4.10 Trained and Derived Equivalence Relations

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In this case, the person has been taught two relations. Given this training, most people will then derive the four relations shown here. These derived relations might seem obvious, but they’re somewhat unexpected because the person was not directly taught these relations. In the case of deriving B = C and C = B, for example, the person had never even seen B and C together before. 

A diagram of derived equivalence relations.
Trained RelationsDerived Relations
A = B (given A, select B) B = A (given B, select A) 
A = C (given A, select C) C = A (given C, select A) 
B = C (given B, select C)
C = B (given B, select C)
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This is a hard example to me. I cannot find criteria for choosing the matches.

I feel like this is not the best example with these shapes that are so different, I know what trained and derived equivalnece is and this example is making them more confusing…

I think they used these examples because likely, we have never been trained with these symbols. Potentially never seen these symbols before, therefore we are learning stimulus equivalence and derived stimulus relations with symbols we have never been in contact with before.

This is exactly right. A great deal of stimulus equivalence and RFT research involves seemingly random, arbitrary, and “meaningless” symbols like these because the experimenters are trying to control for pre-experimental learning histories with the stimuli. If known or familiar stimuli are used, the experimenter must account for the fact that each participant’s prior experience with the stimuli may impact the results. This often introduces variability or ambiguity into the experiment because the experimenter typically will not know each participant’s extensive history with each stimulus. Some experiments DO use known stimuli, however (particularly when they are investigating or capitalizing on the known or common functions of those stimuli).

cpozzi CARLOS POZZI-MONTERO July 27, 2026 at 3:44 am

The very short lessons makes it difficult for me. It interrupts the explanation.

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