Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative process typical of elderly populations and that affect a variety
of neuronal structures, with focal lesions in the hippocampal area that are strongly related to
associative learning and memory. Although various studies focusing on Alzheimer have been
reported, none of them has focused on equivalence-type responding after the observation of
stimulus pairs of the AB, AC type (Leader et al., 1996). Accordingly, the present study consisted of
a replication of the experiments by Leader et al. (1996) on pairing-based equivalence in groups of
elderly institutionalized people with and without Alzheimer. The results showed that none of the
groups performed above chance. Thus, two novel groups were included in the study: one with
young subjects, and another with people in their fifties. Globally we observed that more than
institutionalization of demencia, age was the main factor behind our participants’ response scores:
young participants performed at a higher level than the other groups.
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