Discrimination of highly similar stimuli as members of different equivalence classes.

Learning to discriminate between physically similar stimuli as members of different classes can be relevant in certain situations. This study investigated effective methods of displaying two pairs of quasi-identical stimuli, as samples and/or comparisons, during the training of baseline conditional discriminations. The goal was to enable participants to form three 3-member equivalence classes and discriminate similar stimuli as members of distinct equivalence classes.

Evidence of precurrent responses expanding equivalence classes in a delayed matching-to-sample task.

Delayed matching to sample (DMTS) increases the probability of equivalence class formation. Precurrent responses can mediate the retention interval in DMTS trials and control the selection of comparisons. In human participants, precurrent responses usually consist of naming the experimental stimuli based on their similarities to meaningful stimuli with preexperimental history.

Cooperative responding in rats: II. Performance on fixed-ratio schedules of mutual reinforcement.

Coordinated responses of 5 dyads of rats were investigated under fixed-ratio (FR) schedules of mutual water reinforcement. Coordinated responding was defined as 2 consecutive lever-presses, 1 from each of 2 rats, occurring <.5 s apart.

Murray Sidman: A life of giving.

Murray Sidman's contributions to the science of behavior span many areas including avoidance behavior, coercion and its effects, stimulus control, errorless learning, programmed learning, stimulus equivalence, and single-subject methodology. He was also a great mentor to many and helped shape the discipline we now call behavior analysis. In this memoriam, we briefly highlight his scholarly legacy and share some personal anecdotes.

Simple discrimination in stingless bees (Melipona quadrifasciata): Probing for select- and reject-stimulus control.

Simple and conditional discrimination training may produce various types of controlling relations. Responses may be controlled primarily by the positive stimulus (select-control relation) or by the negative stimulus (reject-control relation; the subject excludes the negative stimulus and chooses the positive). Bees learn to respond in simple and conditional discriminations.

Cooperative responding in rats maintained by fixed- and variable-ratio schedules.

The present study investigated the effects of fixed-ratio (FR) and variable-ratio (VR) reinforcement schedules on patterns of cooperative responding in pairs of rats. Experiment 1 arranged FR 1, FR 10, and VR 10 schedules to establish cooperative responding (water delivery depended on the joint responding of two rats). Cooperative response rates and proportions were higher under intermittent schedules than under continuous reinforcement.

Generalization of equivalence relations from photos to objects by preschool children.

Generalized equivalence classes are stimulus classes that consist of equivalent stimuli and other physically similar class-member stimuli. The present study evaluated whether preschool children would form equivalence classes among photos of abstract objects (2D) and show equivalence generalization to the corresponding objects (3D), printed photos (2D stimuli), and to black-and-white drawn pictures (2D stimuli). Six typically developing children were taught arbitrary relations to establish three 3-member equivalence classes with 2D stimuli presented on a computer screen.

Using class-specific compound consequences to teach dictated and printed letter relations to a child with autism.

The effects of class-specific compound consequences embedded in an identity-matching task to establish arbitrary emergent relations were evaluated. A 3-year-old child with autism was taught identity relations between lowercase letters (Set 1) and uppercase letters (Set 2). A compound stimulus that consisted of an auditory component (dictated letter name) and a visual component (an uppercase letter for Set 1 or lowercase letter for Set 2) followed correct responses.

Sentence production after listener and echoic training by prelingual deaf children with cochlear implants.

Three children with neurosensory deafness who used cochlear implants were taught to match video clips to dictated sentences. We used matrix training with overlapping components and tested for recombinative generalization. Two 3 × 3 matrices generated 18 sentences.

Emergence of auditory-visual relations from a visual-visual baseline with auditory-specific consequences in individuals with autism.

Empirical studies have demonstrated that class-specific contingencies may engender stimulus-reinforcer relations. In these studies, crossmodal relations emerged when crossmodal relations comprised the baseline, and intramodal relations emerged when intramodal relations were taught during baseline. This study investigated whether auditory-visual relations (crossmodal) would emerge after participants learned a visual-visual baseline (intramodal) with auditory stimuli presented as specific consequences.

A comparative study of relational learning capacity in honeybees (Apis mellifera) and stingless bees (Melipona rufiventris).

Background: Learning of arbitrary relations is the capacity to acquire knowledge about associations between events or stimuli that do not share any similarities, and use this knowledge to make behavioural choices. This capacity is well documented in humans and vertebrates, and there is some evidence it exists in the honeybee (Apis mellifera). However, little is known about whether the ability for relational learning extends to other invertebrates, although many insects have been shown to possess excellent learning capacities in spite of their small brains.

Emergent relations in pigeons following training with temporal samples.

In two experiments, we investigated emergent conditional relations in pigeons using a symbolic matching-to-sample task with temporal stimuli as the samples and hues as the comparisons. Both experiments comprised three phases. In Phase I, pigeons learned to choose a red keylight (R) but not a green keylight (G) after a 1-s signal.

Recombinative reading derived from pseudoword instruction in a miniature linguistic system.

A miniature linguistic system was used to study acquisition of recombinative symbolic behavior. Three studies evaluated the teaching conditions of conditional discriminations with printed and spoken pseudowords that could potentially generate recombinative reading. Fifty-four college students across all studies learned to match 12 printed pseudowords to 12 spoken pseudowords.

Teaching Generative Reading Via Recombination of Minimal Textual Units: A Legacy of Verbal Behavior to Children in Brazil.

This paper reports results of two studies that sought to teach generative reading skills to a large group of Brazilian children who were exhibiting protracted failure in school. Inspired by Skinner's analysis of verbal relations and minimal verbal units, the methodology took advantage of certain characteristics of Portuguese. Many words in this language are comprised of two-letter syllabic units (e.

Relational learning in children with deafness and cochlear implants.

This four-experiment series sought to evaluate the potential of children with neurosensory deafness and cochlear implants to exhibit auditory-visual and visual-visual stimulus equivalence relations within a matching-to-sample format. Twelve children who became deaf prior to acquiring language (prelingual) and four who became deaf afterwards (postlingual) were studied. All children learned auditory-visual conditional discriminations and nearly all showed emergent equivalence relations.

REVERSAL LEARNING SET AND FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE IN CHILDREN WITH AND WITHOUT AUTISM.

To evaluate whether children with and without autism could exhibit (a) functional equivalence in the course of yoked repeated-reversal training and (b) reversal learning set, 6 children, in each of two experiments, were exposed to simple discrimination contingencies with three sets of stimuli. The discriminative functions of the set members were yoked and repeatedly reversed. In Experiment 1, all the children (of preschool age) showed gains in the efficiency of reversal learning across reversal problems and behavior that suggested formation of functional equivalence.

Effects of delayed constructed-response identity matching on spelling of dictated words.

We studied the effects of delayed constructed-response identity matching on spelling with 6 first graders with histories of school failure. After training, the children learned to spell words to dictation and their cursive writing improved. These results replicate studies showing that delayed constructed-response matching establishes spelling.