Abstract
The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) has been used as a measure of implicit cognition and has been used to analyze the dynamics of arbitrarily applicable relational responding. The current study uses the IRAP for the latter purpose. Specifically, the current research focuses on a pattern of responding observed in a previously published IRAP study that was difficult to explain using existing conceptual analyses. The pattern is referred to as the single-trial-type dominance effect because one of the IRAP trial types produces an effect that is significantly larger than that of the other three. Based on a post hoc explanation provided in a previously published article, the first experiment in the current series explored the impact of prior experimental experience on the single-trial-type dominance effect. The results indicated that the effect was larger for participants who reported high levels of experimental experience (M = 32.3 previous experiments) versus those who did not (M = 2.5 previous experiments). In the second experiment, participants were required to read out loud the stimuli presented on each trial and the response option they chose. The effect of experimental experience was absent, but the single-trial-type dominance effect remained. In the third experiment, a different set of stimuli than those used in the first two experiments was used in the IRAP, and a significant single-trial-type dominance effect was no longer observed. The results obtained from the three experiments led inductively to the development of a new model of the variables involved in producing IRAP effects—the differential arbitrarily applicable relational responding effects (DAARRE) model—which is presented in the General Discussion.
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Notes
All stimuli used in the current IRAP were presented to participants in Dutch. For the purposes of this article, the English translations will be used. The original Dutch versions of all on-screen instructions and a full list of stimuli are available from the first author on request.
As noted in the Introduction, the term orienting is used to denote a type of Cfunc property. We did consider using alternative terms, such as salience, but we felt that orienting evokes the involvement of a response function for a stimulus. In contrast, salience seems to imply that a stimulus may “stand out” independently of a behavioral history that is attached to it.
Note that coherence refers here to the functional overlap of the Cfunc properties (in this case, the orienting functions for the label and target stimuli and the yes response option) that have been established by the participant’s pre-experimental history of relational responding with regard to those specific stimuli.
The mean effect size and standard error for each trial type for each group are available upon request.
Although perhaps a minor procedural issue, it may be worth noting that the instructions to focus on forks or spoons in Experiment 3 were presented on sheets of paper that participants were asked to physically flip over between blocks of trials. In the study reported by Finn et al. (2016), which did show an effect for different types of instructions on IRAP performances, these were presented on the computer screen between blocks, which may have enhanced their impact.
Although the DAARRE model highlights three variables that may interact to increase or decrease levels of coherence (i.e., the Crel, Cfunc, and RCI properties of the stimuli), we are not proposing three functionally distinct types or classes of coherence. Coherence, as a concept in RFT, may be interpreted as the extent to which a current pattern of arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARRing) is consistent (i.e., coherent) with the behavioral history that gave rise to that AARRing. Critically, the level of coherence involved in a particular pattern of AARRing may be attributable to multiple interactive variables, but this does not imply a different type of coherence for every interactive pattern that may be identified. Coherence thus remains a unitary concept within the DAARRE model as currently expressed.
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The research reported herein was supported by a FWO Type I Odysseus grant (2015–2020) awarded to Dermot Barnes-Holmes.
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Finn, M., Barnes-Holmes, D. & McEnteggart, C. Exploring the Single-Trial-Type-Dominance-Effect in the IRAP: Developing a Differential Arbitrarily Applicable Relational Responding Effects (DAARRE) Model. Psychol Rec 68, 11–25 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-017-0262-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-017-0262-z