title: A transformation of respondently conditioned stimulus function in accordance with arbitrarily applicable relations.
abstract: Adult male subjects saw a sexual film clip paired with a nonsense syllable (C1). Similarly, an emotionally neutral film clip was paired with a second nonsense syllable (C3). Responses to the nonsense syllables were recorded as skin resistance responses. Subjects were also trained in a series of related conditional discriminations, using the C1 and C3 stimuli, from which the following equivalence relations were predicted; A1-B1-C1, A2-B2-C2, and A3-B3-C3. Some subjects were given matching-to-sample (equivalence) tests after the conditional discrimination training (Experiment 1), whereas others were not (Experiment 2). Subjects were tested for a transformation of eliciting functions by presenting the A1 and A3 stimuli, which were related through equivalence to C1 and C3, respectively. Five of the 6 subjects who showed significantly greater conditioned responses to C1 than to C3, also showed significantly greater skin resistance responses to A1 than to A3. Two additional subjects demonstrated a transformation of an eliciting stimulus function in accordance with five-member equivalence relations (Experiment 3), and another 5 subjects demonstrated similar effects in accordance with the relations of sameness and opposition (Experiment 4).
authors.affiliation: University of Bath.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Roche
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Barnes
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D001245:Association Learning; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D004882:Erotica; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007989:Libido; D008297:Male; D014706:Verbal Learning