INCONGRUOUS STIMULUS PAIRING AND CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATION TRAINING: EFFECTS ON RELATIONAL RESPONDING

Abstract

In Experiment 1, 5 subjects were exposed to a stimulus‐pairing procedure in which two nonsense syllables, identified by a letter‐number code as A1 and C2, each predicted the onset of a sexual film clip, and the nonsense syllables A2 and C1 each predicted the onset of a nonsexual film clip. Subjects were then exposed to a matching‐to‐sample test in which the nonsense syllables A1 and A2 were presented as sample stimuli and C1 and C2 were presented as comparison stimuli and vice versa (i.e., C stimuli as samples and A stimuli as comparisons). All subjects matched A1 with C2 and A2 with C1. Subjects were then trained on the conditional discriminations A1‐B1, A2‐B2, B1‐C1, B2‐C2, after which the matching‐to‐sample test was again administered. All subjects continued to match A1 with C2 and A2 with C1 in accordance with the earlier stimulus‐pairing contingencies. An additional 5 subjects were exposed first to conditional discrimination training and testing before being exposed to the incongruous stimulus pairing and matching‐to‐sample testing. Under these conditions, 4 of the 5 subjects always matched A1 with C1 and A2 with C2. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, except that a matching‐to‐sample test was not administered following the initial training procedure. Under these conditions, matching‐to‐sample test performances were controlled by the contingencies that had immediately preceded the test. Experiment 3 indicated that initial matching‐to‐sample test performances were unlikely to change, even after repeated exposure to incongruous training and testing. Experiment 4 demonstrated that pretraining with unrelated stimulus sets increased the sensitivity of matching‐to‐sample test performances to incongruous contingencies when they were similar in format to those arranged during pretraining. These data may have implications for a behavior‐analytic interpretation of attitude formation and change.