesis suggested in connection with human eyelid conditioning (Spence, 1966) and verbal discrimination learning (Paul, 1970;Paul & Paul, 1968;Paul, Hoffman, & Dick, 1970).…”

Acquired (conditional) equivalence: A basis for response-set effects in verbal-discrimination reversal performance.

“…This latter observation is consistent with previous results (Paul, 1968) and suggests that, in the absence of differential equivalence-class cues (e.g., colors), the predominant tendency is for the occurrence of preshift responses to all pairs. The presence of the two different colors in the Homogeneous and Heterogeneous conditions seemed to have counteracted the tendency to emit preshift responses to all pairs, possibly by reducing the incidental equivalence of preshift responses, which is attained in original VD learning (Paul, 1970). It should be mentioned that the pattern of errors described for the three aforementioned conditions was evident on the first shift trial.…”

“…II, reversed and nonreversed pairs were respective members of experimentally established equivalence classes; the equivalence mediator (label) could identify shift status of each pair. The experiments support a conditional equivalence analysis of verbal-discrimination shift tasks.It has been suggested (Paul & Paul, 1968) and subsequently verified (Paul, 1970) that during verbal-discrimination (VD) learning, the correct stimulus alternatives acquire the dispositional characteristics of an equivalence class (i.e., a new response learned to one of these items can generalize to the others). Thus, if in a VD reversal (transfer) task, nonreinforcement of a correct preshift response activates a suppression tendency (i.e., "self-instruction to suppress the nonreinforced response"), then that suppression tendency may be expected to generalize to all other response items in the equivalence class.…”

Effects of overtraining on verbal discrimination shifts: A differentiation-suppression hypothesis.

“…The findings of these experiments can be understood more generally within the context of Transfer-Activated Response Sets (Paul & Paul, 1968). This hypothesis suggests that the correct responses on Task 1 come to function as members of a conditional equivalence class or instances of a functional concept, "correct Task 1 responses [Paul, 1970]." When Task 2 conditions are instituted, the nonreinforcement of a Task 1 response, in effect, activates the implicit self-instruction, "suppress old correct response [Paul, 19703.…”