Maintaining Accurate Math Responses In Elementary School Students: The Effects Of Delayed Intermittent Reinforcement And Programming Common Stimuli.

This study examined the effect of delayed reinforcement on digits completed by elementary school children and the effect of programming stimuli common to reinforcement conditions on the maintenance of their performance. Participants exhibited similar levels of responding during intermittent and continuous reinforcement. Responding continued for a number of sessions at similar levels during a maintenance phase that included stimuli present during delayed reinforcement.     

Programming for Maintenance: An Investigation of Delayed Intermittent Reinforcement and Common Stimuli to Create Indiscriminable Contingencies

Generalization across time or maintenance of behavior change is a fundamental concern for behavior analysts and educators that remains insufficiently understood. This study examined the maintenance of mathematics responding during and following delayed intermittent reinforcement when common stimuli were programmed across the treatment and maintenance phases. Two third-grade girls who were referred by their classroom teacher due to concerns in the area of mathematics participated. Students were exposed to baseline, contingent reinforcement, delayed intermittent reinforcement, and a maintenance condition. The maintenance condition followed exposure to delayed intermittent reinforcement and included common stimuli from the reinforcement condition, but did not include a contingency for correct responding. Both students exhibited substantial prolonged maintenance during this condition. Implications of these results for future research examining maintenance and applied programming for maintenance are discussed.     

Cognitive-Behavioral Versus Supportive Psychotherapy for Intermittent Explosive Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Few clinical trials have evaluated the efficacy of psychotherapy for Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). The present study tested the efficacy of a cognitive behavioral intervention (versus supportive psychotherapy) among adults with IED. In this randomized clinical trial, 44 participants with IED (22 men and 22 women) aged 20–55 years completed twelve 50-minute individual sessions of either a multi-component cognitive behavioral intervention for IED (n = 19) or a time equated supportive psychotherapy (n = 25). At baseline, posttreatment, and 3-month follow-up, all participants received the Overt Aggression Scale–Modified, which was conducted by an interviewer who was blind to the participant’s study condition. During these visits, participants also completed self-report measures of relational aggression (Self-Report of Relational Aggression and Social Behavior), anger (State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2), cognitive biases (e.g., Social Information Processing Questionnaire Attribution and Emotional Response Questionnaire), and associated symptoms (e.g., Beck Depression Inventory). Primary study outcomes were aggressive behavior and anger. Though participants in both treatments tended to improve over time, the cognitive behavioral intervention was superior to supportive psychotherapy in decreasing aggressive behavior and relational aggression. These findings support the efficacy of a multicomponent cognitive behavioral intervention in treating aggression in IED.     

Contingent Reinforcement Effects on Movement Responses of Prison Inmates to the Holtzman Inkblot Technique

Prison inmates were administered the Holtzman Inkblot Technique (HIT) under conditions of either verbal or nonverbal reinforcement of movement responses. Overall, there were no differences among the verbal, nonverbal, and control groups. Inmates charged with violent crimes were found to give the fewest movement responses. With crime category controlled, more movement responses were given under nonverbal conditions. There were no sex differences for movement responses but testing time increased significantly when administered by the female examiner.     

正强化和负强化:概念、争议与神经机制

1975年,Michael首次正式提出应放弃"正强化"和"负强化"术语的使用,引起对"正强化和负强化是否本质上具有区别"这一问题的关注和争议。正负强化究竟本质上是否有区分、如何区分、以及区分它们的意义等问题,得到了众多行为心理学家的深入探讨。多数学者再度阐明正强化和负强化具有不同的心理机制,加以区分具有重要应用意义,主张沿用对它们的区分。最近,对正负强化神经机制的研究取得突破性进展,进一步揭示它们具有截然不同的神经相关过程。我们建议,分析强化作用进行时,机体是否在环境条件作用下已经偏离了基础、正常的心理稳态,有助于规范理解强化物启动的是正还是负强化的神经过程。     

Influence of Reinforcement Contingencies and Cognitive Styles on Affective Responses: An Examination of Rolls' Theory of Emotion in the Context of Consumer Choice

This paper examines Rolls' (2005 ) propositions that emotional responses can be systematically related to environmental contingencies and that individual differences are related to emotional responses. In addition, consumer situations, defined functionally in terms of the reinforcement pattern they uniquely portray, as proposed by the behavioral perspective model (BPM) of consumer choice are predictably associated with patterns of self‐reported pleasure, arousal, and dominance ( Mehrabian & Russell, 1974 ). Rolls' argument that individual differences influence conditionality and emotionality is examined via hypotheses from the theory of adaptive–innovative cognitive style ( Kirton, 1976, 2003 ). The results confirm that affective response to consumer environments is consistently predicted by the modeled pattern of operant contingencies, but not the expected relationship between cognitive styles and affective responses.     

Reinforcement of inhibition

A differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior (DRO) schedule with trials and delayed reinforcement was investigated. Periodically a wheel was briefly available to rats, followed six seconds later by brief availability of a bar. Variable-ratio food reinforcement of wheel turns was adjusted to give 95% turns. After variable-ratio-five reinforcement of bar presses produced 100% pressing, then separate ratio schedules were used for presses following turns (turn presses) and presses following nonturns (nonturn presses). Increasing nonturn-press reinforcements decreased turns, even though total reinforcements increased. Reversal by decreasing nonturn-press reinforcements raised turns, though with hysteresis. Thus food reinforcement increased nonturns even though delayed six to ten seconds after nonturns, a delay that greatly reduces response reinforcement. Those and other results indicate that the turn decrease was not due to reinforcement of competing responses. Evidence against other alternatives, and the reduction of responding by increased reinforcement, indicate that the term inhibition is appropriate for the phenomenon reinforced. Response-specific inhibition appears appropriate for this particular kind, since its effects are more specific to particular responses than Pavlovian conditioned-inhibition. Response-specific inhibition seems best considered a behavioral output comparable to responses (e.g., both reinforcible) but with important properties different from responses (e.g., different reinforcement-delay gradients).     

Quantitative Studies of Verbal Reinforcement in Classroom Situations: II. Occurrence of Error and Correct Responses Related to a Change in Stimulus Conditions

This study explores the representational processes underlying the young child's creation of the human figure, and examines the developmental origins, effects of socioeconomic status, IQ, age, sex, and function of verbalization to the task. Tasks were selected which required extensive use of symbolic processes and consisted of human figure drawing, figure completion, two form puzzles composed of geometric forms, and drawing on dictation. Ss were 151 preschoolers ranging in age from 2.3 to 5.7, enrolled in a day care center or nursery school. Ss came from two distinct socioeconomic backgrounds: upper-middle and working-class families. The study revealed the sensorymotor origins of representation and pointed toward an autonomous, perhaps universal, development of these representational processes. The results indicated major effects of IQ and age, minor effects of sex, and the absence of socioeconomic status effects on the five tasks. Achievement scores and the child's verbalization to the tasks suggested that the function of verbalization is explanatory rather than problem solving.     

Reinforcement and rate of litter depositing

A study was conducted concerning the frequency of litter deposits in a single experimental trash receptacle located in a high-use, urban park setting. There were four two-week periods of alternating no-contingency, contingency conditions during which reinforcement and incentive were evaluated. It was found that reinforcement resulted in the highest rates of behavior and improvements in the aesthetic appearance of the area.     

Reinforcement and Inhibition of Eyelid Reflexes

Taste preferences, as measured in 48-hour, Richter-type drinking tests (test solution opposite distilled water), were determined for northern grasshopper mice (Onychomys leucogaster, ssp. breviauritus). The Ss were nine males and nine females which were individually housed within an environmental chamber. The test solutions were prepared from five sugars (fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, sucrose), three salts (magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride, sodium chloride), and two acids (citric acid and hydrochloric acid). In randomly assigned order, each sugar and each salt solution was presented at five molar concentrations, and each acid was paired with distilled water at six levels of pH. Strong drinking preferences were shown for all concentrations of the sugars above .05?.10 M, and sugars ranked in order of preference as follows: Maltose = sucrose > glucose = fructose > lactose. Preferences were also shown for hypotonic concentrations of NaCl. The other salts and both acids, however, were indifferently preferred at low concentrations and were rejected at the higher concentrations. Taste preferences by grasshopper mice for these chemicals were similar to those exhibited by Mongolian gerbils tested with the same items. The similar patterns of preference shown by New World cricetid rodents (grasshopper mice) and Old World cricetid rodents (gerbils) suggest that conclusions concerning disparity in taste sensibilities among animal forms may be premature.     

Reinforcement and Helping Behavior1

A study was conducted to determine the effects of reinforcement following helping in one situation on subsequent helping behavior. It was predicted that helping behavior would increase following positive reinforcement and decrease following negative reinforcement. It was also predicted that the attractiveness of the dispenser of reinforcement would affect subsequent helping. The study was conducted using a 3 × 2 × 2 design with the variables bemg nature of reinforcement, attractivcness of the confederate, and sex of S. The data indicated that subsequent to negative reinforcement, helping responses decrease. There were no differences between the positive, neutral or control conditions. Sex of S interacted with reinforcemcnt condition, with mcn helping more than women following negative reinforcement. Malcs and females also differcd in quality of help given, with men offering more physical help than women, particularly following neutral reinforcement.     

Periodic Reinforcement and Second-Order Schedules

In two experiments, rats were trained initially on a recycling conjunctive schedule in which a food pellet was delivered after 30 s provided at least one response had occurred; otherwise the next cycle began immediately. This produced low rate responding characterized by either a pause-respond-pause pattern or else a pause-respond pattern. The schedule then was changed so that half of the intervals ended with the presentation of a brief stimulus instead of food. Patterning after food was little affected, whereas patterning after the brief stimulus varied across rats. Generally, a short pause after the brief stimulus was followed by an initial increase in responding that led to either a fairly constant rate, or else to a decrease in rate throughout the interval. In later conditions, when the incidence of response-food and response- stimulus contiguity were manipulated separately, only the former increased response rate; this was so even when the brief stimulus was paired with food in some conditions. Rate increases were accompanied by changes in patterning across all intervals. These results do not support a simple conditioned reinforcement interpretation of the control acquired by a brief stimulus on a second-order schedule with fixed-interval components. Rather, they suggest that a number of interrelated variables combine to maintain responding. These variables include response-reinforcer contiguity, the temporal location of the response dependency, and the contingency between the brief stimulus and the reinforcer.