Association for Behavior Analysis International

The symposium consists of four studies on equivalence class formation. In the first presentation, Lian and Arntzen present a study in which eight adult participants experienced an extended number of test trials. The results showed that one participant responded in accordance with stimulus equivalence in all test blocks. Three participants, despite two of them showed high accuracy on maintenance of directly trained conditional discriminations in the first test block, did not respond in accordance with stimulus equivalence and showed by chance level responding in the last test blocks. Four participants did not respond in accordance with equivalence in the first test block, but did so in the second or third test block. In the second presentation, Vie and Arntzen present an experiment with talk-aloud protocols in delayed matching-to-sample tasks, which involved participants talking aloud while performing tasks. The results showed an increase in number of talking episodes from training to test. In the third presentation, Steingrimsdottir and Arntzen present a study with two adult participants whom were exposed to arbitrary MTS tasks. The purpose was to titrate the delay to an asymptotic level when the length of the delay was determined by the participant's correct/incorrect responses. The results from Experiment 1 showed that for one participant, the maximum titration delay was 11.000 ms whereas it reached up to 21.500 ms for the other. Hence, considerable individual differences were observed. Therefore, to study some of the variables that affect responding a single subject design was employed in Experiment 2. Here, the same participant was exposed to TDMTS to asymptotic level with two conditions. In A condition, the delay increased or decreased by 500 ms whereas in the B condition the delay increased/decreased by 100 ms. In the last presentation, Hansen and Arntzen present study in which the purpose was to explore the differential outcomes among eye-response topographies, when using head-mounted eye-tracking technology equipment during the formation of both three 3-member as well as six 3-member stimulus equivalence classes, respectively. Singe-subject designed, five university-college students, all between 20 and 35 years of age are scheduled to participate in this study. A discussion will draw specific attention to the operant selection of certain topographical eye-responses (i.e., fixations and movement patterns).

In the present study, the participants experienced an extended number of test trials. Following the establishment of 12 conditional discriminations in three five-member classes, the participants experienced test for symmetry, transitivity and equivalence test trials in random order with directly trained conditional discriminations interspersed. Each trial type was presented five times during this test block, yielding 300 test trials. This test block was repeated five times, constituting a total of 1500 test trials per participant. Participants were offered a 10-15 minutes break in between the test blocks. All of the trial types in all test blocks were presented without programmed consequences. The results show that one participant responded in accordance with stimulus equivalence in all test blocks. Three participants, despite two of them showed high accuracy on maintenance of directly trained conditional discriminations in the first test block, did not respond in accordance with stimulus equivalence and showed by chance level responding in the last test blocks. Four participants did not respond in accordance with equivalence in the first test block, but did so in the second or third test block. In all of these participants, responding was stable and accurate for the remaining test blocks. The latter results are not consistent with Sidman's Big Bag theory, proposing that all derived relations should immediately emerge following the establishment of the baseline conditional discriminations.

Talk-aloud protocols involve that participants is saying out loud what they are thinking while preforming tasks. Talk-aloud protocols have not widely been used in behavior analytic research. There are several valid reasons for this. First and foremost, talk-aloud protocols, can at best, produce an indirect measure of on-task performance, which can be measured directly. Another problematic aspect is that the interpretation of talk aloud data is challenging, and since the data is not collected automatically, there is room for subjective bias from the experimenters that are systemizing the data. In the current study, what the participants are talking about is not the main focus, but when they are talking. This removes some of the challenges with the systemization of talk-aloud data. A Delayed matching-to-sample procedure was used, were the participants were asked to talk-aloud for the first 18 training trials, and then stop talking until the phase with 0 % programmed consequences was initiated. The participants then talked-aloud until the end of the experiment. The results in general, so far, show that there is an increase in talking from training to test.

In a matching-to-sample (MTS) procedure, the stimuli can be presented simultaneously on the screen (simultaneous MTS) or with a delay between the offset of the sample stimulus and onset of the comparison stimuli (delayed matching-to-sample or DMTS). The delay can remain constant throughout training (fixed DMTS) or vary as a function of correct/incorrect responses (titrating DMTS or TDMTS). In the current experiment, two adult participants were exposed to arbitrary MTS tasks where the purpose was to study which value the longest delay would be when the length of the delay was determined by the participant's correct/incorrect responses. Training started with 0s DMTS and when the participant did 6/6 correct responses, the delay increased with 500ms. If the participant got 5/6 correct or less, the delay decreased correspondingly. The criterion for asymptotic level was met when the participant mastered a given value, and did not master the value above, six times in a row. The results showed that for one participant, the maximum titration delay was 11.000ms whereas it reached up to 21.500ms for the other. Hence, there are considerable individual differences when using TDMTS to asymptotic level. Therefore, to study variables that affect responding during TDMTS to asymptotic level a single subject design was employed in Experiment 2. Here, the same participant was exposed to TDMTS to asymptotic level with two conditions. In A condition, the delay increased or decreased by 500ms whereas in the B condition the delay increased/decreased by 100ms. Based on current findings, suggestion to future studies will be made.

Accompanying eye-tracking technology with matching-to-sample performance, it has been shown that distinguishable observing behaviors, or eye-response topographies (i.e., fixation-duration, fixation-frequency, as well as saccade pattern), vary among different conditional discrimination procedures (i.e., Dube, 2006). Furthermore, an unknown number of dependent molecular variables, which potentially could contribute to the establishment of stimulus equivalence class formation when introducing the most used training structures (i.e., Many-to-One, One-to-Many, or Linear Series), as well as increasing classes from three to six, with 3 members in each, have yet to be established. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to explore the differential outcomes among eye-response topographies, when using head-mounted eye-tracking technology equipment during the formation of both three 3-member as well as six 3-member stimulus equivalence classes, respectively. Singe-subject designed, five university-college students, all between 20 and 35 years of age, are scheduled to participate in this study. Based on the procedural fact that the three training structures (i.e., MTO, OTM, and LS) not only present sample stimuli but also comparison stimuli differently, we also expect to find significant differential results in observing behavior topography. Finally, a discussion will draw specific attention to the operant selection of certain topographical eye-responses (i.e., fixations and movement patterns) in the applied analysis of behavior.