Saunders R R, Saunders K J, Kirby K C, Spradlin J E
Bureau of Child Research, Parsons, Kansas 67357.
J Exp Anal Behav. 1988 Sep;50(2):145-62. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1988.50-145.
Three experiments assessed the likelihood that subjects with histories of equivalence class development would respond conditionally on new discriminations in the absence of differential consequences for responses. In the first two experiments, two groups of subjects with different experimental histories, but whose performances showed four equivalence classes, responded on trials without explicit reinforcement involving samples from two of the classes and comparisons from the other two classes, in a two-choice matching-to-sample format. Subjects consistently selected a particular comparison in the presence of a particular sample. Subsequent tests showed the emergence of equivalence relations between stimuli from classes linked by the unreinforced conditional selections. Subsequently, in Experiment II, the subjects' responses in the conditional selection trials were reinforced if the selection was reversed from that made previously. Although reversed selection was maintained, 2 of the 3 subjects continued to perform on equivalence relation trials according to their original unreinforced selections. In the third experiment, these 2 subjects responded on a series of conditional discriminations involving three new pairs of sample stimuli and one new pair of comparison stimuli. No explicit reinforcement followed responses on any trial in this experiment. Subsequent tests for equivalence between sample stimuli revealed the development of two equivalence classes.
三项实验评估了具有等价类形成历史的受试者在对反应没有差异后果的情况下，是否会对新的辨别做出条件性反应。在前两项实验中，两组具有不同实验历史但表现出四个等价类的受试者，以二选一的匹配样本形式，在没有明确强化的试验中做出反应，这些试验涉及来自其中两个类别的样本以及来自另外两个类别的比较刺激。受试者在特定样本出现时始终选择特定的比较刺激。随后的测试表明，通过未强化的条件选择而关联的类别中的刺激之间出现了等价关系。随后，在实验二中，如果选择与之前的选择相反，则强化受试者在条件选择试验中的反应。尽管反向选择得以维持，但三名受试者中有两名在等价关系试验中继续按照他们原来未强化的选择进行操作。在第三个实验中，这两名受试者对一系列涉及三对新的样本刺激和一对新的比较刺激的条件辨别做出反应。在这个实验中，任何试验的反应之后都没有明确的强化。随后对样本刺激之间等价性的测试揭示了两个等价类的形成。
