Contextual control using a go/no-go procedure with compound abstract stimuli

Autor(es)

Modenesi, Rafael Diego ^[1] ; Debert, Paula ^[1]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Nacl Ciencia & Tecnol Comportamento Cognicao, BR-05508900 Sao Paulo, SP - Brazil

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR; v. 103, n. 3, p. 542-552, MAY 2015.
• Citações Web of Science: 3

Resumo

Contextual control has been described as (1) a five-term contingency, in which the contextual stimulus exerts conditional control over conditional discriminations, and (2) allowing one stimulus to be a member of different equivalence classes without merging them into one. Matching-to-sample is the most commonly employed procedure to produce and study contextual control. The present study evaluated whether the go/no-go procedure with compound stimuli produces equivalence classes that share stimuli. This procedure does not allow the identification of specific stimulus functions (e.g., contextual, conditional, or discriminative functions). If equivalence classes were established with this procedure, then only the latter part of the contextual control definition (2) would be met. Six undergraduate students participated in the present study. In the training phases, responses to AC, BD, and XY compounds with stimuli from the same classes were reinforced, and responses to AC, BD, and XY compounds with stimuli from different classes were not. In addition, responses to X1A1B1, X1A2B2, X2A1B2, and X2A2B1 compounds were reinforced and responses to the other combinations were not. During the tests, the participants had to respond to new combinations of stimuli compounds YCD to indicate the formation of four equivalence classes that share stimuli: X1A1B1Y1C1D1, X1A2B2Y1C2D2, X2A1B2Y2C1D2, and X2A2B1Y2C2D1. Four of the six participants showed the establishment of these classes. These results indicate that establishing contextual stimulus functions is unnecessary to produce equivalence classes that share stimuli. Therefore, these results are inconsistent with the first part of the definition of contextual control. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 08/57705-8 - Instituto de Estudos sobre Comportamento, Cognição e Ensino
• Beneficiário: Deisy das Graças de Souza
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Temático