Three experiments identified factors that did and did not enhance the formation of two-node four-member equivalence classes when training and testing were conducted with trials presented in a trace stimulus pairing two-response (SP2R) format. All trials contained two separately presented stimuli. Half of the trials, called within-class trials,…

Programming common stimuli is a strategy for generalizing behavior across settings (Stokes & Baer, 1977). The present study programmed common stimuli (i.e., goal statement and use of a pictorial icon) to generalize the effects of a reinforcement-based intervention for students identified as either developmentally delayed or emotionally disturbed.…

The present research examined stimulus generalization and gradient shifts on a dimension involving human faces. Twenty undergraduates were instructed to examine the proportion of the total face length that lay between the tip of the nose and the end of the chin. The face stimuli were images of actual people shown on a computer screen; no face was…

Investigated simultaneous occurrence of emergent stimulus-response relations (functional equivalence) and stimulus-stimulus relations (stimulus equivalence). Trained 4- and 5-year olds to emit specified responses to pairs of stimuli in one setting (original training) and to emit other responses to one member of each pair in another setting…

Children and adults were trained and tested on formation of novel simple discriminations and conditional stimulus relations. Subjects who formed these sets were trained and tested on formation of stimulus equivalence classes. A modest majority of children matched directly paired stimuli; a few matched indirectly paired stimuli. All normal adults…

Recent studies involving nonlinear discrimination problems suggest that stimuli in human associative learning are represented configurally with narrow generalization, such that presentation of stimuli that are even slightly dissimilar to stored configurations weakly activate these configurations. The authors note that another well-known set of…

Fifty participants were exposed to a simple discrimination-training procedure during which six S+ functions were established for six arbitrary stimuli, and S- functions were established for a further six stimuli. Following this training, each participant was exposed to one of five conditions. In the S+ condition, participants were exposed to a…

Ten author-contributed papers present information on stimulus control research and developmental disabilities. Articles address such isues as the role of naming, development of stimulus classes, control by exclusion, and comparison of trial-and-error and graduated stimulus change procedures. (CL)

The nature of stimulus and response generalization is discussed, and a number of tasks related to generalization that are commonly taught in early childhood programs are identified. Research evidence concerning generalization is reported, as are recommendations for enhancing generalization. (Author/LB)

Study supported by grant HD-00879 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and presented in part at the Society for Research and Child Development meeting, 1966.

Four male and five female Negro children (ranging in age from 5 to 9 years) served in an experimental comparison of the discriminative control exerted by sex and race aspects of other children. A baseline was established in which color photoslides of a Negro girl and a Caucasian boy differentially controlled responding on two push buttons.…

The initial purpose of the present study was to replicate procedures for teaching preschool children to recruit attention at appropriate times by having an experimenter signal the availability and unavailability of attention (i.e., arrange a multiple schedule involving reinforcement and extinction; Tiger & Hanley, 2004). Following the development…

Working from a rationale derived from cognitive learning theory, this study was designed to investigate the extent to which the formation and modifiability of first impressions may be affected by the perceiver's tendency to associate the stimulus person with some other individual. Fifty subjects rated their initial attractions toward male and…

With the advent of multi-screen capability in multi-media communication centers, it is possible to control the visual learning environment in a number of interesting ways. The basic assumption implicit in the concept of the multiple-image presentation is that it increases learning. A study tested the effect on learning of single- and…