THE EFFECT OF BASELINE TRAINING STRUCTURE ON EQUIVALENCE CLASS FORMATION IN CHILDREN

Abstract

Stimulus equivalence refers to the observation that training a set of overlapping conditional relations (hereafter, baseline relations) results in many other conditional relations that are not directly trained but are nevertheless systematically related to or derived from the originally trained conditional relations (hereafter, derived relations). These derived conditional relations instantiate the reversal and recombination of directly trained stimulus functions which are described by the terms reflexivity, symmetry, and transitivity (cf. Sidman & Tailby, 1982). For example, reflexivity is defined as an increased likelihood of selecting comparison stimuli that are identical to the sample stimulus. Symmetry refers to the observation that the directly trained conditional and discriminative functions of stimuli have become reversible. Transitivity refers to the observation that the conditional stimuli from one trained conditional relation are effective in modulating the discriminative functions of stimuli from another conditional relation. In other words, the directly trained conditional and discriminative functions of stimuli are shown to recombine in untrained ways. The derived conditional discriminations define a relation of equivalence among the stimuli (cf. Sidman et al., 1982; Sidman & Tailby, 1982). The resulting equivalence classes can be structurally characterized in terms of the number of stimuli per class, the number of nodes, the distribution of single stimuli, and the training structure (Fields & Verhave, 1987). The present paper is concerned with the role of training