The impact of high versus low levels of derivation for mutually and combinatorially entailed relations on persistent rule-following

The effects of rules on human behaviour have long been identified as important in the psychological literature. The increasing importance of the dynamics of arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARR), with regards to rules, has come to be of particular interest within Relational Frame Theory (RFT). One feature of AARR that previous research has suggested may differentially impact persistent rule-following is level of derivation. However, no published research to date has systematically explored this suggestion. Across two experiments, the impact of levels of derivation was examined on persistent rule-following at two stages of relational development: mutual entailment (Exp. 1) and combinatorial entailment (Exp. 2). A Training IRAP was used to establish a mutually entailed relational network in Experiment 1 and a combinatorially entailed network in Experiment 2, and to train these networks to different levels of derivation. This was followed by a contingency switching Match-to-Sample (MTS) task to assess rule persistence. Results from both experiments were generally consistent with the suggestion that lower levels of derivation produce more persistent rule-following. Unexpectedly, however, the findings from Experiment 1 also indicated that persistence was moderated by the type of novel word employed. Variations in results across both experiments and their implications for future research are discussed.