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Testing for transitive class containment as a feature of hierarchical classification

Slattery, Brian
; 
Stewart, Ian
; 
O'Hora, Denis
Repository DOI
Publication Date
2011-09-01
Keywords
stimulus control, hierarchical classification, categorization, transitive class containment, humans, class inclusion hierarchies, stimulus equivalence, categorization, operant
Type
Article
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Citation
Slattery, Brian; Stewart, Ian; O'Hora, Denis (2011). Testing for transitive class containment as a feature of hierarchical classification. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 96 (2), 243-260
Abstract
Three experiments investigated responding consistent with transitive class containment, a feature of hierarchical classification. Experiment 1 replicated key components of a preliminary attempt to model hierarchical classification (Griffee & Dougher, 2002) and tested for responding consistent with transitive class containment. Only 2 out Of 5 participants showed the expected pattern. Experiment 2 tested whether repeated exposures to the Experiment 1 protocol would give rise to the expected pattern more reliably. None of 3 novel participants demonstrated the pattern. In Experiment 3, physically similar stimuli used in Experiments 1 and 2 were replaced across testing cycles by arbitrary stimuli. Transitive-class-containment-consistent responding was observed in all 3 novel participants. Implications, limitations and future research are discussed.
Funder
Publisher
Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
Publisher DOI
10.1901/jeab.2011.96-243
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Ireland
cbn
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Externally hosted open access publications with University of Galway authors (2)