Effect of Different Variables’ during Training and Test on Delayed Emergence in Stimulus Equivalence

The aim of the present line of experiments was to shed light on how different variables during training and testing for equivalence class formation affected delayed emergence. Experiments 1 and 2 included training of 15 conditional discriminations (A/B/C/D/E), participants underwent concurrent training with meaningful pictures and abstract C-stimuli, respectively. All participants experienced tests for emergent relations both with and without baseline trials interspersed. None of the participants experiencing training with abstract C-stimuli responded in accordance with stimulus equivalence. In the experiment where meaningful pictures was used as C-stimuli, all participants responded in accordance with stimulus equivalence. With these data, it is hard to say anything with regards to which variables influence delayed emergence. Hence, Experiment 3 will employ serialized introducing of baseline trials, which has proved to have a positive outcome on stimulus equivalence formation. Manipulations of baseline trials will be the same as for Experiments 1 and 2. Finally, in Experiment 4 variables during training will be the same as for the first two experiments. Furthermore, tests will include only baseline and symmetry trials. Hopefully, this will give us a better understanding of why participants sometimes get delayed emergence of stimulus equivalence.