Transfer of baseline reject control to transitivity trials and its effect on equivalence class formation
Old "no" choices from baseline can automatically stretch equivalence classes into new items.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Plazas (2019) asked if the way we learn to say "no" in early lessons carries into later tests.
Adults first learned A-B and A-C match-to-sample with mixed reject-control trials.
Later they saw brand-new X and Y probes. The team watched whether the old "no" rule still guided choices.
What they found
When the new probes looked like earlier items that had been wrong, people kept rejecting them.
The same reflex let them accept the right new items.
Equivalence classes grew without extra training, driven by the baseline reject rule.
How this fits with other research
Frame et al. (1984) warned that reject control could fake true transitivity. Plazas shows it can also help real equivalence form, so the old caution becomes a teaching tool.
Grisante et al. (2024) went further and purposely built both select and reject control. Their data line up with Plazas: rejection is not noise; it is a usable learning path.
Dixon et al. (2021) moved the idea into kids with autism using PEAK-E. They got the same emergent relations, proving the reject-control trick works outside the lab with neurotypical adults.
Why it matters
You can speed up equivalence classes by weaving reject trials into baseline. Present the wrong comparison first, let the learner say "not that," and the later novel items will drop into the class almost by themselves. It saves trials and gives you a clear cue to add when probes get tough.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study explored the role of baseline reject control on transitivity responding. In Experiment 1, participants learned to respond to a baseline of arbitrary AB and AC conditional relations, and then they were exposed to transitivity-like BC and CB trials in which the correct comparison stimulus was replaced by a novel stimulus (D). Five of 10 participants selected stimulus D, but only 1 showed expansion of the baseline stimulus classes to include the D stimuli. In Experiment 2, the emergence of symmetry and transitivity from baseline relations was assessed before participants were exposed to the transitivity-like trials. Six of 8 participants who showed emergence of equivalence relations selected the D stimuli on transitivity-like trials and provided evidence that baseline classes expanded to include these stimuli. In Experiment 3, these 6 participants selected novel stimuli (E) in additional transitivity-like trials, and all showed that the E stimuli had become members of the previously established classes, which now comprised 5 members. A route for the emergence of transitivity by way of the transfer of baseline between-classes reject control is discussed.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2019 · doi:10.1002/jeab.519