Responses and Equivalence Classes

描述(由申请人提供)：获得性等价性反映了将物理上不同的事件归类为组的能力以及在不直接训练的情况下对新事件或新事件组合做出适当反应的能力潜在的条件作用过程。这项建议的目标是确定后天获得的等价类的一些起源，它们对刺激控制的影响，以及可能加入它们的事件的性质。具体地说，拟议的实验将研究共同反应在产生等同刺激类别并作为它们的索引中的作用，并考察反应本身成为类别成员的可能性。鸽子将接受各种双选项、条件性和简单辨别的训练，在这些辨别中，多个刺激(包括来自它们自身行为的刺激)会出现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班级的形成，这些测试在之前的动物认知和人类分类研究中已经有效地证明了获得性等价性和其他形式的刺激控制。除了提供关于常见响应如何促进和揭示所获得的等价类的更清晰的图景之外，拟议的工作还将提供与最近的假设相关的数据，该假说认为等价类一般可能直接产生于强化或有事件，从而将响应包括为成员。这些结果还将为最近报道的潜在理论输入的等价性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.