Contextual control and stimulus equivalence

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to evaluate efficiency of the order of exposure to different types of conditional discriminations in the emergence of contextual control over the composition of stimulus equivalence classes as well as the transfer of this control between equivalent stimuli. Two experiments were conducted with four college studentes in each one. Both presentation of stimuli on the computer screen and the recording of responses by pressing keys on the computer keyboard were control ed by specific software. In Experiment 1, subjects were first exposed to contextual control training over twelve conditional discriminations, six AB, and six Be relations. Subjects were then exposed to contextual control tests over derived conditional relations. Following, training (XY, XZ) and testing (ZY. YZ, ZX, YX) of simple conditional relations took place. The experiment ended with tests of transference of contextual stimulus control. In Experiment 2, subjects were exposed to training and testing of contextual control after simple conditional discriminations training and testing. Seven subjects showed positive results in the tests, and six showed delayed emergence of tested relations. AII subjects showed immediate emergence of simple conditional relations as well as transfer of contextual control between equivelent stimuli. The results suggested that previous exposure to the training and testing of simple conditional discrimination could be regarded as an efficient condition to produce the emergence of consistent contextual control over equivalence classes. However the emergence of behavioral repertories that may be described by analytical unit of five terms were attained independently of the order of exposure as used in Experiments 1 and 2.