Document Type

Dissertation

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

PhD in Behavior Analysis

Dissertation Defense Date

2012

First Committee Member

Dube, William V.

Second Committee Member

Hanley, Gregory P.

Third Committee Member

Karsten, Amanda M.

Additional Committee Member(s)

Bourret, Jason C.

Abstract

"This study extended previous research on the conditions in which equivalence relations can be established to include the merger of two separately established equivalence classes with outcome-specific reinforcers used as nodal stimuli. Three male adults and one female adolescent, all without any known clinical condition, learned a total of four conditional discriminations among six, three-member sets of nonrepresentational visual stimuli in a match-to-sample procedure with differential outcome-specific reinforcement. Outcome-specific reinforcers consisted of three different colored tokens (red, blue, white) and three participant-selected gift cards to which money accrued for each token earned. Two conditional discriminations, AC and then BC were taught first. In training, correct selections of C1 in the presence of A1 (and then B1) were followed by a red token, R1, and money added to the associated gift card, r1; correct selections of C2 in the presence of A2 (and then B2) were followed by R2 (i.e., blue token) and money added to r2 (i.e., a different participant-selected gift card); and correct selections of C3 in the presence of A3 (and then B3) were followed by R3 (i.e., white token) and r3 (i.e., another different participant-selected gift card). All four participants showed positive outcomes on subsequent tests in extinction for equivalence (CA and CB symmetry, and AB and BA combined equivalence), demonstrating three, 3-member classes of equivalent stimuli (A1, B1, C1; A2, B2, C2; and A3, B3, C3).Two new conditional discriminations, DF and then EF were similarly taught with the same reinforcing consequences used in AC and BC training."

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