Abstract
Adults with autism and young children first learned to match one-element comparison stimuli to two-element sample stimuli Test conditions then examined whether each of the individual sample elements (a) controlled selections of the comparison stimuli to which they were related during training, (b) were interchangeable with one another as either sample or comparison stimuli, and (c) were interchangeable with the original comparison stimuli. Test data were positive and suggested the formation of three-member stimulus classes. Subsequent experiments demonstrated the formation of four-member classes by (a) adding novel stimuli by training outside the original context; (b) adding novel stimulus elements to the two-element samples used during baseline training; and (c) training with three-element rather than two-element sample stimuli from the outset. Results suggest that acquisition of stimulus classes may be one of the benefits of broad rather than restricted attention to the components of complex stimuli.
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This research received support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant HD25995, and the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation (Contract No. 100220023SC). Some of these data were collected with support and assistance from the staff of the New England Center for Autism. Experiment 1B is based on Russell Maguire's doctoral dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology, Northeastern University. We thank Bill Dube for his helpful comments on a draft of the manuscript.
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Maguire, R.W., Stromer, R., Mackay, H.A. et al. Matching to complex samples and stimulus class formation in adults with autism and young children. J Autism Dev Disord 24, 753–772 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172284
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172284