On the role of covarying functions in stimulus class formation and transfer of function.

Full Abstract

This experiment investigated whether directly trained covarying functions are necessary for stimulus class formation and transfer of function in humans. Initial class training was designed to establish two respondent-based stimulus classes by pairing two visual stimuli with shock and two other visual stimuli with no shock. Next, two operant discrimination functions were trained to one stimulus of each putative class. The no-shock group received the same training and testing in all phases, except no stimuli were ever paired with shock. The data indicated that skin conductance response conditioning did not occur for the shock groups or for the no-shock group. Tests showed transfer of the established discriminative functions, however, only for the shock groups, indicating the formation of two stimulus classes only for those participants who received respondent class training. The results suggest that transfer of function does not depend on first covarying the stimulus class functions.

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Author information

Author/s: Markham, Rebecca G (RG); Markham, Michael R (MR);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Florida International University, Miami 33199, USA. markhamr@fiu.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior (J Exp Anal Behav), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Nov; vol 78 (issue 3) : pp 509-25

Dates: Created 2002/12/31; Completed 2003/04/07; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12507017, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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