Responses and Equivalence Classes

描述（由申请人提供）：获得性等效反映了将物理上不同的事件分类成组的能力的条件反射过程，以及在没有直接训练的情况下对新事件或新事件组合作出适当反应的能力。本建议的目标是确定一些获得性等价类的起源，它们对刺激控制的影响，以及可能加入它们的事件的性质。具体来说，这些实验将研究共同反应在产生等效刺激类别和作为它们的指标方面的作用，并检查反应本身成为类别成员的潜力。鸽子将接受多种条件选择和简单判别的训练，其中多种刺激（包括由它们自己的行为引起的刺激）会引起相同的后续反应或反应模式。之后，将通过控制转移测试来评估类别形成，该测试在先前的动物认知和人类分类研究中有效地证明了获得性等效和其他形式的刺激控制。除了提供一幅关于共同反应如何促进和揭示获得性等效类的更清晰的图片外，拟议的工作将提供与最近的假设相关的数据，即等效类通常可能直接来自强化偶然事件，因此，包括作为成员的反应。研究结果还将为最近报道的潜在理论进口的等效效应提供重要和必要的澄清，并将在动物分类和关于紧急行为的行为分析文献之间建立额外的接触点和比较。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Acquired equivalence reflects conditioning processes underlying the ability to categorize physically dissimilar events into groups and, with it, the ability to respond appropriately to new events or new combinations of events without direct training. The goal of this proposal is to identify some of the origins of acquired equivalence classes, their effects on stimulus control, and the nature of the events that may join them. Specifically, the proposed experiments will study the role of common responses in generating classes of equivalent stimuli and serving as indices for them, and examine the potential for the responses themselves to become class members. Pigeons will be trained on a variety of two-choice conditional and simple discriminations in which multiple stimuli (including those arising from their own behavior) occasion the same subsequent response or response pattern. Afterwards, class formation will be assessed through transfer-of-control tests that have been effective in demonstrating acquired equivalence and other forms of stimulus control in previous studies of animal cognition and human categorization. Besides providing a clearer picture of how common responses promote and reveal acquired equivalence classes, the proposed work will provide data relevant to a recent hypothesis that equivalence classes in general may arise directly from reinforcement contingencies and, thus, include responses as members. The results will also provide important and needed clarifications of recently reported equivalence-like effects of potential theoretical import and will create additional points of contact and comparison between animal categorization and the behavior-analytic literature on emergent behavior.