INCONGRUOUS STIMULUS PAIRING AND CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATION-TRAINING - EFFECTS ON RELATIONAL RESPONDING

In Experiment 1, 5 subjects were exposed to a stimulus-pairing procedu re in which two nonsense syllables, identified by a letter-number code as Al and C2, each predicted the onset of a sexual film clip, and the nonsense syllables A2 and C1 each predicted the onset of a nonsexual film clip. Subjects were then exposed to a matching-to-sample test in which the nonsense syllables Al and A2 were presented as sample stimul i and C1 and C2 were presented as comparison stimuli and vice versa (i .e., C stimuli as samples and A stimuli as comparisons). Ail subjects matched Al with C2 and A2 with C1. Subjects were then trained on the c onditional discriminations A1-B1, A2-B2, B1-C1, B2-C2, after which the matching-to-sample test was again administered. All subjects continue d to match Al with C2 and A2 with C1 in accordance with the earlier st imulus-pairing contingencies. An additional 5 subjects were exposed fi rst to conditional discrimination training and testing before being ex posed to the incongruous stimulus pairing and matching-to-sample testi ng. Under these conditions, 4 of the 5 subjects always matched Al with C1 and A2 with C2. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, except that a matching-to-sample test was not administered following the initial t raining procedure. Under these conditions, matching-to-sample test per formances were controlled by the contingencies that had immediately pr eceded the test. Experiment 3 indicated that initial matching-to-sampl e test performances were unlikely to change, even after repeated expos ure to incongruous training and testing. Experiment 4 demonstrated tha t pretraining with unrelated stimulus sets increased the sensitivity o f matching-to-sample test performances to incongruous contingencies wh en they were similar in format to those arranged during pretraining. T hese data may have implications for a behavior-analytic interpretation of attitude formation and change.