Responses and Equivalence Classes

描述（由申请方提供）：获得的等效性反映了将物理上不相似的事件分类成组的能力以及在没有直接培训的情况下对新事件或新事件组合做出适当反应的能力的基础条件作用过程。这个建议的目的是确定一些获得的等价类的起源，它们对刺激控制的影响，以及可能加入它们的事件的性质。具体而言，拟议的实验将研究的作用，共同的反应，在产生类的等效刺激，并作为他们的指标，并检查的潜力，反应本身成为类成员。猪将接受各种二选一条件和简单辨别的训练，其中多个刺激（包括由其自身行为引起的刺激）会导致相同的后续反应或反应模式。之后，类的形成将通过转移控制测试，已有效地证明获得的等价性和其他形式的刺激控制在以前的动物认知和人类分类的研究进行评估。除了提供一个更清晰的图片如何共同的反应，促进和揭示收购等价类，拟议的工作将提供相关的数据，最近的假设，等价类一般可能会直接从强化突发事件，因此，包括作为成员的反应。结果还将提供重要的和必要的澄清最近报道的潜在的理论进口的等效样的影响，并将创建额外的接触点和动物分类和行为分析文献之间的比较涌现的行为。

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.