Registration of operant responses in fish

A new microminiature inertial switch offers an inexpensive versatile alternative to the crystal phonocartridge as a response-detection device. An operandum for fish based on the inertial switch is described. Results obtained with goldfish suggest that the inertial switch follows response rates up to 2/second; faster rates are confounded by switch contact bounce.     

Handwriting as an operant

An apparatus was designed to monitor handwriting behavior. Two subjects were studied under various schedules of monetary reinforcement for handwriting. The different schedules engendered and maintained distinctive response patterns but the rates of sustained responding did not vary across schedules. The development of fixed-interval performance following continuous reinforcement resembled the same transition in lower animals. In one subject, availability of reading material interacted with the schedule to determine response pattern. It was suggested that handwriting may be a more appropriate response for the experimental analysis of human behavior than the more frequently used button-pushing or lever-pulling responses.     

Overshadowing in operant conditioning as a function of discriminability

Pigeons were trained in an operant, go/no-go, discrimination by successive presentations of discrete, positive and negative trials. In separate groups, the rate of discriminaion learning based on an auditory cue, on visual cues of different discriminability, and on combined auditory and visual cues was determined. The auditory cue was tone/no-tone, the visual cue was a difference in brightness level on the key. Following discrimination training, stimulus control was tested in extinction by presenting tone or notone at each of four key-brightness levels.Learning was more rapid with two cues than with either cue singly, demonstrating summation. The contribution made by the tone cue to the learning of the discrimination decreased with increasing discriminability of the light cue. The control exerted by the tone cue also decreased (i.e., the tone cue was overshadowed) with increasing discriminability of the light cue. In certain cases, the tone cue decreased control by brightness, showing that in two-cue discriminations each cue may reduce the control exerted by the other.     

Aggression as a reinforcer: operant behavior in the mouse-killing rat

Two experiments examined mouse killing as a reinforcer of key pressing by rats that killed mice. In Experiment I, mouse-killing rats performed the key-pressing response when each press was reinforced with presentation of a mouse. Offered a choice between a key that yielded presentation of mice and one that did not, the rats preferred the key that yielded mice. When the contingency was reversed, the rats preferred the other key and continued to kill mice. In Experiment II, mouse-killing rats that did not kill rat pups performed a key-pressing response reinforced with presentation of mice on a variable-interval schedule. In tests for responding reinforced on that schedule with presentation of normal mice, anesthetized mice, dead mice, or rat pups, these rats that killed mice but not rat pups exhibited a decline in response rate when rat pups were the reinforcer. Altering the condition of the mice did not significantly affect performance.     

Free operant avoidance as a function of the response-shock=shock-shock interval

Two temporal parameters of free operant or Sidman avoidance behavior are the interval by which responses postpone shocks (Response-Shock interval) and the interval between shocks when no responses occur (Shock-Shock interval). Avoidance behavior was examined in three white rats under conditions where the Response-Shock and Shock-Shock intervals were always equal. With intervals from 10 to 60 sec response rates and shock rates were similar, decreasing, negatively accelerated functions of increasing Response-Shock=Shock-Shock interval. Over this range, response and shock rates were linearly related to the reciprocal of the Response-Shock=Shock-Shock interval. It was shown, however, that this relation cannot hold at extremely long intervals. Both the ratio of responses emitted to shocks received and the percentage of shocks possible which were avoided increased at long Response-Shock=Shock-Shock intervals. These findings may be related to the fact that long intervals provide optimal conditions for conditioning avoidance behavior in the rat.     

Asymptotic reinforced responding as a function of the operant level of the instrumental response

The relationship between operant level (base rate) and asymptotic reinforced instrumental responding was investigated in several contingencies in which licking was contingent upon running, under different FR schedules. For Group I the relationship was examined by selecting rats who naturally differed in their running base rates and for which the licking base rates were equivalent. For Group II the relationship was examined by selecting rats with equivalent running and licking base rates, but whose running rates were eventually made to differ by manipulating wheel-torque requirements. Asymptotic reinforced instrumental responding was found to be linearly related to pre-contingent running base rates, for all FR schedules, and independent of the procedures used to obtain differing running base rates. The results support Premack's contention that asymptotic reinforced instrumental responding is a joint function of the reinforcing response and the operant level of the instrumental response.     

A minicomputer system for recording the dynamic properties of individual operant responses

A PDP-12 is used to conduct operant experiments in which peak force, duration, time integral of force, and interresponse time may each serve as the criterion response property for reinforcement, and all four properties are simultaneously recorded as dependent variables. Calibration, acquisition and control, and data analysis programs are described.     

Feedback to attendants as a reinforcer for applying operant techniques

After varying lengths of baseline, initiation of a feedback system increased the daily use of operant training methods by non-professional hall personnel in a state institution for retarded children.     

Adlerian psychology as an intuitive operant system

Traditional accounts of the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler tend to sentimentalize his system and obscure its functional flavor. Six basic Adlerian positions on human behavior, including Rudolf Dreikurs' "four goals of misbehavior," are interpreted as a primitive statement of operant principles. Applied techniques long used by Individual Psychology practitioners strongly resemble interventions that applied behavior analysts have developed by more systematic means.     

Derived relational responding as generalized operant behavior

The major aim of the present study was to demonstrate that derived relational responding may be viewed as a form of generalized operant behavior. In Experiment 1, 4 subjects were divided into two conditions (2 in each condition). Using a two-comparison matching-to-sample procedure, all subjects were trained and tested for the formation of two combinatorially entailed relations. Subjects were trained and tested across multiple stimulus sets. Each set was composed of novel stimuli. Both Conditions 1 and 2 involved explicit performance-contingent feedback presented at the end of each block of test trials (i.e., delayed feedback). In Condition 1, feedback was accurate (consistent with the experimenter-designated relations) following exposure to the initial stimulus sets. When subjects' responding reached a predefined mastery criterion, the feedback then switched to inaccurate (not consistent with the experimenter-designated relations) until responding once again reached a predefined criterion. Condition 2 was similar to Condition 1, except that exposure to the initial stimulus sets was followed by inaccurate feedback and once the criterion was reached feedback switched to accurate. Once relational responding emerged and stabilized, response patterns on novel stimulus sets were controlled by the feedback delivered for previous stimulus sets. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, except that during Conditions 3 and 4 four comparison stimuli were employed during training and testing. Experiment 3 was similar to Condition 1 of Experiment 1, except that after the mastery criterion was reached for class-consistent responding, feedback alternated from accurate to inaccurate across each successive stimulus set. Experiment 4 involved two types of feedback, one type following tests for mutual entailment and the other type following tests for combinatorial entailment. Results from this experiment demonstrated that mutual and combinatorial entailment may be controlled independently by accurate and inaccurate feedback. Overall, the data support the suggestion, made by relational frame theory, that derived relational responding is a form of generalized operant behavior.     

A device for presenting attack opportunity as a reinforcer for operant behavior

A device is described which automatically measures barpresses reinforced by short opportunities to attack male mice. Data on barpress rates indicate rapid and reliable acquisition of preferences for reinforcer bars and rapid abolition of this preference when the reinforcement contingency is subsequently eliminated. The data are less reliable for reversal learning.     

Occasional reinforced responses during extinction can slow the rate of reacquisition of an operant response

Three experiments with rats examined reacquisition of an operant response after either extinction or a response-elimination procedure that included occasional reinforced responses during extinction. In each experiment, reacquisition was slower when response elimination had included occasional reinforced responses, although the effect was especially evident when responding was examined immediately following each response-reinforcer pairing during reacquisition (Experiments 2 and 3). An extinction procedure with added noncontingent reinforcers also slowed reacquisition (Experiment 3). The results are consistent with research in classical conditioning (Bouton, M. E., Woods, A. M., & Pineño, O. (2004). Occasional reinforced trials during extinction can slow the rate of rapid reacquisition. Learning & Motivation, 35, 371-390) and suggest that rapid reacquisition after extinction is analogous to a renewal effect that occurs when reinforced responses signal a return to the conditioning context. Clinical implications are also discussed.     

Projector slide changing and focusing as operant reinforcers

Uninstructed subjects choose to view, in sharp focus where possible, projected visual images in preference to various simpler auditory and visual stimuli (e.g., buzzers of flashing lights). The rate of responding on the lever rapidly increased above the operant level (projector inoperative) even though the stimuli were nonsense syllables. When focusing also was made contingent on responses, the subjects promptly started sharpening the focus of legible but blurred nonsense syllables. When the visual material was colored landscape scenes, the rates of slide-changing generally decreased, because of increased viewing time relative to the nonsense syllables, at the same time that the latencies of focusing decreased. Both the sharpness of focus and the total time spent with the image in sharp focus increased greatly with the colored slides, establishing that the subjects were under control of the stimulus events. Extinction of both responses occurred very rapidly when the controls became inoperative.