Transitive and Anti-Transitive Emergent Relations in Pigeons: Support for a Theory of Stimulus-Class Formation

摘要: Abstract Stimulus class formation is inferred when conditional discrimination training yields new (emergent) relations between the stimuli. The present experiments demonstrated two such in pigeons after successive matching-to-sample training. Experiment 1 showed that transitivity (AC matching) emerged on AB and BC arbitrary matching plus BB identity matching: responded relatively more to comparisons AC test trials which both A samples C were elements of reinforced baseline involving same nominal B stimulus. 2 opposite effect (“anti-transitivity”) but with oddity instead: sample was an element a relation comparison non-reinforced relation, or vice versa. also alone generally does not yield emergent effect. These findings extend range phenomena observed non-human animals are consistent predictions from Urcuioli's (2008) theory pigeons’ stimulus formation. This article part Special Issue entitled: Tribute Tom Zentall.