Smeets, Paul M. and van Wijngaarden, Marije and Barnes-Holmes, Dermot and Cullinan, Veronica A. (2004) Assessing stimulus equivalence with a precursor to the relational evaluation procedure. Behavioural Processes, 65. pp. 241-251. ISSN 0376-6357

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Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that, after being trained on multiple match-to-sample (MTS) tasks (A-B, B-C), most human adults respond in accordance with symmetry (B-A, C-B) and equivalence (C-A) when measured with MTS tests and with a precursor to the Relational Evaluation Procedure (pREP). The latter procedure involves conditional go/no-go discrimination tasks, requiring subjects to press a bar during a 5s interval after the successive presentation of two same-class stimuli, and not to press after the presentation of two different-class stimuli (e.g. Ci -->Ai -->press, Ci -->Aj -->no press). The present study was an effort to replicate these findings. The study consisted of five experiments. Very few subjects evidenced pREP symmetry and equivalence unless they had (a) already demonstrated symmetry and equivalence in a MTS test before, or (b) received pREP pretraining with unrelated stimulus pairs and symmetry was tested before equivalence. Failures to show symmetry were always associated with pressing at or close to 50% of these trials. Failures to show equivalence were associated with pressing or not pressing on (almost) all trials. Current findings are similar to those obtained in equivalence studies involving MTS probes permitting the subjects not to respond to the designated comparisons.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Stimulus equivalence; Go/no-go successive discrimination; Matching to sample; Test protocol; Adult humans;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology
Item ID:	14798
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2003.10.004
Depositing User:	Prof. Dermot Barnes-Holmes
Date Deposited:	07 Sep 2021 15:04
Journal or Publication Title:	Behavioural Processes
Publisher:	Elsevier
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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