Formation of Equivalence Classes: Using Matching to Sample Test and Sorting Test to compare two different training structures.

Abstract

The behaviour analytic research on stimulus equivalence can tell us something about how a person’s experience establishes and change the functions, perception and meaning of symbols and behaviour including the formation of concepts and language. In each situation when learning something, other relations between stimuli, in addition to the ones that are already learned, will arise and we can respond to stimuli that have not been taught directly. Stimulus equivalence can be described as a symbol generalization when we expand our terms and vocabulary. The purpose of the present experiment is to extend the literature by testing both Many-to-One (MTO) and One-to-Many (OTM) training structures. Two groups of participants were youngsters from a high school. They were assigned to do either an MTO or an OTM training. First in the experiment was to establish baseline conditional discriminations using MTO or OTM training structure and compare number of training trials and stimulus equivalence. Both groups were exposed to the same testing regime with both Matching-to-Sample (MTS) test and Sorting test (SRT). Furthermore, we explored the difference in yields and finally, compared the results from the SRT with the MTS test. The outcome of derived relations could not be concluded using SRT, but properties of equivalence was observed. The SRT showed no significant difference in variations between the two training procedures. In the MTO group we found one participant who did not form any classes in either test format. The results showed a slightly higher yield in the OTM group than in the MTO group. Further research among youngsters could make the need to use more MTS training in everyday school more visible and doing tests with SRT more acceptable. Key words: Stimulus equivalence, High school students, Training structures, MTO, OTM, Sorting, Yield.