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 l etters. Visual feedback from the constructed color names might have be en responsible for the emergent matching to sample. In this study we p revented visual feedback during the construction procedure. Also, in m atching-to-sample tests Mackay's subjects might simply have reached fo r 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 st udy, subjects constructed combinations of three arbitrary forms, with each combination composed of a different sequence of the same three fo rms. In the subsequent matching-to-sample test, subjects could not sel ect a comparison on the basis of a single element because all comparis ons were made up of the same elements. Even with feedback and element sequence controlled, the subjects showed nearly perfect performances i n the matching-to-sample tests. These results indicated that the emerg ent matching-to-sample performances did not require visual feedback fr om the constructed stimuli and were not artifacts of the sequence of e lements in the comparison stimuli.