Title
Categories of Relations Between Stimuli: Foundations for Transitive Inference and Other Emergent Behavior
UMMS Affiliation
Department of Psychiatry; Shriver Center; Center for Health Policy and Research
Date
12-21-2012
Document Type
Article
Medical Subject Headings
Discrimination (Psychology)
Disciplines
Behavioral Disciplines and Activities | Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms
Abstract
Recently, Vigo and Allen (2009) proposed a view of transitive inference as categorization that depends only on discriminative performances, similarity judgments, and the formation of categories of which non-human animals and non-verbal humans are capable. Rather than involving language based statements of premises, a network of simple discriminations provides the prerequisites for the emergence of new discriminations involving the transitive relations among stimuli. This view is illustrated briefly here and considered in the broader contexts of two experimental situations of interest to behavior analysts: repeated discrimination reversal training and symmetry in pigeons.
Rights and Permissions
Citation: Mackay, H.A. (2012). Categories of relations between stimuli: Foundations for transitive inference and other emergent behavior. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 13(1), 111-121.