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GENERALIZATION OF CROSS‐MODAL STIMULUS EQUIVALENCE CLASSES: OPERANT PROCESSES AS COMPONENTS IN HUMAN CATEGORY FORMATION
Author(s) -
Lane Scott D.,
Clow Julie K.,
Innis Andrew,
Critchfield Thomas S.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1998.70-267
Subject(s) - equivalence class (music) , stimulus (psychology) , psychology , equivalence (formal languages) , modal , generalization , functional equivalence , cognitive psychology , mathematics , linguistics , pure mathematics , chemistry , polymer chemistry , mathematical analysis , philosophy
This study employed a stimulus‐class rating procedure to explore whether stimulus equivalence and stimulus generalization can combine to promote the formation of open‐ended categories incorporating cross‐modal stimuli. A pretest of simple auditory discrimination indicated that subjects (college students) could discriminate among a range of tones used in the main study. Before beginning the main study, 10 subjects learned to use a rating procedure for categorizing sets of stimuli as class consistent or class inconsistent. After completing conditional discrimination training with new stimuli (shapes and tones), the subjects demonstrated the formation of cross‐modal equivalence classes. Subsequently, the class‐inclusion rating procedure was reinstituted, this time with cross‐modal sets of stimuli drawn from the equivalence classes. On some occasions, the tones of the equivalence classes were replaced by novel tones. The probability that these novel sets would be rated as class consistent was generally a function of the auditory distance between the novel tone and the tone that was explicitly included in the equivalence class. These data extend prior work on generalization of equivalence classes, and support the role of operant processes in human category formation.