Lane, S. D., & Critchfield, T. S. (1996).
Verbal self-reports of emergent relations in a stimulus equivalence procedure.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
65, 355-374.
During a preliminary training phase, college students were taught
to categorize each of their responses accurately in a conditional
discrimination task as either correct or incorrect. Next, in the
absence of self-reports, subjects acquired conditional
discriminations (involving novel stimuli) prerequisite to the
formation of two four-member equivalence classes. The self-report
procedure was reinstated during probe sessions that tested for
untrained relations indicative of equivalence class formation.
Interspersed trials involving trained relations provided a
positive control, and trials with no class-consistent comparison
provided a negative control. Eight of 10 subjects demonstrated
equivalence class formation; all accurately reported their
performance on trained relations and on trials with no
class-consistent comparison. Subjects also reported their
performance on most untrained (emergent) relations accurately,
but in several instances self-reports indicated failure or
uncertainty despite nearly perfect emergent-relations
performance. These inconsistencies add to a growing body of
literature that suggests there are differences between individual
types of emergent relations. We sugggest that the present
procedure may be helpful in understanding these differences and
other equivalence-related effects.
Key words: equivalence class, matching to sample, differential
discrimination, verbal self-reports, joystick response, college
students