A precursor to the relational evaluation procedure: searching for the contextual cues that control equivalence responding.

Abstract

The precursor to the relational evaluation procedure (pREP) is a go/no-go successive discrimination procedure for examining stimulus equivalence. Previous research has shown that it does not readily produce equivalence responding unless some matching-to-sample (MTS) procedures are incorporated into the experimental sequence. Two experiments attempted to identify contextual cues that would generate equivalence responding on the pREP. Experiment 1 examined the effects of using abstract symbols or various verbal labels as response options on the pREP. Only the words same and different, when used as response options, reliably produced equivalence responding across 4 subjects. Experiment 2 examined different pretraining preparations designed to attach the functions of the words same and different to abstract symbols that could then be used as response options on the pREP. The most effective pretraining procedure involved multiple-exemplar training during which subjects were trained to respond to abstract symbols in the presence of pairs of stimuli that were either formally the same or different. The abstract symbols were subsequently used as response options with the pREP, and all subjects reliably demonstrated equivalence responding. The findings suggest that the relations of same and different may be fundamental to equivalence responding. These findings are discussed in terms of what they suggest about the nature of the equivalence phenomenon specifically and derived relational responding more generally.