The effect of learning verbal labels for stimuli on their later discrimination.

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Abstract
Dollard and Miller''s hypotheses of acquired distinctiveness and acquired equivalence of cues were tested. The Ss were given either distinctiveness, equivalence, or stimulus familiarization training with a set of stimuli, and were then given a perceptual discrimination task using the same stimuli. A fourth group was given the discrimination task with no preliminary training. There were no significant differences in discrimination performance for the 3 preliminary training groups, and therefore the hypotheses are not supported. These 3 groups, however, made significantly fewer errors than the control group. Facilitation of discrimination on the criterion task is interpreted in terms of the development of identifications for the stimuli during preliminary training. General situational factors, however, may have produced the facilitation.
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