We hypothesized that a three-sample conditional discrimination can emerge as a result of learning conditional discriminations with relational stimuli. After learning three first-order conditional discriminations AB, PQ, and CD, we taught a second-order conditional discrimination XAB in which X1 indicated selection of related stimuli (e.g., A1 and B1) and X2 of unrelated stimuli (e.g., A1 and B2). Then, we probed the emergence of conditional discriminations PQX and XCD in which the X stimuli were comparisons and contextual stimuli, respectively. Finally, a conditional discrimination was probed with stimuli P, Q, and C as samples and D1 and D2 as comparisons. When the P and Q stimuli were related (and related to X1 in PQX), all participants selected the D stimulus that was related to the C stimulus (D1 when C1 was present and D2 when C2 was present); when the P and Q stimuli were unrelated (and related to X2 in PQX), they selected the D stimulus unrelated to the C stimulus (D2 when C1 and D1 when C2), which demonstrated emergence based on the relations established among all stimuli. In Experiment 2, the teaching of XAB was omitted and only one in six participants demonstrated emergence, which indicated that relational stimuli X1 and X2 played an important role in emergence. Thus, a new type of emergence that mimics analogical reasoning was demonstrated. The obtained outcome suggests that this procedure provides a learning foundation for acquiring reasoning capabilities.

中文翻译：

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作为推理能力基础的三样本条件歧视的出现

我们假设通过关系刺激学习条件歧视会出现三样本条件歧视。在学习了三个一阶条件辨别AB、PQ和CD之后，我们教授了二阶条件辨别XAB，其中X1表示选择相关刺激（例如A1和B1），X2表示选择不相关刺激（例如A1和B2） ）。然后，我们探讨了条件歧视 PQX 和 XCD 的出现，其中 X 刺激分别是比较和情境刺激。最后，以刺激 P、Q 和 C 作为样本，以 D1 和 D2 作为比较，探讨条件辨别。当P和Q刺激相关时（并且与PQX中的X1相关），所有参与者都选择与C刺激相关的D刺激（当C1存在时为D1，当C2存在时为D2）；当P和Q刺激不相关（并且与PQX中的X2相关）时，他们选择与C刺激无关的D刺激（当C1时为D2，当C2时为D1），这证明了基于所有刺激之间建立的关系的涌现。在实验2中，XAB的教学被省略，只有六分之一的参与者表现出涌现，这表明关系刺激X1和X2在涌现中发挥了重要作用。因此，一种模仿类比推理的新型出现被证明了。获得的结果表明该过程为获得推理能力提供了学习基础。