Randell, T. & Remington, B. (2006).
Equivalence relations, contextual control, and naming.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 86, 337-354.
This paper reports two experiments that investigated the role of
verbal behavior in the emergence and generalization of contextually
controlled equivalence classes. During both experiments, participants
were trained with two different combinations of the same easily nameable,
yet formally unrelated, pictorial stimuli. Match-to-sample baselines for
eight four-member classes were established under the contextual control
of two colors. In the presence of one color, conditional relations were
established between stimuli whose normative names rhymed. In the presence
of the other color, conditional relations were established between stimuli
whose normative names did not rhyme. Although, during Experiment 1, all
participants demonstrated equivalence classes involving rhyming stimuli,
none demonstrated the formation of nonrhyme equivalence classes. To
investigate this finding, Experiment 2 evaluated whether participants
would demonstrate both rhyme and nonrhyme equivalence classes gi
ven more extensive exposure to the experimental contingencies. All
participants demonstrated contextually controlled rhyme and nonrhyme
equivalence classes, although rhyme classes were demonstrated with greater
facility than nonrhyme classes. Results indicate that visual stimuli are
named, that verbal bases for stimulus classification can affect the emergence
of contextually controlled equivalence classes, and that untrained
contextually controlled conditional discriminations involving novel stimuli
can emerge on the basis of participants’ verbal behavior.
Key words: stimulus equivalence, contextual control, naming, verbal behavior,
generalization, match-to-sample, adult humans