Tactual learning and cross-modal transfer of an oddity problem in young children

The ability to solve tactual oddity problems, and transfer of oddity learning across the visual and the tactual modalities, was studied in 3- to 8-year-old children (N = 294). Oddity tasks consisting of one odd and two equal objects were made from stimuli that were easily discriminated visually and tactually. The results showed that tactual oddity learning increased gradually with age. The growth in tactual performance begins later than visual, suggesting that children are more adept at encoding visual stimulus invariances or relational properties than tactual ones. Bidirectional cross-modal transfer of oddity learning was found, supporting the suggestion that such transfer occurs when training and transfer oddity tasks share a common vehicle dimension. The cross-modal effect also shows that oddity learning is independent of a specific modality-labeled perceptual context. Our results are consistent with the view that development of oddity learning depends on a single rather than a dual process, and that the oddity relation may be treated as an amodal stimulus feature.     

Learning processes in matching and oddity: the oddity preference effect and sample reinforcement

Eight pigeons learned either matching (to sample) or oddity (from sample) with or without reward for sample responding. The training stimuli were coarse-white, fine-black, or smooth-mauve gravels in pots with buried grain as the reinforcer. Oddity without sample reward was learned most rapidly, followed by matching with sample reward, oddity with sample reward, and matching without sample reward. Transfer was related to acquisition rate: The oddity group without sample reward showed full (equal to baseline) color and texture transfer; the matching group with sample reward showed partial texture transfer; other groups showed no transfer. Sample reward was shown to determine rate of acquisition of matching and oddity and the oddity preference effect. The results are discussed in terms of item-specific associations operating early in learning prior to any relational learning between sample and comparison stimuli.     

Establishing discriminative stimulus control within generalized oddity performance,without reinforcement

In two oddity learning studies with children, subjects were reinforced for oddity (or nonoddity) responding on line-tilt or dot numerosity problems. Interposed form and color problems were not reinforced. No instructions to make oddity choices were given. In Experiment I it was found that reinforcement for oddity or nonoddity responding on tilt and numerosity problems produced the corresponding tendency toward oddity or nonoddity performance on these problems and also on the nonreinforced form and color problems. These results show a generalized oddity phenomenon similar to generalized imitation. In Experiment II a third type of nonreinforced problem was presented in this same format: compound stimuli permitting either a color or a form solution. It was found that immediate prior training with nonreinforced form problems, interpolated among the reinforced tilt and numerosity problems, led to form-oddity choices in the compound problems. Similarily, color pretraining produced color-oddity choices. These results show that selective discriminative stimulus control can be obtained in oddity learning, without reinforcement for choices on either of the two dimensions involved.     

Concurrent performances: rate and accuracy of free-operant oddity responding

In pigeon's oddity performances, maintained by variable-interval reinforcement of pecks on the odd key of three keys in a triangular array, accuracy and response rate varied inversely with the rate of variable-interval reinforcement scheduled concurrently for pecks on a fourth, spatially isolated key. But when variable-interval and extinction components alternated in a multiple schedule for pecks on the spatially isolated key, oddity accuracy was greater during variable-interval components than during extinction components. Oddity response rate was not affected systematically by the alternating components. Changeovers between the oddity keys and the spatially isolated key were frequent during variable-interval components; responding occurred almost exclusively on the oddity keys during extinction components. This difference in performance during the two components was eliminated by arranging stimulus-correlated variable-interval reinforcement in the multiple schedule on the spatially isolated key: a stimulus was presented in the variable-interval components only when reinforcement became available, thereby reducing responding on this key to near-zero levels in both components while maintaining the variable-interval reinforcement. The effect of the multiple-schedule components on oddity accuracy was not altered, however, and thus apparently depended directly on concurrent reinforcement and not on differential sequential properties of concurrent responding during the two components.     

Children's identity matching and oddity: assessing control by specific and general sample-comparison relations.

After children in Experiments 1 and 2 learned identity matching or oddity, control by sample-comparison relations was assessed. Tests for generalized control displayed novel samples and two comparison stimuli, one identical to the sample. Specific relations were tested with identical or nonidentical sample-comparison stimuli from one set of stimuli and substitute comparisons from either the other training set or from a novel set. When tests displayed identical stimuli, patterns of comparison selection suggested control by generalized identity and oddity. However, selection patterns varied when stimuli were nonidentical and familiar or novel substitute comparisons were used. Therefore, control by specific relations is not a precondition for generalized identity and oddity. One set of training stimuli was used in Experiment 3, and generalized performances occurred again. Moreover, control by specific relations was shown by the oddity subjects and 2 of 6 identity subjects. Generalized and specific control may therefore exist simultaneously. In Experiment 4, selections were irregular on tests displaying substitute comparisons and samples and familiar comparison stimuli; this finding supported the relational account of specific sample-comparison control found in Experiment 3.     

Examining stimuli paired with alternative reinforcement to mitigate resurgence in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and pigeons

In two laboratory experiments, we examined whether stimuli paired with alternative reinforcers could mitigate resurgence of a previously reinforced target response with pigeons (Experiment 1) and children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Experiment 2). In Phase 1, we arranged food reinforcement according to a variable-ratio schedule for engaging in a target response. In Phase 2, we arranged extinction for target responding and differentially reinforced alternative responding according to a fixed-ratio schedule, with every alternative-reinforcer delivery paired with a change in keylight color (Experiment 1) or automated verbal (praise) statement (Experiment 2). In Phase 3, we assessed resurgence during extinction of target and alternative responding in the presence versus absence of continued presentation of the paired stimulus. Despite variation across sessions, resurgence on average was lower when continuing to present the paired stimuli in all pigeons and children while maintenance of alternative responding did not differ between assessments. These findings indicate that stimuli paired with alternative reinforcement can modestly decrease resurgence, but further examination of their efficacy and a better understanding of the underlying processes are necessary before they can be recommended for clinical use in reducing resurgence of clinically relevant problem behavior.     

Establishing Functional Classes In A Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) With A Two-item Sequential-Responding Procedure

A 9-year-old female chimpanzee was trained on a two-item sequential-responding task. Attempts were made with successive-reversal training to establish functional classes. In Experiment 1, the subject was exposed to between-session successive-reversal training in which one of two pairs of stimuli was reversed, and transfer of reversal responding to the other pair was tested with nonreinforcement probe trials. She did not show transfer during the course of reversals. Stimulus control established in the original training was maintained on nonreinforcement probe trials. In Experiment 2, within-session reversals were introduced. She showed transfer from the initially reversed pair to the other. The results were consistent with Vaughan's (1988) results with pigeons on successive discriminations, which indicated the formation of functional classes. In Experiment 3, crossover and wild-card tests were conducted to clarify the stimulus control of sequential responding. The results suggested that the sequential responding was controlled only by the first stimulus of each pair. To establish control by both first and second stimuli, trial-unique stimuli or wild cards were substituted for one of the items of the lists in Experiment 4. Further transfer tests, in which stimuli for the two new pairs appeared, were also given to the subject. She successfully responded to these two merged lists and reversed the order as the result of reversal training.     

Retests of Children Given Mental Tests as Infants

Three- and four-year-old children were trained on an oddity task with the use of picture stimuli. After criterion was reached the Ss were presented 12 new stimuli. The four-year-olds learned faster than the three-year-olds and showed superior performance on the transfer trials. Differences in oddity acquisition between a weak (6/6) and strong (12/12) criterion present in three-year-olds' data, and their precriterion level of responding, suggested that many of the younger children were aware of the stimulus relations present before they were able to reach the 12/12 criterion but were unable to maintain stable performance based on the relational oddity cue. The poorer transfer shown by the three-year-olds also suggests some difficulties of consistent relational choices even after a strong relational learning criterion had been met.     

Effects of fixed-ratio sample and choice response requirements upon oddity matching

Three pigeons were trained on oddity matching in which either 1, 4, 8, 16, or 32 sample-key observing responses were required to turn off the sample stimuli and turn on the comparison stimuli. Oddity accuracy increased when the observing-response requirement was raised and decreased when the requirement was lowered. Next, while the observing requirement was maintained at one response, the number of responses required to the comparison stimuli was either 1, 4, 8, 16, or 32. Under these conditions, choice was defined as the comparison that first accumulated the required number of responses. In general, increasing the comparison-response requirement decreased accuracy and lowering the comparison requirement increased accuracy. The fixed-ratio observing requirements appeared to facilitate control by stimuli serving an instructional function.     

Age-related changes in odor discrimination

Odor naming and recognition memory are poorer in children than in adults. This study explored whether such differences might result from poorer discriminative ability. Experiment 1 used an oddity test of discrimination with familiar odors on 6-year-olds, 11-year-olds, and adults. Six-year-olds were significantly poorer at discrimination relative to 11-year-olds and adults, who did not differ. Experiment 2 used the same procedure but with hard-to-name visual stimuli and compared only 6-year-olds with adults (as with the remaining experiments in this study). There was no difference in performance between these groups. Experiment 3 used the same procedure as Experiment 1 but with less familiar odors. Six-year-olds were significantly poorer at discrimination than adults. In Experiment 4 the researchers controlled for verbal labeling by using an articulatory suppression task, with the same basic procedure as in Experiment 1. Six-year-old performance was the same as for Experiment 1 and significantly poorer than that of adults. Impoverished olfactory discrimination may underpin performance deficits previously observed in children. These all may result from their lesser experience with odors, relative to adults.     

Contextual control in discrimination reversal learning

In 3 human predictive learning experiments, the authors examined contextual control of responding in discrimination reversal learning. In Phase 1, a discrimination between 2 stimuli (A+, B-) was trained in Context 1. During Phase 2, participants received discrimination reversal training (A-, B+) in Context 2. Testing occurred in Context 1 and Context 2 (Experiments 1A and 1B) or in Context 1 and Context 3 (Experiment 2). During the test phase, performance in Context 1 and Context 2 reflected the contingencies trained during Phase 1 and Phase 2, respectively. When testing occurred in Context 3, there was no discriminative responding between A and B. In addition, the experiments demonstrated that discriminating stimuli with a consistent reinforcement history were also affected by contextual manipulations. Results indicate that each training context acquires the ability to control performance. Unique-cue and configural approaches account for a major part of the results.     

EFFECTS OF REINFORCEMENT CHOICE ON TASK RESPONDING IN INDIVIDUALS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

The effects of reinforcement choice on task performance were examined with 6 individuals who had been diagnosed with severe to profound mental retardation. Five highly preferred items were identified for each participant via stimulus preference assessments. Participants then were exposed to choice and no-choice conditions that were alternated within reversal and multielement designs. During choice sessions, participants were permitted to select between two preferred stimuli contingent on responding. During no-choice sessions, the therapist delivered a single item contingent on responding. Preference for the stimuli was held constant across conditions by yoking the items delivered during no-choice sessions to those selected during the immediately preceding choice sessions. All participants exhibited similar rates of responding across choice and no-choice conditions. These findings indicate that for individuals with severe disabilities, access to choice may not improve task performance when highly preferred items are already incorporated into instructional programs.     

Perceptual and conceptual variants of the oddity task as a predictor of learning disability

This paper compares LD and non-LD peers on eight variants of the oddity task. This study is part of a larger programmatic research effort aimed at the development of a screening test to detect preschool children who currently pass existing screening tests but, nonetheless, subsequently experience school failure. The theoretical orientation of this approach is to assess active, ongoing cognitive processing ability. The oddity task, which can be structured to assess such processing ability, was evaluated in the present study as a potential component of this screening test. Consistent with a priori predictions, the data resulted in strong group and developmental differences. Oddity performance increased over age, with the non-LD children performing consistently better than their LD peers at each age. Perceptual and conceptual factors were manipulated across the oddity variations, and both factors contributed to group differences. These results were discussed in relationship to early diagnosis and prognosis for learning disabilities that might result from deficiencies in abstract processing ability.The authors would like to express their thanks to the schools, teachers, and students who participated in this study. This research was supported in part by the Mailman Foundation and FDLRS/MAILMAN, a specialized university center of the Florida Diagnostic Learning Resources System, funded through State General Revenue appropriation to provide multidisciplinary evaluation services in exceptional student education programs.     

Temporal sequence effects in auditory oddity discrimination

The oddity method was used in assessing pitch, loudness, simultaneous tone, successive tone, and speech sound discrimination in 35 normal children and 15 children with learning problems. With this method three auditory stimuli are presented, two of which are identical, and the S is required to indicate the temporal position of the odd stimulus. For both groups, discrimination was most accurate when the odd stimulus was in the third position. These results could be explained by assuming that the oddity response was based upon successive Same-Different judgments of the first and second stimuli and the second and third stimuli, since a correct response to third-position oddity would require only a Same judgment of the first and second stimuli. Other findings were not as easily explained by this simple model, and alternative hypotheses are discussed.     

Effects of a pre-aversive stimulus upon oddity performance in monkeys

Two monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were trained to perform an oddity discrimination using automatically projected patterned stimuli. After criteria for both response and discrimination stability were met, a tone followed by shock was superimposed upon the ongoing behavior. Each 60-sec tone was terminated with the onset of a 0.3-sec, 1 to 1.5-ma electric shock. During the tone, baseline responding was partially suppressed but discrimination performance was little altered from the pre-tone period. When shock was raised to 2 to 3 ma, responding was further suppressed, but discrimination performance was again essentially unaltered.     

MATCHING-TO-SAMPLE PERFORMANCE IN RATS: A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY?

Three rats had previously acquired a simultaneous matching-to-sample performance with steady and blinking lights. In training, the sample stimulus had always appeared on the middle of three horizontally arranged keys with the comparison stimuli on the side keys. In Experiment 1, the sample stimulus appeared on any of the three keys with the comparison stimuli on the remaining two. The matching-to-sample performance broke down with variable sample and comparison locations; the sample stimulus did not control responding to the comparison stimuli when it appeared on a side key, but it retained control when it appeared on the middle key (as in training). In Experiment 2, the rats were trained with the sample always on the left key. When the sample appeared on either of the trained locations (left or middle key), it retained control for both locations. When the sample then appeared on any of the three keys, as in Experiment 1, sample control did not transfer to the untrained location (right key). The experiments demonstrate that training with fixed sample and comparison locations may establish spatial location as an additional controlling aspect of the stimuli displayed on the keys; stimulus location had become part of the definition of the controlling stimuli. The rats' performance seemed best described as specific discriminations involving the visual stimuli and their spatial locations rather than as identity matching.     

Assessing the efficacy of pictorial preference assessments for children with developmental disabilities

Past research has demonstrated that pictorial preference assessments can predict subsequent reinforcement effects for individuals with developmental disabilities only when access to the selected stimulus is provided contingent on a pictorial selection. The purpose of the present investigation was to assess more comprehensively the feasibility of the pictorial format with children with developmental disabilities. In Experiment 1, prerequisite skill assessments were conducted, and the role of a contingent reinforcer was assessed by comparing the results from the pictorial assessment without contingent access to a reinforcer assessment. If contingent access was found to be necessary, the effects of schedule thinning were evaluated to determine whether a pictorial format could be made more practical in Experiment 2. The pictorial format without contingent access was successful with only some participants. However, schedule thinning was found to be an effective method to establish conditioned reinforcement properties for pictorial stimuli to create a more practical assessment for a subset of participants.     

Eye movements of children, adults, and elderly persons during inspection of dot patterns

The effectiveness of three fading and two nonfading procedures were compared in training kindergarten children on an oddity problem in which shape was the relevant dimension. The fading procedures employed supplementary cues which were gradually eliminated during training. The cues included either saturating the odd stimulus with a red color, saturating the nonodd stimuli with a red color, or varying the degree of illumination of the nonodd stimuli. One nonfading group received training on a structurally simpler oddity problem prior to transfer to a more complex oddity problem, and a second nonfading group received the standard oddity training procedure. While significant differences in acquisition were not obtained between training groups, the oddity task performance and the results from a test of dimensional observation revealed that the fading procedures were differentially effective in transferring Ss′ observation from the dimension of the fading cue to that relevant for solution of the oddity problem.     

An example of discovery research involving the transfer of stimulus control

The initial purpose of the present study was to replicate procedures for teaching preschool children to recruit attention at appropriate times by having an experimenter signal the availability and unavailability of attention (i.e., arrange a multiple schedule involving reinforcement and extinction; Tiger & Hanley, 2004). Following the development of discriminated social responding, the schedule-correlated stimuli were removed (i.e., a mixed schedule of reinforcement was arranged). However, discriminated responding continued during these conditions. Further evaluation suggested that stimulus control over children's social responding had transferred from the schedule-correlated stimuli to the delivery of reinforcement. The effect of a history of reinforcement under multiple-schedule conditions on performance under mixed schedules was then replicated with 2 participants in a reversal design. These findings suggest that following experience with schedule-correlated stimuli, these stimuli may be removed with only modest disruption to discriminated responding.     

Matching-to-sample and oddity-from-sample in goldfish.

Acquisition of three-alternative simultaneous matching-to-sample and oddity-from-sample was investigated. Five goldfish were trained on matching and five on oddity for a minimum of 70 days. Subsequently, six of the fish were trained for 70 days on the other task. Acquisition was similar for oddity and matching. Correct responding started at about chance level and slowly increased to about 75%, with some animals performing at levels of over 85%. Acquisition of oddity following matching and matching following oddity began below chance. Maximal level of performance on second-task oddity was comparable to that on first-task matching. By contrast, the maximal levels of performance when matching was the second task were not as high as that of the same subjects at the end of first-task oddity. All fish exhibited strong color preferences during matching acquisition but not during oddity acquisition. The data demonstrated that goldfish can acquire a discrimination in which the stimulus associated with reinforcement depends on the identity of a second stimulus.