Nodality effects in transference and equivalence probes during equivalence class formation

Abstract

The presence of the “number of nodes effect” was analyzed on the formation of two-node four-member classes with a serial training protocol and with three concurrent probes of the equivalence class formation in undergraduate students. First, the baseline conditional relations AB, BC and CD were trained, then a discriminative function was established for one stimulus in each potential class and the transfer test was applied, finally the traditional equivalence probes and a “paper-and-pencil” probe of derivative relations were completed. The results showed a high inter-individual variability, 4 participants formed two classes, 5 not formed any and 1 alone formed one class; number of node effects was observed in 7 participants, although in 5 participants showed a partial effect. The results are discussed in terms of the Sidman’s (1994) and Imam’s (2006) proposals by a hand and Fields & colleague’s point of view (1995, 2008) on the other hand.