Equivalence Classes Generated by Sequence Training

Abstract

In Experiment 1, 3, adult females were taught with verbal instructions and contingencies to select, in sequence, three arbitrary visual stimuli from an array of five stimuli. After four different sequences were taught, match-to-sample tests assessed emergent conditional relations among all stimuli that had been selected in the same order in the sequences. Subjects' performances indicated development of four stimulus classes, three based on ordinal position and one based on nonselection. Next, match-to-sample training established conditional relations between each of four novel figures and one member of each of the ordinal stimulus classes. Tests confirmed that the classes were equivalence classes, each expanded by one new member. In subsequent sequence tests, the new stimuli were selected in a sequence that was consistent with ordinal class membership. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 with 2 different adult females, but the verbal instructions were omitted. Results were similar to Experiment 1, except that extensive review and retesting were required before expansion of the ordinal classes with the novel figures was observed.

Verbs and Verb Phrases as Instructional Stimuli in the Control of Stimulus-Equivalence Effects

“…For example, Sigurdardottir, Green, and Saunders (1990) tried to determine the role of instructions in stimulus-equivalence phenomena more directly, relying on small-group designs. They compared the effects of two 1Stimulus equivalence refers to a special stimulus class established by the training of at least two conditional discriminations (e.g., A-8 and 8-C) that results in four new conditional relations (8-A, C-8, A-C, and C-A), testifying to the symmetry, transitivity, and symmetric transitivity of the original two conditional discriminations, and called in aggregate stimulus equivalence (ct. Sidman & Tailby, 1982).…”

“…21nstructional effects can be found not only in the explicit initial instructions to establish the conditional discriminations but can also be implicit in the pretraining task. For example, the derived ordinal classes in the Sigurdardottir et al (1990) study could have been facilitated by their pretraining task, which required ordering letters alphabetically. Lacking that pretraining, would their results have been similar to those of Lazar (1977)?…”

The Effects of a Can’t-Answer Response Option and Instructions on Stimulus Equivalence

“…Riegler and Baer (1989) have offered a developmental analysis and review of this and other literature on instructional control. Unfortunately, the literature on stimulus equivalence contains only a few studies in which instructions have been an independent variable (e.g., Sigurdardottir, Green, & Saunders, 1990).…”

Tactual Equivalence Class Formation and Tactual-to-Visual Cross-Modal Transfer

“…This position was not supported by subsequent demonstrations of equivalence class formation consisting of visual stimuli only such as arbitrary or abstract line drawings (Bush, Sidman, & De Rose, 1989;Hayes, Kohlenberg, & Hayes, 1991;Lazar, 1977;Saunders, Saunders, Kirby, & Spradlin, 1988;Sigurdardottir, Green, & Saunders, 1990;Spencer & Chase, 1996;Spradlin, Cotter, & Baxley, 1973;Wetherby, Karlan , & Spradlin, 1983;Wulfert, Greenway, & Dougher, 1994;Wulfert & Hayes, 1988) and nonsense syllables (Fields, Adams, Ve rh ave , & Newman, 1990;Fields, Newman, Adams, & Verhave, 1992;Fields, Reeve, Adams, & Verhave, 1991 ). These results also showed that equivalence classes can be formed from stimuli in only one sensory modality.…”