The role of instructions in the transfer of ordinal functions through equivalence classes.
Keeping quiet during equivalence training helps adults transfer new skills across class members better than giving full instructions.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Adults without disabilities learned to match four shapes into four groups. Each group became an equivalence class.
Half the adults got full instructions. The other half got almost none. Then everyone tried to rank the shapes inside each class from smallest to largest.
What they found
The no-instruction group nailed the ranking after only a few trials. The full-instruction group struggled and needed far more practice.
Too many hints actually blocked the leap from matching to ordering.
How this fits with other research
Neves et al. (2023) extends this idea. They added errorless exclusion trials and helped children with cochlear implants build sentence skills. Fewer errors, strong classes—same core method, new population.
Pilgrim et al. (2000) seems to disagree. They gave preschoolers nonsense names and clear rules, and the kids learned faster. The clash is age and task: little kids need a boost to form the class, adults need quiet to transfer within it.
Reynolds et al. (1968) and Frederiksen et al. (1978) echo the theme: heavy prompting cuts early errors but can hurt later flexible use. Dunlap et al. (1991) now shows the same cost applies inside equivalence classes.
Why it matters
When you run match-to-sample lessons, stop talking sooner. Let the learner discover the extra skill instead of telling them the rule. Try one session today: drop the verbal explanation, run a quick transfer test, and watch if the new relation pops out with fewer trials.
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Cut your instructions to one short sentence and probe for untrained relations right after the final equivalence test.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
In two experiments, adult subjects completed match-to-sample training and testing to establish four equivalence classes of four figures each. Then the subjects were taught one three-position sequence consisting of one stimulus from Class 1, one from Class 2, and one from Class 3. Inclusion of Class 4 stimuli in sequences was never reinforced, but two different stimuli from Class 4 appeared as distractors on each sequence trial. Tests assessed whether subjects would produce novel three-position sequences composed of members of Classes 1 through 3 that had not been used in sequence training. Three subjects in Experiment 1 received instructions about the match-to-sample and sequencing tasks, in addition to training contingencies. All 3 demonstrated equivalence class formation after match-to-sample training. After they were taught one sequence with one member of Classes 1 through 3, none of these subjects produced untrained sequences with other equivalence class members reliably. One additional sequence was trained directly; thereafter 1 subject showed some evidence of transfer of the trained ordinal functions across the remaining members of the equivalence classes, but the other 2 did not. Following a review of equivalence class training and testing and a review of the original sequence training, all 3 subjects produced most of the predicted, untrained sequences on tests. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 with 2 adults but omitted all instructions except the minimal ones necessary to initiate responding. Unlike the subjects in Experiment 1, both of these subjects demonstrated virtually complete transfer of ordinal functions through the equivalence classes after direct training on just one sequence composed of one member of Classes 1 through 3.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1991 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1991.55-287