期刊名称：Experimental Analysis of Human Behavior Bulletin (EAHB Bulletin)
电子版ISSN：1938-7237
出版年度：2001
卷号：19
出版社：Experimental Analysis of Human Behavior Special Interest Group
摘要：It is widely recognized that subjects with developmental disabilities often encounter difficulties in learning arbitrary conditional discriminations (e.g., Eikeseth & Smith, 1992; McIlvane, Dube, Kledaras, Ienacco & Stoddard, 1990; Saunders & Spradlin, 1989, 1990, 1993). However, similar difficulties have been reported for young, normally-developing children (e.g., Augustson & Dougher, 1991; Pilgrim, Jackson & Galizio, 2000; Schilmoeller, Schilmoeller, Etzel & LeBlanc, 1979; Zygmont, Lazar, Dube & McIlvane, 1992). For example, in the Pilgrim et al. study, normally developing children (ages 3-6) failed to master an arbitrary match-to-sample (MTS) task under conditions of differential reinforcement, but acquisition was observed when specific instructions or sample-naming procedures were used. Unfortunately, the use of explicitly verbal procedures may be problematic when the experimental question involves emergent relations because of the theoretical controversy over the role of verbal processes in such relations (see for example, Horne & Lowe, 1996, and commentaries). In an attempt to develop a training procedure that required no verbal interaction with subjects, Pilgrim et al. also explored the effects of pretraining a conditional discrimination with thematically related stimuli (e.g., given a picture of a flower as a sample stimulus, choosing a picture of a vase, and not a cake was reinforced). This thematic MTS pretraining was effective in facilitating acquisition of an arbitrary conditional discrimination problem for most children.
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