Effects of order of presentation between response criteria based on relationships of similarity and equivalence-equivalence

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment which shows how the arbitrary relationship of equivalence-equivalence can be blocked, and in turn to block, to a non arbitrary relationship as it is the physical similarity among stimuli, in function of the order of presentation of the answer criteria. It was carried out with University students. This equivalence-equivalence paradigm was proposed in this study as a model of human analogical reasoning in which the subjects respond (or not) according to the equivalence relationship between two complex stimuli. The results of this work are discussed from a double perspective: on the one hand, the study of those factors that can distort the achievement of complex behaviours based on the relationships among the antecedent stimuli; On the other hand, the extent of the basic competition phenomena already consolidated in the phenomena of classic and operant conditioning.