The Premack principle in human experimental and applied settings

Studies claiming support for the Premack Principle in human experimental and applied settings are reviewed in terms of the standard test conditions associated with the Principle and in terms of the Principle's conceptual constrains. Little definitive evidence was found to support the claim that a high probability response will reinforce a lower probability response, nor was the converse contention supported, that a low probability response will act as a punisher for a high probability response. More importantly, among the reports reviewed there was no evidence for the reversibility of the reinforcement relationship.     

Improving visual acuity in a myopic child: Assessing compliance and effectiveness

Improvements in visual acuity following vision training were evaluated for an 11$\text{1}\text{2}$-yr-old myopic male. Initial increases in the distance at which the S could discriminate letters were found. However, performance began to deteriorate as training progressed. A negative-reinforcement procedure was employed in order to rule out motivational factors potentially related to this decreased performance. Using a changing criterion within an ABCBC reversal design, the distance at which the S correctly discriminated letters increased by more than $\text{4}\text{1}\text{2}$ times and was clearly related to the reinforcement procedure.     

Reinforcers and vocational maturity in occupational aspiration,expectation, and goal deflection

When vocational aspirations and expectations are not the same, this difference is termed occupational goal deflection. The present study was designed to investigate the notion that such aspirations, expectations, and goal deflection are related to an individual's vocational maturity, education, and job reinforcers. The subjects were 149 vocational rehabilitation clients and 51 graduate students. Analyses of variance yielded findings that more vocationally mature individuals tend to display greater vocational aspiration, greater vocational expectation, and less goal deflection. Similarily, subjects who value such job characteristics as “getting a feeling of accomplishment, fair company policies, trying out their own ideas, doing work without feeling it is morally wrong, making their own decisions, (and) planning work with little supervision” tend to have higher aspirations and expectations, but lower goal deflection.     

Reinforcers,values, and vocational maturity in adults

The purpose of the present study was to test the notion that job reinforcers and occupational values are related to vocational maturity. The importance of 21 reinforcers and 11 values were rated by 207 vocational rehabilitation clients nad 59 graduate students. The dependent measure was the Adult Vocational Maturity Index. Older subjects with more education were more vocationally mature. Those subjects who considered-(a) getting a feeling of accomplishment, (b) doing work without feeling it is morally wrong, (c) having steady employment, (d) independence, (e) opportunity to use special talents, (f) challenge, and (g) self-satisfaction-important, were high in vocational maturity. Subjects who considered such things as-(a) telling other workers what to do, (b) having the position of “somebody” in the community, and (c) prestige-important, were lower in vocational maturity. The data indicated that choice of occupational reinforcers and preferences for specified values are reflected in the individual's “vocational maturity”.     

The importance of home practice for progressive relaxation training

The efficacy of home practice assignments was evaluated as a component of standardized progressive relaxation training. Subjects reporting general anxiety and tension problems were assigned to either a home practice relaxation, no home practice relaxation or wait-list control condition. Treatment was conducted for 10 sessions over a 5-week period. In addition, subjects in both conditions engaged in in-vivo application of their relaxation skills during a final 2-week application period. Group comparisons showed that both progressive relaxation conditions significantly improved on daily self-monitored general anxiety and tension levels relative to the wait-list control condition. Group analyses of percent subject improvements supported the effectiveness of home practice assignments, especially during the application period. No systematic differences between groups, on physiological and self-report variables, were found during several laboratory relaxation evaluation sessions. This study supports the contribution of home practice assignments to progressive relaxation training.     

Stimulus control of responding by response-reinforcer temporal contiguity

The stimulus properties of brief disruptions in response-reinforcer temporal contiguity were investigated using a discrete trial conditional discrimination procedure. Key pecking (nondelay) or key pecking followed by a brief interval of nonpecking (delay) in the sample component produced a stimulus change (choice component). Pecks in the choice component to one of two alternatives resulted in food or blackout, conditional upon which response requirement was met in producing the choice component. A baseline condition, in which key pecking always produced the choice component and correct choices were arranged randomly, alternated with experimental conditions that included nondelay and delay values of either 0.2, 0.5, or 1.0 sec between the last key peck and the initiation of the choice component. All subjects accurately discriminated brief temporal delays between a response and stimulus change, with choice accuracy increasing for three of four subjects as the temporal disruption in contiguity increase. Implications of the research for the study of delayed reinforcement, response-independent reinforcement, and the discrimination of causality are discussed.     

Applied behavior analysis at West Virginia University: A brief history

The development of an emphasis on applied behavior analysis in the Department of Psychology at West Virginia University is traced. The emphasis began primarily in the early 1970s, under the leadership of Roger Maley and Jon Krapfl, and has continued to expand and evolve with the participation of numerous behavior analysts and behavior therapists, both inside and outside the department. The development has been facilitated by several factors: establishment of a strong behavioral emphasis in the three Clinical graduate programs; change of the graduate program in Experimental Psychology to a program in basic Behavior Analysis; development of nonclinical applied behavior analysis within the Behavior Analysis program; establishment of a joint graduate program with Educational Psychology; establishment of a Community/Systems graduate program; and organization of numerous conferences. Several factors are described that seem to assure a stable role for behavior analysis in the department: a stable and supportive "culture" within the department; American Psychological Association accreditation of the clinical training; a good reputation both within the university and in psychology; and a broader community of behavior analysts and behavior therapists.     

A survey of communicative disorders students' attitudes toward stuttering

Cooper's (1975) Clinician Attitudes Toward Stuttering (CATS) inventories were conpleted by 1,902 speech-language pathology and audiology students from 33 universities, each in a different state. The majority of respondents perceived stutterers as having psychosocial problems and believed that client and parental counseling were essential aspects of treatment. These views were relatively unaffected by student training and clinical exposure. In addition, most of the assumptions of Johnson's diagnosogenic theory of stuttering were held by the majority of the students surveyed. Most of the respondents believed that stuttering was difficult to modify and that speech clinicians were neither adept nor comfortable treating stutterers. These latter attitudes were significantly affected by training, i.e., the more advanced the students' training, the more pessimistic their views on clinician competence. Other professional attitudes and the effect of training on them are also discussed.     

Propositional self-control in children

The scope of Dulany's (1968) Theory of Propositional Control was examined using 54 $\text{11}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-, 8}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-,}\text{and 4}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-year-olds}$. Significance of the reinforcer was manipulated orthogonally to value of the reinforcer. With a six attribute concept attainment task $\text{4}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-}\text{year-olds}$ did not learn in either of two significant ways: a performance change over blocks, nor the acquisition of a rule of reinforcement. Children of $\text{8}\text{1}\text{2}$ and $\text{11}\text{1}\text{2}$ learned in both of the above senses. In addition, for the latter subjects the central equations of the theory held with strength and subjects' intentions accounted for more variance in performance than did the experimental manipulations. In supplementary experiments using a simplified task some $\text{4}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-}\text{year-olds}$ learned. When only the $\text{4}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-}\text{year-olds}$ who learned to a criterion were examined the central equations of the theory were nearly as strong as for subjects at ages $\text{8}\text{1}\text{2}$ and $\text{11}\text{1}\text{2}$. There was no evidence for learning without awareness at any age level.     

Menstrual symptom questionnaire: further psychometric evaluation

Novak, Jones, and Jones (1975) state that menstrual distress (dysmenorrhea) is the greatest cause of lost work hours among women, and Kistner (1970) estimate this to be 140 million annual work hours. Thirty-five percent of female adolescents. 25% of college women, and 60–70% of single females in their 30's and 40's are said to be invalid during menstruation (Green, 1971). Treatment procedures for primary dysmenorrhea have included hypnosis (Lackie, 1964), physical exercises (Golub. 1959). natural childbirth techniques (House, 1969), and oral contraceptives.

Though hormones are the most recent, frequent and effective treatment approach (Novak et al. 1975). Tyler (1973) cautions against their use because of possible adverse side effects. Recently, systematic desensitization (SD) has been used to relieve menstrual distress (Mullen, 1968, 1971; Reich, 1972; Tasto and Chesney, 1974) without risk of such side effects. Although SD has been effective, considerable response variability has been noted.

Becuase of this variability. Chesney and Tasto (1975a) developed the Menstrual Symptom Questionnaire (MSQ) to psychometrically identify two types of primary dysmenorrhea: spasdomic dysmenorrhea which designates distress during the flow period associated with excessive muscle tension, and congestive dysmenorrhea referring to premenstrual tension related to water retention. This instrument was designed to define types of menstrual symptoms and not symptom severity. Test-retest reliability was 0.87 and discrimination between spasdomic and congestive dysmenorrhea was highly significant. Of 48 women tested. 29 were identified as spasdomic with MSQ scores between 82 and 102, while 19 scored in the congestive range (46–68). Interestingly, no women scored in the median range (69–81), suggesting that there exists two unique types of primary dysmenorrhea identifiable by the MSQ. Subsequently, Chesney and Tasto (1975b) reported that congestive women did not respond to SD, while spasdomic symptoms were significantly reduced. It was hypothesized that the relaxation training component of SD was effective with spasmodic muscle tension symptoms and ineffective with congestive water retention symptoms. Consequently, the MSQ was thought capable of accounting for previously reported response variability of primary dysmenorrhea to SD.

The present study was intended to replicate Chesney and Tasto's (1975a, 1975b) findings. The following Null hypotheses were tested; (a) the MSQ does not have significant test-retest reliability; (b) the congestive-spasmodic symptom dimension of the MSQ is not dichotomous; and (c) the MSQ does not predict SD effectiveness