Emergent equivalence relations between interoceptive (drug) and exteroceptive (visual) stimuli.
Drug states can enter equivalence classes just like pictures, giving us a way to tie inside feelings to outside cues.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four healthy adults joined a lab experiment.
They first learned to match two different drug states to two colored shapes.
One pill made them feel speedy, another calm.
Each feeling was paired with its own color and shape on a screen.
Later tests checked if the drug feelings and shapes acted like one class without more training.
What they found
Every adult quickly treated the drug state and its paired picture as the same thing.
They picked the correct shape when given the feeling, and the correct feeling when given the shape.
The classes held even when new pictures joined the set.
Drug effects had become full members of equivalence classes.
How this fits with other research
Tantam et al. (1993) went a step further the next year.
They showed that once a stimulus joins a class, its control over response rate can jump to every other member.
Train one, and the function travels for free.
Haimson et al. (2009) added brain data.
After adults passed equivalence tests, their EEG waves changed when they saw related stimuli.
The 1992 drug study showed the relations emerge; Barry showed the brain notices.
Hopkinson et al. (2003) looked at 55 people with severe ID and little speech.
Most still formed equivalence classes, proving naming is not required.
The 1992 study used typical adults, yet both got the same positive outcome.
Different groups, same process.
Why it matters
You can link internal states to outside cues in one short lesson.
This opens doors for teaching kids to report pain, hunger, or anxiety.
Pair a gut feeling with a color card, then build a class that includes coping choices.
The child can later point to the card to tell you the feeling, even if words are hard.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Conditional "if-then" relations between drug (interoceptive) stimuli and visual (exteroceptive) stimuli were taught to 4 normal humans. Interoceptive stimuli were the effects produced by 0.32 mg/70 kg triazolam (a prototypical benzodiazepine) and placebo (lactose-filled capsules); exteroceptive stimuli were black symbols on white flash cards. Following the training of the prerequisite conditional relations, tests of emergent relations were conducted between exteroceptive stimuli and between interoceptive and exteroceptive stimuli. Equivalence relations emerged immediately without explicit training for all 4 subjects. Accuracy of responding during the interoceptive-exteroceptive equivalence tests and subjects' self-reports showed consistent discrimination between the drug effects of triazolam and placebo. Finally, a generalization test assessed whether a novel visual stimulus presented in the context of the placebo (i.e., no drug) would generalize to visual stimuli belonging to the placebo stimulus class. All 3 subjects who completed this test reliably chose the visual stimuli belonging to the placebo class and not the visual stimuli belonging to the triazolam stimulus class. The development of equivalence relations between interoceptive and exteroceptive stimuli demonstrates that private and public stimulus events can emerge as members of the same equivalence class. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1992 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1992.58-9