Abstract

HUZIWARA, Edson Massayuki et al. Experimental accounts about the effects of rejection control in the equivalence class formation. Perspectivas [online]. 2014, vol.5, n.2, pp. 49-69. ISSN 2177-3548.

Experiments that investigate issues related to the occurrence of negative results in the equivalence class formation tests frequently refer to the establishment of the reject control (i.e., sample/S- relation). Based on the theoretical and empirical analysis described in the seminal studies, it was argued that the establishment of such relations would give rise to patterns of responses that would be opposite to those generally described in reflexivity and transitivity tests. However, most posterior experiments with specific procedures to establish relations controlled by rejection in their participants obtained negative results in the class formation tests, but did not obtain the opposite pattern of responses. Therefore, a detailed description of effects in the class formation tests modulated by the establishment of conditional relations controlled by rejection is still necessary. Twenty-three college students performed a procedure of matching-to-sample with different numbers of S + and S- which established control by rejection. The result seems to indicate that participants achieved negative results in classes of deformation tests and there was no pattern of responses among them, as described in previous experiments. Based on these results, we discuss the need for new strategies related to the evaluation of occurrence of this behavioral process many times mentioned.

Keywords : rejection control; equivalence class formation tests; opposite pattern of responses; college students.

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