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Increasing the Generativity of Identity-Based Procedures for Establishing Arbitrary Conditional Relations

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Abstract

Previous studies have shown that conditional discrimination training procedures involving identity matching to complex samples can produce emergent arbitrary relations. Identity-based training with complex stimuli therefore may be a valuable procedure for efficiently generating large networks of stimulus relations. The present study was an attempt to increase the yield of emergent relations from identity-based procedures by (a) including an extra (cross-modal) stimulus among the elements of the complex sample that was not implicated directly in the experimental contingencies and (b) including this extra stimulus in overlapping stimulus sets to promote the merger of separately trained classes. Identity-based relations were taught in the format of ABCD-X, in which Stimuli A, B, and C were visual symbols presented as a compound, D was an auditory stimulus presented simultaneously with the ABC compound, and X was a correct comparison stimulus identical to A, B, or C. Four 4-member stimulus classes emerged from this training, and pairs of classes sharing an auditory stimulus (D) subsequently merged to form two 7-member classes. The training of 12 identity-based relations produced 72 untrained arbitrary relations. This yield rivals that expected from stimulus equivalence procedures involving arbitrary-matching training and thus provides encouragement for the extension of identity-based procedures in the field of stimulus equivalence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Auburn University, 1300 Moursund, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Scott D. Lane & Thomas S. Critchfield

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  1. Scott D. Lane
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  2. Thomas S. Critchfield
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Correspondence to Scott D. Lane.

Additional information

This research was part of a doctoral dissertation conducted by Scott D. Lane at Auburn University. Portions of the data were presented at the 1996 Association for Behavior Analysis Conference in San Francisco. Preparation of the manuscript was supported in part by a National Service Research Award to Scott Lane from the National Institutes of Health (DA05774), and by the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The authors thank Robert Stromer, William Dube, and William Mcllvane for helpful comments that aided the construction of the procedures and earlier versions of this manuscript

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Lane, S.D., Critchfield, T.S. Increasing the Generativity of Identity-Based Procedures for Establishing Arbitrary Conditional Relations. Psychol Rec 48, 457–479 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395284

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