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| Novel Procedures in the Study of Equivalence Relations |
| Saturday, May 29, 2010 |
| 1:30 PM–2:50 PM |
| Lone Star Ballroom Salon E (Grand Hyatt) |
| Area: EAB/DEV; Domain: Experimental Analysis |
| Chair: Manish Vaidya (University of North Texas) |
| Abstract: The symposium presents four studies using novel procedures to study equivalence relations. In the first study, Lian and Arntzen describe the results of a procedure in which delays are imposed between sample offset and comparison onset during the training of baseline relations and tests for the derivation of equivalence relations. They report that DMTS procedures produce higher yields of equivalence-consistent outcomes than traditional procedures. Eilifsen and Arntzen present a similar study with adults and report that the yield of equivalence consistent outcomes increases as the delay between sample offset and comparison onset is increased. Hudgins and Vaidya report the use of equivalence procedures with elderly populations in an attempt at a more precise characterization of behavioral deficits in individuals with dementia. Finally, Swisher and Vaidya report the results of two experiments in which tracked the development of baseline conditional relations and the development of equivalence relations nearly simultaneously. The results have the potential to inform theoretical debates. |
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| Effects of Fixed and Titrated Delays in Equivalence Tasks: Stage II–Children |
| TORUNN LIAN (Akershus University College), Erik Arntzen (Akershus University College) |
| Abstract: Delayed matching-to-sample refers to a conditional discrimination procedure where a delay is imposed between removal of the sample stimulus and the presentation of comparison stimuli. Lately, some studies have investigated the effects of delayed matching-to-sample on responding in accord with equivalence. The main findings are that the delayed matching-to-sample procedure produces high outcome of derived responding. Most of these studies have been with adult participants and have arranged simultaneous matching during test. In this study children age 6 to 10 years old served as participants. We used a within subject design and arranged delays in both training and test conditions. Half of the participants experienced distracter tasks during the delay in the first part of the test blocks and the other half of the participants experienced distracter tasks during the delay in the second part of the test blocks. |
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| Effects of Fixed and Titrated Delays in Equivalence Tasks: Stage I–Adults |
| CHRISTOFFER EILIFSEN (Akershus University College), Erik Arntzen (Akershus University College) |
| Abstract: Using delayed matching-to-sample in stimulus equivalence procedures makes it possible to study both the development of derived relations and retention in such settings. Delayed matching-to-sample can be arranged either with fixed delays or titrating delays. When using a titrating delay procedure the delay increases as a function of a specified number of experimenter defined correct responses, while the delay is decreased following incorrect performance. Using a titrating delay between sample offset and the onset of the comparison array has previously been introduced in procedures for training the prerequisite conditional discriminations necessary for stimulus equivalence. We wanted to expand on this research by including a fixed delay in the test that corresponded to the maximum delay value in a titrating delay training procedure. 30 adults participated in the study, with 10 participants being exposed to a delay titrating between 0 and 100 ms, 10 participants exposed to a delay titrating between 0 and 3000 ms, and 10 participants being exposed to a delay titrating between 0 and 12000 ms. Results indicate that the shortest delay, 100 ms, produce a lower yield of stimulus equivalence outcomes compared to the two conditions where higher delay-values were employed. |
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| Characterizing Behavioral Deficits in Individuals With and Without Dementia |
| CALEB D. HUDGINS (University of North Texas), Manish Vaidya (University of North Texas) |
| Abstract: Despite a large clinical literature on the causes of and intervention with individuals with dementia, there appears to be no clear consensus on how best to characterize the particular nature of the behavioral deficits that characterize the disease. The experiments to be reported here attempted to compare the performance of elderly adults with varying degrees of dementia to age-matched controls across a number of unimodal and cross-modal conditional discriminations including auditory and visual stimuli. The results of this comparison may provide insight into how different unimodal and cross modal relations may be differentially affected by delay and/or by the severity of the disease. The insertion of delays between sample offset and comparison-array onset also allows us the opportunity to characterize the performance quantitatively. It is hoped that the precise specification of parameters will facilitate the development of a literature using stimulus equivalence to study issues related to aging. |
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| Pinpointing the Moment of Emergence: Relating Baseline Conditional Discrimination Acquisition to the Derivation of Equivalence Relations |
| MELISSA J. SWISHER (University of North Texas), Manish Vaidya (University of North Texas) |
| Abstract: Sidman (1994, 2000) suggests that equivalence relations are one of two outcomes of the operation of contingencies of reinforcement; the other outcome(s) are analytic units (e.g., simple discrimination, conditional discrimination, etc.). Despite the vast literature on stimulus equivalence, surprisingly little is known about the temporal relation between the acquisition of trained baseline conditional discriminations and the emergence of equivalence relations. It is unclear if equivalence relations emerge during, immediately after or sometime after the acquisition of the baseline conditional discriminations. The experiments reported attempted to gain a more precise understanding of the temporal relation between the development of analytic units and equivalence relations. In two experiments, two different prompting procedures were used during training to pinpoint when the conditional discriminations were learned. Simultaneous presentation of probe trials assaying the derivation of equivalence relations allowed us to examine the temporal relation between the acquisition of the baseline conditional discriminations and the development of equivalence relations. The results from eight participants across two different experiments show that the derivation of equivalence relations was either coincident with or closely followed the acquisition of the baseline conditional discriminations. |
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