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Equivalence and response mediation
in pigeons Two physically dissimilar stimuli are said to have acquired equivalence if the training to one automatically transfers to the other. An equivalence class, on the other hand, is defined by three specific types of transfer: symmetry, transitivity and reflexivity. Non-human animals, although capable of showing equivalence relations, rarely, if ever, show equivalence among stimuli as defined by an equivalence class. However, recent evidence, using both humans and non-humans, suggests that the development of equivalence relations depends upon the responses elicited by the stimuli (e.g., Randell and Remington1999). Such a hypothesis is quite similar to Hull's account of stimulus equivalence via response mediation (cf. "secondary generalization" Hull 1939). In this poster, I show how in principle a response mediation process can generate both simple equivalence and data consistent with an equivalence class. Secondly, I present an experiment with pigeons which supports a response mediation account of equivalence. Fast and slow rate pecking were trained to stimuli in a matching-to-sample task. Response transfer among the stimuli was monitored and tests of equivalence were performed. Keywords: matching-to-sample, pigeons, response mediation, stimulus equivalence |
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