Derived relational responding as generalized operant behavior

The major aim of the present study was to demonstrate that derived relation al responding may be viewed as a form of generalized operant behavior. In E xperiment 1, 4 subjects were divided into two conditions (2 in each conditi on). Using a two-comparison matching-to-sample procedure, all subjects were trained and tested for the formation of two combinatorially entailed relat ions. Subjects were trained and tested across multiple stimulus sets. Each set was composed of novel stimuli. Both Conditions 1 and 2 involved explici t performance-contingent feedback presented at the end of each block of tes t trials (i.e., delayed feedback). In Condition 1, feedback was accurate (c onsistent with the experimenter-designated relations) following exposure to the initial stimulus sets. When subjects' responding reached a predefined mastery criterion, the feedback then switched to inaccurate (not consistent with the experimenter-designated relations) until responding once again re ached a predefined criterion. Condition 2 was similar to Condition 1, excep t that exposure to the initial stimulus sets was followed by inaccurate fee dback and once the criterion was reached feedback switched to accurate. Onc e relational responding emerged and stabilized, response patterns on novel stimulus sets were controlled by the feedback delivered for previous stimul us sets. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment I, except that during Condition s 3 and 4 four comparison stimuli were employed during training and testing . Experiment 3 was similar to Condition 1 of Experiment 1, except that afte r the mastery criterion was reached for class-consistent responding, feedba ck alternated from accurate to inaccurate across each successive stimulus s et. Experiment 4 involved two types of feedback, one type following tests f or mutual entailment and the other type following tests for combinatorial e ntailment. Results from this experiment demonstrated that mutual and combin atorial entailment may be controlled independently by accurate and inaccura te feedback. Overall, the data support the suggestion, made by relational f rame theory, that derived relational responding is a form of generalized op erant behavior.