An Evaluation of Two Stimulus Equivalence Training Sequences on the Emergence of Novel Intraverbals

Emergence of a three-sample conditional discrimination as foundation for reasoning capabilities

We hypothesized that a three-sample conditional discrimination can emerge as a result of learning conditional discriminations with relational stimuli. After learning three first-order conditional discriminations AB, PQ, and CD, we taught a second-order conditional discrimination XAB in which X1 indicated selection of related stimuli (e.g., A1 and B1) and X2 of unrelated stimuli (e.g., A1 and B2). Then, we probed the emergence of conditional discriminations PQX and XCD in which the X stimuli were comparisons and contextual stimuli, respectively. Finally, a conditional discrimination was probed with stimuli P, Q, and C as samples and D1 and D2 as comparisons. When the P and Q stimuli were related (and related to X1 in PQX), all participants selected the D stimulus that was related to the C stimulus (D1 when C1 was present and D2 when C2 was present); when the P and Q stimuli were unrelated (and related to X2 in PQX), they selected the D stimulus unrelated to the C stimulus (D2 when C1 and D1 when C2), which demonstrated emergence based on the relations established among all stimuli. In Experiment 2, the teaching of XAB was omitted and only one in six participants demonstrated emergence, which indicated that relational stimuli X1 and X2 played an important role in emergence. Thus, a new type of emergence that mimics analogical reasoning was demonstrated. The obtained outcome suggests that this procedure provides a learning foundation for acquiring reasoning capabilities.

Emergent Relations between Discriminative Stimuli, Responses, and Consequences in Intraverbals

We explored the emergence of relations between stimuli learned as discriminative, responses, and consequences with intraverbals. In Experiment 1, five 9- and 10-year-old children learned intraverbals that related a country (A) with a city (B)—e.g., “Name a city of Switzerland”; “Davos”—and that country with a predator animal (C). Correct responses were followed by saying the name of a feature of the city (T) or saying an animal preyed by the predator (U), respectively. The emergence of BC and CB intraverbals that relate the cities and the predators and that of intraverbals that relate the specific consequences to the cities (T-B and U-B) and to the prey animals (T-C and U-C) was probed with no differential consequences. All five children demonstrated the emergence of BC, CB, U-B, and U-C and four children also demonstrated the emergence of T-B and T-C. In Experiment 2, a simpler procedure that controlled a possible extraneous factor, was used with seven 7- and 8-year old children and they also demonstrated emergence. Thus, the emergence of verbal relations with elements taught as discriminative stimuli, responses, and consequences was demonstrated.

Translational evaluation of training structures in equivalence-based instruction

We used a laboratory preparation to evaluate the claim that equivalence-based instruction (EBI) is an efficient form of instruction due to eliminating the need for emergent relations to be taught. Three groups of college students received training to establish 3 stimulus classes with 4 members in each class. Two groups received either a linear series (EBI-LS) or a 1-to-many training structure (EBI-OTM group). A control group received complete instruction (CI) that targeted all possible relations between the members of each class. The EBI-OTM group required fewer trials to complete instruction compared to CI, whereas EBI-LS did not. The EBI-OTM and the CI groups performed equally well on a posttest that followed initial attainment of the mastery criterion, whereas the EBI-LS group performed more poorly than the other 2. The groups' performance on a function transfer test did not differ. The results support the claim that compared to CI, EBI is an efficient form of instruction when it follows an OTM structure. However, they also suggest this efficiency advantage cannot be attributed to the fewer relations that need to be taught in EBI, as the EBI-OTM and the EBI-LS groups were trained on the same number of relations.