Stimulus Relations Can Have Stimulus Functions

There is increasing consensus amongst researchers in different subfields of psychology that stimulus relations are an important determinant of human behavior. When we consider stimulus relations as elements of the environment like we do individual stimuli, we can study their various behavioral functions empirically. To our knowledge, little past research has done so in a systematic manner. We report on three preregistered behavioral experiments (N = 204) in which we set out to investigate whether stimulus relations can function as a conditional and unconditional stimulus using a passive pairing phase, and as a conditioned reinforcer using an operant (match-to-sample) conditioning procedure. Results in all three experiments supported our hypothesis that stimulus relations, both formal and symbolic, can have these functions. Implications for future research are discussed.