The effect of number and relatedness of verbal discriminanda upon differential eyelid conditioning

Abstract

The effects on differential eyelid conditioning of the number and relatedness of visually presented words used as the reinforced and nonreinforced conditioned stimuli was investigated. Simple differential conditioning with one reinforced word and one nonreinforced word was contrasted with multiple conditioned discrimination where there were two, three, or four words in the reinforced and nonreinforced sets. Groups receiving more than one word per set were subdivided; for half of each group the words were all unrelated, and for the other half of the S s the words were conceptually related within each set, so that, for example, a S might be conditioned to blink to the concept “bodies of water” and not to the concept “fruit.” When unrelated words were employed, increasing the set size made for poorer terminal discrimination. If, however, the words were related, S s giving the V form of the eyelid CR were able to utilize the conceptual relatedness to preserve or possibly to enhance their terminal discrimination as the set size was increased. The S s giving the C form of the eyelid CR were evidently unable to utilize the conceptual relatedness of the verbal stimuli, and their terminal discrimination was markedly poorer when the set size was increased.