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The blank comparison (BLC) task was developed to assess stimulus relations in discrimination learning; that is, are subjects learning to “select” the correct stimulus (S+) or “reject” the incorrect stimulus (S-) or both? This task has been used to study exclusion learning, mostly in humans and monkeys, and the present study extends the procedure to rats. The BLC task uses an ambiguous stimulus (BLC+/-) that replaces S+ (in the presence of S-) and replaces S- (in the presence of S+). In the current experiment, four rats were trained to remove session-novel scented lids from sand-filled cups in a two-choice, simultaneous presentation procedure called the Odor Span Task (OST) before being trained on the BLC procedure using odors as the discriminative stimuli. The BLC training procedure utilized simple discrimination training (S+ and S-) and added select (S+ and BLC-) and reject (BLC+ and S-) trial types. All rats demonstrated accurate performance in sessions with both select and reject type trials. Next, BLC probe trials were interspersed in standard OST sessions to assess the form of stimulus control in the OST. Rats performed accurately on select type probe trials (similar to baseline OST performance) and also showed above chance accuracy on reject type trials. Thus, we demonstrated that rats could acquire an odor-based version of the BLC task and that both select and exclusion-based (reject) relations were active in the OST. The finding of exclusion in rats under the rigorous BLC task conditions confirms that exclusion-based responding is not limited to humans and non-human primates.

Prompt-fading procedures are ubiquitous in instructional interventions. Two prompt-fading procedures, prompt delay and simultaneous prompting, are consistently shown to be efficacious, although few studies have directly compared the two procedures. These comparisons are warranted as the training procedures in simultaneous prompting are procedurally identical to the conditions initially arranged in prompt delay procedures (i.e., 0-s prompt delay). Therefore, efficiency may be directly related to the number of 0-s prompts presented in prompt delay procedures. Past research has emphasized the necessity of fading prompts to avoid prompt dependence, yet prompt dependence is rarely described in the simultaneous prompting literature. The current systematic review synthesizes the findings of 11 articles comparing simultaneous and prompt delay procedures across seven behavior analytic and educational journals. Overall, the findings suggest that simultaneous prompting and prompt delay procedures are similarly efficient, although the former was associated with fewer errors to mastery in over 70% of instructional comparisons. Additional research is needed to better describe the conditions in which traditional prompt delay or prompt fading procedures are necessary to produce transfer of stimulus control.

This experiment explored how training modality influenced the formation of three-node, five-member equivalence classes during the simultaneous protocol by 23 college students. The baseline relations were established in one of three ways: concurrently (CONC; i.e., all together), serially (SER; i.e., one after another)—both on a trial and error basis—or serially and “errorlessly” by use of a constructed response matching to sample procedure (CRMTS). After training, class formation was assessed with test blocks that contained all baseline relations trials and probe trials for symmetry, transitivity, and equivalence. Error percentages during the acquisition of the baseline relations was highest during concurrent training, lower during serial training, and lowest during constructed response training. Yet, a similar percentage of participants formed classes in each training condition. Thus, the likelihood of equivalence class formation under these variants of the simultaneous protocol was not influenced by training modality or prevalence of errors during acquisition. In addition, only some of the transient nonclass-indicative stimulus control topographies that emerged during training resurged during testing. These results challenge predictions regarding class formation posited by stimulus control topography coherence theory.

This paper reports a systematic review of prompt-fading research, with a focus on experiments comparing two or more prompt-fading procedures. Forty-five articles with 46 experiments met the operationally-defined inclusion criteria. For the selected articles, data on several variables were extracted and analyzed. Research demonstrated that all prompt-fading procedures were generally effective in promoting acquisition of behavior. Stimulus prompting was more effective and efficient when compared to response-prompting procedures. Comparisons of response-prompting procedures yielded variable efficiency results. These outcomes are discussed in terms of the behavioral principles that facilitate transfer of stimulus control from the prompt to the discriminative stimulus, such as blocking and overshadowing. Basic investigations of the role of these behavioral principles might help develop prompt-fading procedures that are consistently effective across participants. Implications for research include suggestions for the development of individualized assessments of stimulus control, similar to the functional analysis methodology.

Pigeons (Columba livia) were trained on a stage-wise go/no-go visual discrimination task. Sixteen compound stimuli were created from all the possible combinations of two stimulus values from four separable visual dimensions: shape (circle/square), size (large/small), line orientation (horizontal/vertical), and brightness (dark/light). Starting with 1 S + and 1 S − that differed in all four-dimensional values, in our later steps, we added S − stimuli one by one, sharing at first 1, then 2, and then 3 dimensions with S + by sorting them out. When the pigeons had clearly shown attending to each of four dimensions, we presented all 16 stimuli. In this last stage, the pigeons correctly rejected most of the S − stimuli despite seeing them for the first time. Thus, to discriminate 16 unique multidimensional stimuli, it was not necessary to learn all of them as compound stimuli in such an approach. However, the 4 learnt dimensions did not give fully comprehensive information about all the new and unique compound stimuli presented in the last stage. Mistakes were associated with similarity to S + and with the order of dimensional learning. Most pigeons made mistakes in the discrimination of S − stimuli that shared 3 (some shared two) dimensions with S + . The knowledge of the first-learned dimension of compound stimuli was less reliable than the dimensions learned in the last stage.

It has been suggested that stimulus equivalence is a central component of language and symbolic behavior. When teaching symbolic behavior, the goal is often to achieve a more or less permanent alteration of an individual’s behavioral repertoire. As such, it seems important to assess not only variables affecting the establishment of stimulus equivalence but also variables affecting continued stimulus control exerted by stimulus equivalence class members over time. The current study investigated the role of the test for stimulus equivalence on the long-term maintenance of stimulus equivalence classes. Using one-to-many conditional discrimination training, 24 adult participants were taught to respond in line with three five-member stimulus classes. One group of 12 participants immediately completed a test for stimulus equivalence, and 12 other participants did not receive such a test. All 24 participants were subsequently tested for trained and derived relations under extinction conditions 2 and 4 weeks later without any further exposure to the contingencies of the conditional discrimination training. Results showed no differences between the two groups, with four participants in each group responding in accordance with both trained conditional discriminations and stimulus equivalence in the 4-week test. Six additional participants did, however, display systematic conditional performance during retention tests only partly consistent with the experimenter-defined classes.

According to the behavioral momentum theory of response strength (Nevin et al., Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 53, 359–379, 1990 ), steady-state responding reflects the contingency between a response and a reinforcer (response–reinforcer relationship), whereas behavior’s resistance to change is mediated by a contingency between a stimulus and the reinforcer (stimulus–reinforcer relationship). It is further presumed in this theory that a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus (CS)–unconditioned stimulus (US) contingency overlaps with the discriminative stimulus (SD), signaling a primary reinforcer (SR+) within the 3-term contingency (SD: response [R]–SR+). The mere arranging of a stimulus–reinforcer relation in an operant preparation, however, does not necessarily imply that the resulting behavioral process is Pavlovian. This article questions how important such Pavlovian CS–SR+ relations really are in governing operant behavior and its resistance to change in view of evidence from the operant and Pavlovian literatures showing dissociation between Pavlovian and operant stimulus control. To this end, we highlight studies published in the Pavlovian associative literature (Holman and Mackintosh, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B: Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 33, 21–31, 1981 ; Rescorla, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 1, 66–70, 1992b ) as well as at least 1 seldom-cited study published in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (Marcucella, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 36, 51–60, 1981 ) supporting the view that CS relations embedded in the 3-term operant contingency can act independently of the discriminative stimulus functions of the SD. These CS relations appear to be neither necessary nor sufficient for sustaining operant discriminative control. Pavlovian relations are likely to be artifacts of operant conditioning—not causal mediators. It is suggested that continued and excessive focus on Pavlovian processes that only have meager influence on operant behavior in general, and behavioral momentum more specifically, will likely be an empirical cul-de-sac for improvement of behavioral management for addiction relapse and other behavioral disorders.

Six groups of high-school students were exposed to a second-order matching-to-sample task and generalization tests trials using familiar and unfamiliar stimuli as well as a new matching relation. For two groups correct and incorrect matching responses produced the correspondently feedback according to continuous and intermittent schedules, respectively. Correct responses produced feedback and incorrect responses produced blanks and vice versa for other two groups, respectively. Two additional groups were exposed to similar feedback-blanks combinations but participants were instructed about the “meaning” of blanks before training. Extra-relational generalized matching-to-sample performance with either familiar or unfamiliar stimuli was observed after training conditions in which intermittent right-wrong feedback was scheduled, as well as when incorrect matching responses produced blanks and correct responses produced the correspondently feedback.Instructions about the meaning of blanks produced generalized performances slightly higher to those observed after continuous right-wrong feedback, which in turn were similar to performances observed after the uninstructed right-blank feedback combination condition. Results confirm an initial tendency to treat blanks as if they mean right and suggest a common“detachment” processes between intermittent feedback and the wrong-blanks feedback combination.

Variation in baseline controlling relations is suggested as one of the factors determining variability in stimulus equivalence outcomes. This study used single-comparison trials attempting to control such controlling relations. Four children learned AB, BC, and CD conditional discriminations, with 2 samples and 2 comparison stimuli. In Condition A, a mask always covered the S+ or the S−, each in 50% of the training trials, ensuring both sample-S+ and sample-S−controlling relations. In subsequent tests, children showed immediate equivalence formation. Condition B trained the same sequence of conditional discriminations with different stimuli, attempting to prevent sample-S+ control in the BC conditional discrimination. Two children did not show equivalence, whereas the other 2 did. Probes suggested that children who formed equivalence in Condition B acquired sample-S+ relations, even with training designed to prevent them. Results indicate that acquisition of both sample-S+ and sample-S− relations increases the probability of immediate equivalence formation.

Restricted stimulus control refers to discrimination learning with atypical limitations in the range of controlling stimuli or stimulus features. In the study reported here, 4 normally capable individuals and 10 individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) performed two‐sample delayed matching to sample. Sample‐stimulus observing was recorded with an eye‐tracking apparatus. High accuracy scores indicated stimulus control by both sample stimuli for the 4 nondisabled participants and 4 participants with ID, and eye tracking data showed reliable observing of all stimuli. Intermediate accuracy scores indicated restricted stimulus control for the remaining 6 participants. Their eye‐tracking data showed that errors were related to failures to observe sample stimuli and relatively brief observing durations. Five of these participants were then given interventions designed to improve observing behavior. For 4 participants, the interventions resulted initially in elimination of observing failures, increased observing durations, and increased accuracy. For 2 of these participants, contingencies sufficient to maintain adequate observing were not always sufficient to maintain high accuracy; subsequent procedure modifications restored it, however. For the 5th participant, initial improvements in observing were not accompanied by improved accuracy, an apparent instance of observing without attending; accuracy improved only after an additional intervention that imposed contingencies on observing behavior. Thus, interventions that control observing behavior seem necessary but may not always be sufficient for the remediation of restricted stimulus control.