Six-member stimulus classes generated by conditional-discrimination procedures

Abstract

In conditional-discrimination procedures with three sets of stimuli, A, B, and C, three stimuli per set (A1A2A3, B1B2B3, and C1C2C3), subjects (children and adults) learned to select Set-B and Set-C comparisons conditionally upon Set-A samples (A1B1, A1C1, A2B2, A2C2, A3B3, A3C3). If the conditional-discrimination procedures also generated equivalence relations, three 3-member stimulus classes would be demonstrable, A1B1C1, A2B2C2, and A3B3C3. In addition to these three sets, the present experiments used three other sets of stimuli--D, E, and F. The subjects learned to select Set-E and Set-F comparisons conditionally upon Set-D samples (D1E1, D1F1, D2E2, D2F2, D3E3, D3F3). This established a second group of three 3-member stimulus classes, D1E1F1, D2E2F2, and D3E3F3. In all, two groups of three 3-member classes were established by teaching subjects 12 conditional discriminations. The two groups of 3-member classes were then combined (successfully for 5 of 8 subjects) into a single group of three 6-member classes by teaching the subjects three more conditional relations (E1C1, E2C2, and E3C3). With three other children, enlarging the classes one member at a time also produced 6-member classes. As a consequence of class formation, 60 untrained conditional relations emerged from 15 that had been explicitly taught. Six of the subjects also proved capable of naming the stimuli consistently in accord with their class membership, but two subjects demonstrated class formation even in the absence of consistent naming.