Semantic priming and stimulus equivalence, article 1. Effect of pre-training with rapid responding on formation of equivalence classes, article 2

Abstract

Article 1: Semantic priming and stimulus equivalence are research areas that study relations between stimuli. Semantic priming researchers are interested in the reaction time between a prime and a following target. The differences in reaction time are used to make inferences about how we store and retrieve knowledge. Stimulus equivalence researchers present their participants with conditional discrimination training with seemingly meaningless stimuli. After this training it is possible to present a test for derived relations and the participants will respond correct to stimuli that never has been presented together. The purpose of this paper is first to give an introduction to semantic priming, and procedures used in semantic priming research. Secondly to present stimulus equivalence, and procedures from stimulus equivalence research. The discussion will focus on how procedures from semantic priming can be used in stimulus equivalence research. There will also be suggestions for further research in stimulus equivalence based on results from unconscious priming. Article 2: The purpose of this article is to do a systematical replication of Tomanari, Sidman, Rubio, and Dube (2006) and Arntzen and Haugland (2012) with a pre-training with identity matching where limited hold to sample and comparison are titrated to asymptotic level. The participants are given these levels and an additional 200 ms to establish conditionals discrimination with arbitrary stimuli. This was done with five participants and their limited hold to sample ranged from 400 ms to 700 ms and for comparison from 800 ms to 1100 ms. None of the participants were able to establish conditional discrimination to criteria, but there are evidence that two of them are able to establish conditional discriminations with very little time to respond.