Date of Graduation
1998
Document Type
Thesis
Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to further clarify the structural and functional properties of stimulus equivalence classes and functional stimulus classes relative to the procedures that establish them. With college students, stimulus equivalence classes were established using a standard selection-based matching-to-sample (MTS) procedure, and functional stimulus classes were established using a topography-based naming task. During the naming trials, students were trained to say distinct nonsense words in the presence of arbitrarily assigned sets of symbols. Computer-controlled voice-recognition software was used to record and analyze students' vocal responses for accuracy and speed. Experiment 1 examined whether stimulus equivalence classes and functional stimulus classes were differentially susceptible to changes in the contingencies that established them. Some of the prerequisite relations that define the stimulus classes were reversed for two of three classes, and the resultant untrained relations that emerged were compared to those of a third control class for which no relations were altered. The effects of the reversed contingencies on the organization and maintenance of the classes were assessed. Experiment 2 examined whether topography-based and selection-based procedures have differential effects on expanding or enlarging stimulus equivalence classes and functional stimulus classes with novel stimuli. Results of Experiment 1 showed that both stimulus equivalence classes and functional stimulus classes were equally sensitive to contingency reversals, and that the effects of the contingency reversal had expected effects of stimulus-class organization. Experiment 2 showed that both stimulus equivalence classes and functional stimulus classes were expanded with MTS or naming procedures, but expansion of stimulus equivalence classes was more successful with the MTS procedure and expansion of functional stimulus classes was more successful with the naming procedure. The present study also replicated previous demonstrations of resurgence among derived equivalence relations, but also extended those findings to derived naming performances involved in the establishment and demonstration of functional stimulus classes.
Recommended Citation
Wirth, Oliver, "Symbolic behavior: Reorganizing and expanding stimulus classes through matching and naming." (1998). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 10034.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/10034