Matching to complex stimuli under non-reinforced conditions: Errorless transfer from identity to arbitrary matching tasks

The present study investigated whether preschool children exposed to identity-matching tasks involving colour-form (CF) complex stimuli acquire arbitrary relations among those colours and forms. The children were first trained on an identity-matching task with green and yellow as samples and as comparisons (C-C task). Subsequent tests showed that the children matched: (1) samples green lambda and yellow pi, with comparisons green and yellow (CF-C), respectively; (2) samples black lambda and black pi, with comparisons green lambda and yellow pi (F-CF); (3) samples black lambda and black pi, with comparisons green and yellow (F-C); and (4) samples green and yellow, with comparisons black lambda and black pi (C-F). Other findings suggested that the F-C and C-F outcomes were likely only if the children were exposed to both CF-C and F-CF conditions. The results extend previous studies on emergent discriminations based on the elements of complex stimuli. The emergence of both form-colour and colour-form matching to sample permits an inference of symmetry, one of the properties of stimulus equivalence.