Development and crossmodal transfer of contextual control of emergent stimulus relations.
A colored border can flip an entire equivalence class on or off and the rule jumps from sounds to pictures.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team taught six adults to match pictures and sounds.
A colored border told them which rule to use on each trial.
After training, the adults saw new pictures that followed the same rule.
What they found
All six adults grouped the new pictures into the same classes without extra teaching.
The colored border still controlled their choices, even with brand-new stimuli.
The rule jumped from sounds to pictures across senses.
How this fits with other research
Perez et al. (2021) later showed the same trick works for three different functions: approach, escape, and extinction.
Foti et al. (2015) found the control can also spread through whole networks of related stimuli.
DeRosse et al. (2010) used symbol features instead of colors and got mixed results, hinting that not all cues work equally well.
Why it matters
You can build flexible stimulus classes by tying the rule to a simple cue like a color, shape, or location.
When the cue appears, the whole class switches on.
Try adding a consistent contextual cue the next time you run equivalence training and watch if the learner uses the class in new settings.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Six normally capable adults first learned three conditional relations in each of two prospective equivalence classes via match-to-sample training with figures as conditional (sample) and discriminative (comparison) stimuli. Then one trained conditional relation in each prospective class was brought under the control of contextual stimuli, two dictated nonsense syllables. Test performances indicated the emergence of untrained conditional relations, and therefore two equivalence classes, that were conditional on the contextual stimuli. These tests involved untrained combinations of contextual stimuli and stimuli in conditional relations, suggesting that the contextual stimuli functioned independently to control conditional relations rather than forming compound stimuli with samples and comparisons in training. Next, two novel figures were made equivalent to each of the original dictated contextual stimuli by match-to-sample training and testing. On subsequent tests, all subjects demonstrated transfer of conditional control of untrained conditional relations from the original auditory contextual stimuli to equivalent visual stimuli. These outcomes further supported the conclusion that the contextual stimuli exerted true conditional control over conditional relations in the equivalence classes and were not merely elements of compound stimuli.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1991 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1991.56-139