Stimulus-Response Similarity and Children's Matching Performance

Abstract

The matching behavior of preschool children was studied with a match-to-sample task to evaluate the thesis that the relational stimulus of behavioral similarity serves a reinforcing function. Ss were trained to match a standard in one physical position and to mismatch a standard in a second position. Subsequently, Ss were given the opportunity to match or mismatch a probe standard in an intermediate physical position, i.e., in the absence of cues for matching or mismatching. Ss tended to match the first probe stimulus. This result is consistent with the view that the experimental setting served the special discriminative function of signalling an occasion for reinforcement by the relational stimulus of similarity.