The establishment of auditory–visual equivalence classes with a go/no‐go successive matching‐to‐sample procedure

Abstract

The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a go/no‐go successive matching‐to‐sample procedure (S‐MTS) to establish auditory–visual equivalence classes with college students. A sample and a comparison were presented, one at a time, in the same location. During training, after an auditory stimulus was presented, a green box appeared in the center of the screen for participants to touch to produce the comparison. Touching the visual comparison that was related to the auditory sample (e.g., A1B1) produced points, while touching or refraining from touching an unrelated comparison (e.g., A1B2) produced no consequences. Following AB/AC training, participants were tested on untrained relations (i.e., BA/CA and BC/CB), as well as tacting and sorting. During BA/CA relations tests, after touching the visual sample, the auditory stimulus was presented along with a white box for participants to respond. During BC/CB relations tests, after touching the visual sample, a visual comparison appeared. Across 2 experiments, all participants met emergence criterion for untrained relations and for sorting. Additionally, 14 out of 24 participants tacted all visual stimuli correctly. Results suggest the auditory–visual S‐MTS procedure is an effective alternative to simultaneous MTS for establishing conditional relations and auditory‐visual equivalence classes.

The establishment of auditory equivalence classes with a go/no‐go successive matching‐to‐sample procedure

“…Further, 14 out of 24 participants could also tact the visual stimuli, showing a transfer from listener to speaker behavior. In combination, the results from previous research (Howland et al, 2021; Lantaya et al, 2018; Zhelezoglo et al, 2021) seem to support the use of S‐MTS as an alternative to simultaneous three‐choice MTS.…”

“…Words were input into a text‐to‐speech application and converted to audio files. Written instructions for each condition were presented on separate index cards measuring 7.62 x 12.7 cm with Times New Roman 12‐point font and were adapted from previous research (Howland et al, 2021; Zhelezoglo et al, 2021; see Table 2). Participants were required to read instructions silently and then summarize them aloud to the primary investigator prior to each condition.…”

“…duration of 8 s regardless of whether participants touched/clicked the white box or refrained from doing so (Debert et al, 2009;Howland et al, 2021;Lantaya et al, 2018;Zhelezoglo et al, 2021).…”

“…In a typical go/no-go S-MTS trial, a sample stimulus appears, followed by an observing response (e.g., selecting the sample stimulus), after which an individual comparison stimulus is presented in its place. If the comparison stimulus falls within the same class as the sample, participants are taught to touch the comparison (go), and if the comparison and sample are unrelated, participants are taught to refrain from touching (no-go) the comparison (Cullinan et al, 1998(Cullinan et al, , 2000Frank & Wasserman, 2005;Howland et al, 2021;Lantaya et al, 2018;Smeets et al, 2006;Zhelezoglo et al, 2021). Lantaya et al (2018) utilized a go/no-go S-MTS procedure to establish visual-visual conditional relations among stimuli.…”

“…Most recently, Zhelezoglo et al (2021) utilized similar procedures to establish two and three 3-member cross-modal classes with auditory and visual stimuli. All 24 participants (college students) met emergence criterion during transitivity/equivalence posttests.…”