Smeets, Paul M. and Barnes-Holmes, Dermot and Roche, Bryan (1997) Functional equivalence in children. Derived stimulus-Response and stimulus-stimulus relations. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 66 (1). pp. 1-17. ISSN 0022-0965

Preview

Download (71kB) | Preview

Abstract

The present study investigated the simultaneous occurrence of emergent stimulus–response relations (functional equivalence) and stimulus–stimulus relations (stimulus equivalence). After being pretrained and tested on two symbolic match-to-sample tasks (X1-Y1, X2-Y2), 20 4- and 5-year-old children were trained to emit specified responses to pairs of stimuli (A1-R1, B1-R1, A2-R2, B2-R2) in one setting (original training) and to emit other responses to one member of each pair (A1-R3, A2-R4) in another setting (reassignment training). Of the 18 children who responded correctly on all trained tasks, 15 emitted the novel responses also in the presence of the nonreassigned stimuli (B1-R3, B2-R4). Eleven of these children also matched same-class stimuli with one another (A1-B1, A2-B2, and vice versa). Additional tests with four of these children documented the formation of conditional response–stimulus relations (R3-B1, R4-B2) in all four children, and of conditional response–response relations (R1-R3, R2-R4, and vice versa) in two of them. Children who did not show stimulus control transfer also failed to match same-class stimuli with one another. Present findings, together with those obtained in animal research, suggest that functional equivalence can imply but does not require stimulus equivalence.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Functional equivalence; children; Derived; stimulus-Response; stimulus-stimulus; relations;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology
Item ID:	14821
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1006/jecp.1997.2378
Depositing User:	Prof. Dermot Barnes-Holmes
Date Deposited:	14 Sep 2021 15:42
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
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

Repository Staff Only(login required)

Item control page

Downloads

Origin of downloads