Murray Sidman

An instance of spurious equivalence relations

Four normal children learned conditional discriminations that had upper-case or lower-case Greek letters as comparison stimuli, and dictated letter names as samples. Experimental stimuli were three pairs of letters; within each pair, an upper- and a lower-case letter were conditionally related to the same dictated sample. Four control stimuli, also upper- and lower-case letters, were each conditionally related to a different dictated sample. Conditional-discrimination tests for equivalence used the upper- and lower-case letters both as samples and comparisons. Untaught conditional relations between the upper- and lower-case members of each experimental stimulus pair were expected to emerge on the basis of their previously established relations to a common sample. The emergence of conditional relations between control stimuli, however, would have suggested an artifact. In test trials with the experimental stimuli as samples and comparisons, new conditional discriminations emerged as expected with all four children. With two of the children, however, consistent discriminations also emerged between control stimuli. Evidence suggested that uncontrolled features of the program for teaching the children the baseline conditional discriminations might have been responsible for the emergence of untaught conditional relations.

Equivalence relations and behavior: an introductory tutorial.

With an emphasis on procedural fundamentals, the original behavior-analytic equivalence experiments and the equivalence paradigm are described briefly. A few of the subsequent developments and implications are noted, with special reference to the possible significance of the findings with respect to language and cognition.

The Distinction Between Positive and Negative Reinforcement: Some Additional Considerations

Because of the many constructive contributions by Alan Baron and Mark Galizio, I have learned to pay close attention to whatever they have to say. In the present instance (Baron & Galizio, 2005), however, I am puzzled—as I was when Jack Michael published his original paper suggesting that we abandon the distinction between positive and negative reinforcement (Michael, 1975). It is not clear to me whether they are recommending simply a new terminological convention or whether they are suggesting something more fundamental—a change in basic principles, or at least a new way to conceptualize our data.

The analysis of human behavior in context

Does the name of the special interest group, “The Experimental Analysis of Human Behavior,” imply that those who analyze the behavior of human animals must organize themselves apart from those who analyze the behavior of nonhuman animals? Is the use of nonhumans in experiments really not relevant to the analysis of the behavior of humans? If so, then something must have changed. Many differences exist, of course, between the behavior of humans and nonhumans— humans, for example, cannot fly under their own power—but have we really isolated differences in principle, differences that require separate organizations for the study of each? I will try to indicate why I believe this is a serious concern, where the concern comes from, and what, perhaps, might be done to maintain what was once a flourishing bidirectional relation between research with humans and nonhumans, in both basic and applied research.

Reflections on Stimulus Control

The topic of stimulus control is too broad and complex to be traceable here. It would probably take a two-semester course to cover just the highlights of that field’s evolution. The more restricted topic of equivalence relations has itself become so broad that even an introductory summary requires more time than we have available. An examination of relations between equivalence and the more general topic of stimulus control, however, may reveal characteristics of both the larger and the more limited field that have not been generally discussed. Consideration of these features may in turn foster future developments within each area. I speak, of course, about aspects of stimulus control that my own experiences have made salient to me; others would surely emphasize different characteristics of the field. It is my hope that cooperative interactions among researchers and theorists who approach stimulus control from different directions will become more common than is currently typical.

Fred s. Keller, a generalized conditioned reinforcer.

On occasions like this, invited speakers are often asked to submit titles and abstracts of talks they have not yet prepared. My strategy in such instances is to make up something so general that it will cover anything I eventually decide to say. That is what I did on this occasion. What could I say about Fred Keller in one phrase that would be appropriate for anything I might say about him in my presentation?

Avoidance at columbia.

Back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, avoidance was in the air at Columbia. We did not avoid each other-far from it. Our environment was intellectually stimulating, and full of positive reinforcement. As Charlie Ferster used to say, If you want reinforcement, you have to behave, and for those at Columbia who had behavior, there were plenty of reinforcers. But in many ways, things were done quite differently then than they usually are now, and perhaps we can learn something by looking back. The stimulation and the reinforcers in Schermerhorn Hall came from faculty and students. There were vision people living on the third floor, and behavior people on the second floor. With academic politics being what they are, rumor had all kinds ofconflicts existing between the two floors, but the conflicts did not exist in fact. I remember one episode that illustrates the collegial nature of the interaction. When I was preparing the graphs for my dissertation, I asked friends ifthey thought Professor Graham would let me use the vision labs drawing table and lettering set-he had grants, and research facilities that did not yet exist on the second floor. Everybody blanched. They advised me not to try; it would just cause trouble. But I went ahead and asked anyway. Professor Graham seemed both a little surprised and a little pleased; he gruffly told me to be sure to wash the pens and leave everything in order when I was finished. I did so, of course, and was not aware of any difficulties that ever developed. I always felt that Clarence Graham and Connie Mueller were first-class scientists and thinkers, notjust about vision but about behavior in general. They were always ready to help the second-floor students with criticism, resources, and lively

Emergence of Conditional Discriminations after Constructed-Response Matching-to-Sample Training

Mackay (1985) reported that subjects were able to match printed words to colors after learning to construct the color names from a pool of letters. Visual feedback from the constructed color names might have been responsible for the emergent matching to sample. In this study we prevented visual feedback during the construction procedure. Also, in matching-to-sample tests Mackaÿs subjects might simply have reached for the first letter of a comparison name, as if to begin construction, and a selection of the whole word would have been recorded. In this study, subjects constructed combinations of three arbitrary forms, with each combination composed of a different sequence of the same three forms. In the subsequent matching-to-sample test, subjects could not select a comparison on the basis of a single element because all comparisons were made up of the same elements. Even with feedback and element sequence controlled, the subjects showed nearly perfect performances in the matching-to-sample tests. These results indicated that the emergent matching-to-sample performances did not require visual feedback from the constructed stimuli and were not artifacts of the sequence of elements in the comparison stimuli.

Notes from the beginning of time.

Some remembrances of things past, and their possible relevance to things now. These remembrances include notes about informality, research as a social process, student training and evaluation, research grants, thesis and dissertation proposals, and interdisciplinary collaboration.