formed the same classes (Fields et al., 2009).

In this latter condition, working memory

was needed to make a decision about the class membership of the sample and

comparison, as with the TSP-2R-RW trials. In contrast, however, working memory was

not needed to make decisions about the response to be produced since the responses

occurred in the presence of the comparison stimuli in these TSP-2R trials. Thus, less

working memory was needed to form classes when trials were presented in the TSP-2R

format than the TSP-2R-RW format. The results of these two experiments, then, suggest

that likelihood of class formation is directly related to the amount of working memory

required to respond correctly during training and testing. Additional research is needed

to assess the validity of this interpretation of the relation between working memory and

likelihood of equivalence class formation.

Interactions between Three- and Four-Member Probes

The 4-MIX test contained probes of the three-and four-member classes, and mastery

levels of responding were maintained by all probes. Thus, class expansion did not

disrupt the intactness of the previously formed three-member classes. When the four-

member probes were subsequently presented alone, class-indicative responding by the

D-based probes were maintained for only four of the participants. Thus, the emergence

of the four-member relations did not require the presence of the three-member relations.

By contrast, the D-based probes presented alone did not maintain class-indicative

responding in their initial administration for the seven remaining participants. For them,

the maintenance of the four-member classes in the 4-MIX test depended on the presence

of the three-member probes. Since these decrements returned to mastery with test

repetition, they reflected class disruption rather than class breakdown.

Historically, class expansion has been assessed in the context of probes of previously
formed classes. The present experiment suggests that their inclusion in prior

experiments may have supported the observed class expansion in the prior experiments.

If so, how many and which types of probes served such a supporting role? This question

can be answered with additional research, which could inform a better theoretical

understanding of the phenomenon.

Sorting Tests and Number of Established Classes

As noted in the introduction, sorting tests have been used to document the formation of

equivalence classes. These tests take much less time to complete than the typical MTS

test, and produce results that are consistent with the outcomes of MTS tests. In all prior

experiments, however, the only stimuli used in a sorting test have been the members of

the experimenter-defined equivalence classes. Thus, if three experimenter-defined

classes were being probed, sorting the stimuli into three piles could indicate the

emergence of three classes or the emergence of two classes with the remainder not

functioning as members of either of the two classes, that is, a “discard” pile of cards that

presented as a class.

The present experiment avoided that interpretive ambiguity by including stimuli that

were not members of any of the experimenterdefined classes. All six participants who

were tested placed the cards into three stacks, one with stimuli from Class 1, one with

stimuli from Class 2 and a third with the novel stimuli that were not members of either

class. Thus, the sorting test modified in this manner documented the formation and

expansion of two explicit four-member equivalence classes.

One Comparison is Enough, and Procedural Independence of Equivalence Classes

Sidman (1987) argued that two or more comparisons should be used to form

equivalence classes because it reduces the likelihood of “class indicative” responding

being generated by reject relations rather than select relations. R. R. Saunders et al.
(2005), however, demonstrated that the likelihood of class formation did not vary with

the number of comparisons presented during the training or testing trials. In the present

experiment and in Fields et al. (2009), participants formed equivalence classes and then

expanded class size in the context of trials that contained single comparisons per trial. In

addition, the