Establishing auditory stimulus control over an eight-member equivalence class via conditional discrimination procedures

Abstract

Two eight-member equivalence classes of visual stimuli were established during three phases of a training program. In Phase 1, two training arrangements were compared. In one, 3 subjects were taught on different trials to select from a single pair of comparison stimuli (A1, A2) in response to eight sample stimuli that were trained in pairs (B1, B2; C1, C2; D1, D2; E1, E2). In the second arrangement, subjects were taught to select from four pairs of comparisons (B1, B2; C1, C2; D3, D2; E2, E2) in response to two samples (A1, A2). Training with the single pair of comparison stimuli resulted in the development of equivalence relations (B1C1, B2C2, D1B1, D2B2, B1E1, B2E2, C1D1, C2D2, C1E1, C2E2, D1E1, D2E2, and their reciprocals) between the sample stimuli without direct training of these relations. In the other training arrangement, these relations among the comparison stimuli developed in the performance of 1 subject only. In Phase 2, three new pairs of stimuli (F1, F2; G1, G2; H1, H2) were substituted for three of the original pairs (B1, B2; C1, C2; D1, D2) and the training arrangements for the groups were reversed. Following training, the performances that showed equivalence relations on the probes in the first phase also showed equivalence relations in the second phase. If such relations did not develop in the first phase, they did not do so in the second phase. In Phase 3, relations between stimuli across the two previous phases (e.g., B1F1, B2F2, B1G1, B2H2, C1F1, etc.) were investigated. The 4 subjects whose performances showed the development of these relations were taught to select one stimulus from each class (E1 and E2) in response to a verbal label (I1 and I2) and then were tested to see if the verbal label controlled responding to the remaining members of the class (e.g., I1A1, I2A2, I1B1, I2B2, etc.). For 3 subjects, this generalized control occurred; for the 4th, generalization occurred only after verbal training with a second pair of visual stimuli (F1 and F2). In retests several months later, these auditory-visual relations were found to be intact or, if not, were recovered without direct training.