Comparing the stimulus-pairing yes/no procedure to match-to-sample to establish equivalence classes with adults

ABSTRACT

In a recent study, Gallant et al. (2021) found that both match-to-sample (MTS) and the stimulus-pairing yes/no procedure (SPYN) resulted in a high likelihood of equivalence class formation. Due to this ceiling effect, however, any potential differential effects of the SPYN and MTS trial formats could not be identified. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of MTS and SPYN using procedures that were less likely to result in class formation. A pretest-train-posttest sequence was used. During the pretest and posttest, both MTS and SPYN trials were used to assess all trained and derived relations. Class members consisted of abstract visual stimuli. We also assessed the degree to which class-consistent responding would generalize to a card sorting task. During training of baseline relations, half of the participants were exposed only to MTS or only SPYN trials. Posttest results showed that the trial format used to train the baseline relations had no differential effects on class formation; however, participants exposed to MTS training mastered the baseline relations in fewer trials and required less time than those in the SPYN group. Implications of these results and suggestions for future studies are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Abstract stimuli
• derived relations
• MTS
• SPYN
• stimulus equivalence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author note

This study was conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the first author’s Doctor of Philosophy degree in applied behavior analysis from Caldwell University under the supervision of the fourth author.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in the study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the sponsoring university’s Institutional Review Board and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from each individual participant included in the study. All procedures to obtain informed consent were approved by the sponsoring university’s Institutional Review Board.