Saunders, K. J., & Williams, D. C. (1998).
Do parakeets exhibit derived stimulus control? Some thoughts on experimental control procedures.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
70, 321-324.
Breaking new ground in the study of emergent
stimulus control in nonverbal subjects may require innovation in
procedures. A recent study of parakeets is exemplary. This study
used intricate procedures for maintaining test-trial performance
without differential reinforcement of the target emergent
performance. Also, it used successive simple discrimination
procedures, which are rare in such studies. Given the importance
of these innovations and the outcomes that they produced, we
suggest additional control procedures that would rule out the
possibility of adventitious reinforcement of the test-trial
performances.
Key words: adventitious reinforcement, stimulus
equivalence, symmetry, parakeets