The Development of Derived Stimulus Relations Through Training in Arbitrary‐matching Sequences

Abstract

Five‐year‐old children were taught three‐stage sequences of arbitrary matching: A‐C, B‐C, A‐D; A‐C, B‐D, B‐C; or A‐C, A‐D, B‐C. Each stage refers to a sample‐comparison relation between stimuli. Unreinforced test probes revealed untrained arbitrary matches (B‐D, A‐D, and B‐D, respectively), derivable by substitution of stimuli with a common sample or comparison function. Additional probes revealed further untrained sample‐comparison relations derivable by substitution and identity, including the commuted relations D‐B, D‐A, and D‐B, respectively. These processes may have relevance to conceptual and verbal behavior.

Establishing Transfer of Compound Control in Children: A Stimulus Control Analysis

“…These findings extend the work by PerezGonzalez (1994) and Perez-Gonzalez and Serna (1993) on transfer of compound control with (pre)adolescents and adults, and on functional equivalence of unitary stimuli with young children and animals (e.g. , Astley & Wasserman, 1999;Peterson, 1984;Smeets et aI., 1997Smeets et aI., , 2001Spradlin, Cotter, & Baxley, 1973;Urcuioli & Zentall, 1993;Wasserman et aI., 1992;Wetherby, Karlan, & Spradlin, 1983).…”

THE CASE OF THE SILENT DOG—VERBAL REPORTS AND THE ANALYSIS OF RULES: A REVIEW OF ERICSSON AND SIMON'S PROTOCOL ANALYSIS: VERBAL REPORTS AS DATA1

“…Stimulus equivalence is not found in retarded children with no spontaneous productive speech, but it is found in normal and retarded children with speech who are matched to the speech-disabled children according to mental age (Devany, Hayes, & Nelson, in press). It is also well known that it is relatively easy to demonstrate stimulus equivalence with humans (e.g., Spradlin, 1983), but it is extremely difficult (indeed it has not yet conclusively been shown) with infrahumans, including the higher primates . Although there is considerable evidence that infrahumans can respond to nonarbitrary relationships based on nonarbitrary aspects of stimuli (e.g., "larger than"; see Reese, 1968), there is little evidence as yet that they can respond on the basis of arbitrary relationships among arbitrary stimuli.…”

The Formation of Visual Stimulus Equivalences in Children

“…The purposes of this study were therefore twofold: first, to determine whether stimulus classes could be established and progressively enlarged in the absence of dictated names as class members; and second, to ascertain whether subjects who demonstrated equivalences would supply their own mediating labels. Spradlin et al (1973), Stromer and Osborne (1982), and Wetherby, Karlan, and Spradlin (1983) have previously shown that subjects could demonstrate purely visual classes. Our research sought to extend these earlier findings by establishing the conditions for larger classes, determining the role of naming, and testing all the requisite, intermediate equivalences.…”