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Emergent simple discrimination established by indirect relation to differential consequences.

J C de Rose1, W J McIlvane, W V Dube

  • 1Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos, Brazil.

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
|July 1, 1988
PubMed
Summary

Discrimination training can lead to emergent simple discrimination through stimulus class formation. This effect was observed across different human populations, including adults and children.

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Area of Science:

  • Behavioral Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Learning and Conditioning

Background:

  • Discrimination training is a key method for teaching specific stimulus-response associations.
  • Emergent behavior, where untrained responses occur, is a significant indicator of complex learning.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if a specific discrimination training sequence leads to emergent simple discrimination.
  • To examine this phenomenon across diverse human subject populations.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments used a sequence involving simple and conditional discrimination training.
  • Subjects learned to discriminate between stimuli (A1, A2) and perform matching-to-sample tasks (B1, B2 with A1, A2).
  • Probe trials assessed emergent responding to stimuli (B1, B2) presented alone.

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Main Results:

  • Subjects consistently selected the stimulus (B1) associated with the positive stimulus (A1) during probe trials, even without explicit training.
  • This emergent selection occurred across normally capable adults, preschool children, and mentally retarded adults.
  • The results suggest that stimulus classes were formed during conditional discrimination training.

Conclusions:

  • Conditional discrimination training can establish stimulus classes, leading to emergent stimulus functions.
  • This process results in untrained, yet predictable, behavioral responses in simple discrimination tasks.
  • The findings highlight the flexibility of learning and stimulus generalization in humans.