Response Transfer between Stimuli in Generalized Equivalence Classes: A Model for the Establishment of Natural Kind and Fuzzy Superordinate Categories

• Published in: The Psychological record 1996-10, Vol.46 (4), p.665-684
• Main Authors: Fields, Lanny, Adams, Barbara J, Buffington, Dawn M, Yang, Wei, Verhave, Thom
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavior; College students; Equivalence classes; Feedback (Response); Perception; Response bias; Responses; Social psychology; Stimuli; Transfer
• ISSN: 0033-2933; 2163-3452
• DOI: 10.1007/BF03395191

Two equivalence classes were formed by college students through training of AB, BC, and CD relations. The A, B, and C stimuli in both classes were nonsense words. The D stimulus in Class 1 was a short line; the D stimulus in Class 2 was a long line. Post-class-formation generalization tests of emergent relations were conducted to determine which intermediate length lines (variants of the D stimuli) also acted as class members. Those variants and the A, B, C, and D stimuli formed a generalized equivalence class. After different responses were trained to the A1 and A2 stimuli, the response trained to the A1 stimulus transferred to the other Class-1 stimuli and the response trained to the A2 stimulus transferred to the other Class-2 stimuli. Responding also transferred to the variants that acted as members of each generalized equivalence class, indicating that the stimuli in each generalized equivalence class also acted as members of a corresponding functional class. For the line variants that were members of a generalized equivalence class, response transfer from the A stimuli was very highly predicted from the generalization gradients of the emergent relations. The processes that account for the formation of a generalized equivalence class and the transfer of responding between members of such a class will be used to account for the development of natural kind and superordinate fuzzy categories.