Abstract
If stimulus equivalence is a model of meaning, abstract stimuli should acquire the meaning of meaningful stimuli equivalent to them. In Experiment 1, college students matched faces expressing emotions to arbitrary pictures, forming three classes of equivalent stimuli, each comprising an emotional expression and three arbitrary pictures. Semantic differential judgments by students who formed equivalence classes were similar to evaluations of the faces, and this similarity increased when delayed matching was used in training. Experiment 2 found that pictures distant 1-node from the faces were judged as similar to them and pictures distant 3-nodes were not. Therefore, abstract stimuli acquired functions of meaningful stimuli equivalent to them, but this depended on experimental parameters such as delayed matching and nodal distance.
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Renato Bortoloti (now at Universidade Federal de São Carlos), Programa de Pós-Graduação em Teoria e Pesquisa do Comportamento; Julio C. de Rose, Departamento de Psicologia.
This study is based on part of a dissertation submitted by the first author to the Graduate Program in Theory and Research on Behavior, Universidade Federal do Pará, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a doctoral degree. The first author was supported by a graduate fellowship from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and the second author was supported by a research productivity grant from CNPq. The research was conducted with support by the State of São Paulo Foundation for Support of Research (FAPESP), Grant 03/09928-4. Preparation of the manuscript was also supported by a FAPESP postdoctoral fellowship for the first author, Grant 07/51120-5. We thank Olavo de Faria Galvão, William J. McIlvane, and Deisy G. de Souza for contributions and encouragement for this research; we also thank Lanny Fields for his thoughtful suggestions on the manuscript.
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Bortoloti, R., de Rose, J.C. Assessment of the Relatedness of Equivalent Stimuli Through a Semantic Differential. Psychol Rec 59, 563–590 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395682
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395682