TESTING FOR TRANSITIVE CLASS CONTAINMENT AS A FEATURE OF HIERARCHICAL CLASSIFICATION

Abstract

Three experiments investigated responding consistent with transitive class containment, a feature of hierarchical classification. Experiment 1 replicated key components of a preliminary attempt to model hierarchical classification ( Griffee & Dougher, 2002 ) and tested for responding consistent with transitive class containment. Only 2 out of 5 participants showed the expected pattern. Experiment 2 tested whether repeated exposures to the Experiment 1 protocol would give rise to the expected pattern more reliably. None of 3 novel participants demonstrated the pattern. In Experiment 3, physically similar stimuli used in Experiments 1 and 2 were replaced across testing cycles by arbitrary stimuli. Transitive‐class‐containment‐consistent responding was observed in all 3 novel participants. Implications, limitations and future research are discussed.