Stimulus Equivalence

1. physical similarity2. Functional similarity3. Equivalence

A product of conditional discriminations in which ALL of the following mathematical/logical relations are produced: a. Reflexivity: A=A “A to A” b. Symmetry: A=B; B=A conditional discrimination c. Transitivity: A=B; B=C àA=C a. AND C=A (EQUIVALENCE relation – symmetry)

A. Explains learning without prior historyB. Explains rapid expansion of human verbal bxC. Helps us to design instructional programsD. Teaching based on equivalence is EFFICIENT

Stimulus set includes all members of a stimulus class. For example, a class is A, B, or C. The set would in clude: A1, A2, A3.....etc.

Emergent behavior, derived stimulus relations, and generativity

Add on an additional relation:Class MergerTransfer of Function

Relational Frame Theory: a theoretical account of derived stimulus relations including all relations
For Example:Ø Start by producing an equivalence relation o e.g. coin-value-name Ø For one stimulus set (coin) teach 2 greater-than relations Ø You should now have many new relations o e.g. quarter is greater than dime o e.g. 10c is greater than 5c o e.g. 10c is less than a quarter Ø Then, teach as listener responding Ø Then, maybe get tact for free or teach tactart by producing an equivalence relation o e.g. coin-value-name Ø For one stimulus set (coin) teach 2 greater-than relations Ø You should now have many new relations o e.g. quarter is greater than dime o e.g. 10c is greater than 5c o e.g. 10c is less than a quarter Ø Then, teach as listener responding Ø Then, maybe get tact for free or teach tact

· Experimental Questions o Can children with autism be taught US geography relations via an equivalence preparation? o Do the following test conditions differentially produce emergent relations? § EXT-EXT: extinction during pretest and posttest § FR1-FR1: FR1 of all responses during pretest and posttest § EXT-INT: Extinction during pretest, interspersed training trials during posttest · Training – observing and selection response of capitals and states · All conditions produced emergence, no clear difference. During pretest responding was at around 33 percent due to chance responding. · Implication: if it doesn’t matter, go ahead and use an interspersal or FR1, as long as you don’t differentially reinforce the correct response. · Tested vocal responding as an attempt to capture whether they could answer this question in the “real world” – PRESENTED VERBAL INSTRUCTION during training, and restated correct response, increase possibility will show up as an intraverbal.

· Experimental Question o Can 3 Individuals with TBI learn to identify emotional facial expressions through equivalence · Trained relations A-B and B-C (oneàmany) receptively select Ekman and updated photos · Tested relations: Naming Ekman, Naming updated, matching Ekman to updated and vice versa. · What kind of things do you want to add to this ABC relation: body language, antecedents, responses, questions, predicting behavior for each emotion (PERSPECTIVE TAKING – accurately predict someone else’s behavior when the controlling stimuli are different from the observer’s in any given moment)

· Experimental Question o Can children with autism follow pictorial activity schedules o Follow textual activity schedules after o Picture-text relations · If a child sees a picture on the schedule behave to engage in that activity – picture evokes activity (once engage, remove picture, like crossing off a list), in a typical third grade classroom the activity schedule is textual · Pretest stuff you want to get for free, emergent relations pretest, test textual activity baseline, CDT (AB,AC and mixed),tested C task completion, CB, BC, and CD A = listener block, B = picture block, C = textual block, D = saying, block (“reading” – didn’t train) · Results: after training the picture to textual relations, the other relations emerged perfectly (only tested the hard ones, that had never been connected before) · Two Useful Repertoires: could actually use the schedule (see it and do it), reading o MTS is helpful for establishing an equivalence class, but not what happens in real world, more of a means to an end for a functional repertoire