Effects of self-reinforcement on the demanding behaviors of a paranoid personality: A case report

Describes the extinction of the demanding behaviors of a nine-year-old boy by placing the responsibility for behavioral reinforcement directly under his own control. The therapist assumed that the behavioral pattern of the paranoid personality is characterized by an overdependence upon environmental reinforcers and therefore used the self-management technique, allowing the student the opportunity to gain independence from his classroom environment while meeting his need for positive feedback.     

Tactical contingencies in the experimental analysis of reinforcement and operant classes

In his “Tactics of Scientific Research” (1960), his work on avoidance, his discovery of equivalence classes and his cautions on applications of coercion, Murray Sidman created high standards for behavior analytic research. I illustrate his influence in the context of three examples he might have characterized as pilot studies. Each examined trial N+1 response probabilities depending on whether trial N responding had produced a reinforcer. Differentially reinforced interresponse times, keys pecked in arbitrary matching, and two-key response sequences provided no robust evidence that reinforcing some response property on trial N raises the probability of responding with that property on trial N+1. These negative findings shed light on the nature of operant classes and on the relation of reinforcers to the responses that produced them. Through selection, reinforcers create operant classes and engender variations of the responses within those classes; operant classes are held together by common contingencies. Sidman extended our understanding of operant classes by expanding them to include equivalence relations.     

Reinforcer sampling: a technique for increasing the behavior of mental patients

Mental hospital patients in a motivating ward environment were using the available reinforcers less than was desired. A procedure for increasing the frequency of using reinforcers was developed: all patients were required to engage in the reinforcing event each time it was available but the duration of this required participation was limited so that the event was merely sampled. The effect of this required sampling was experimentally evaluated for three different reinforcers: going for a walk, watching a movie, and attending a music session. More patients used each of the three reinforcers and to a greater extent when the sampling procedure was used. Participation was increased even for those patients who had already been using the reinforcers, demonstrating that the technique did more than provide simple familiarization. Some familiarization was involved since the participation was slightly increased even after the sampling procedure was discontinued. The technique appears to be especially applicable when reinforcers are being delivered infrequently.     

The systematic use of positive and negative consequences in managing classroom encopresis

An 11-year-old male with a history of chronic encopresis was successfully treated by his teachers. Through the contingent application of a combination of positive (i.e., social reinforcers, token reinforcers, activity reinforcers) and negative consequences (i.e., required to wash himself and denied access to activity reinforcers), the subject's soiling behavior was reduced from an 80% daily occurrence level during Baseline to just two occasions during the final five-month treatment phase. A six-month follow-up conducted during the next school year revealed no incidences of soiling. The investigation utilized and ABACD type behavior modification design.     

Shortcomings of the behavioral competition theory of contrast: Reanalysis of McLean (1992)

McLean (1992) presented significant data showing that the occurrence of behavioral contrast in a multiple schedule was correlated with shifts in the frequency of reinforcers from a second source between components of the schedule, and interpreted his results as showing that contrast was due to changes in the degree of response competition within the constant component of the multiple schedule. Reanalysis of his data shows that there was an effect of reinforcement in the alternative component of the schedule independent of the shifts in reinforcers between components. Thus, the effect of relative rate of reinforcement cannot be ascribed, at least entirely, to the mechanisms proposed by the behavioral competition theory of contrast.     

THE RELATIVE MOTIVATIONAL PROPERTIES OF SENSORY AND EDIBLE REINFORCERS IN TEACHING AUTISTIC CHILDREN

We compared the effects of sensory and edible reinforcers on resistance to satiation in three autistic children while learning visual discrimination tasks. Within-subject designs were used to compare a single sensory reinforcer with a single edible reinforcer and to compare multiple sensory reinforcers with multiple edibles. Results indicated that multiple sensory reinforcers maintained responding over more trials than did multiple edible reinforcers; however, the use of single sensory reinforcers and single edibles resulted in about equal numbers of trials to satiation. Both multiple and single sensory reinforcers produced higher percentages of correct responses than edible reinforcers. The findings are discussed in terms of the advantages of sensory reinforcers in teaching autistic children.     

Earning and obtaining reinforcers under concurrent interval scheduling

Contingencies of reinforcement specify how reinforcers are earned and how they are obtained. Ratio contingencies specify the number of responses that earn a reinforcer, and the response satisfying the ratio requirement obtains the earned reinforcer. Simple interval schedules specify that a certain time earns a reinforcer, which is obtained by the first response after the interval. The earning of reinforcers has been overlooked, perhaps because simple schedules confound the rates of earning reinforcers with the rates of obtaining reinforcers. In concurrent variable-interval schedules, however, spending time at one alternative earns reinforcers not only at that alternative, but at the other alternative as well. Reinforcers earned for delivery at the other alternative are obtained after changing over. Thus the rates of earning reinforcers are not confounded with the rate of obtaining reinforcers, but the rates of earning reinforcers are the same at both alternatives, which masks their possibly differing effects on preference. Two experiments examined the separate effects of earning reinforcers and of obtaining reinforcers on preference by using concurrent interval schedules composed of two pairs of stay and switch schedules (MacDonall, 2000). In both experiments, the generalized matching law, which is based on rates of obtaining reinforcers, described responding only when rates of earning reinforcers were the same at each alternative. An equation that included both the ratio of the rates of obtaining reinforcers and the ratio of the rates of earning reinforcers described the results from all conditions from each experiment.     

Analysis of the control exerted by a complex cooperation procedure

The study examined the effects of the availability of a non-cooperative response on cooperative responding when cooperation did not have to result in an equal distribution of work or reinforcers. Also, an attempt was made to determine if the cooperative responding was under the control of the cooperation procedure. Pairs of institutionalized retardates were tested in full view of each other. For each subject, reinforcers (money) were contingent upon responses on each of two panels: (1) a matching panel for working matching-to-sample problems, and (2) a sample panel for producing the sample stimulus. The matching panels of the two subjects were 6 m apart, but a subject's sample panel could be placed at different distances from his matching panel. For each subject, either his own or his partner's sample panel could be nearest his matching panel such that less walking was required to reach one sample panel than the other. Subjects could work either individually, by producing their own sample stimulus, or cooperatively, by producing the sample stimulus for their partner. Subjects selected whichever solution involved the least amount of walking. The importance of testing for control by the cooperation procedure was indicated by the findings that cooperative-like responses were not always under the control of the cooperation procedure.     

How do reinforcers affect choice? Preference pulses after responses and reinforcers

In concurrent schedules, reinforcers are often followed by a brief period of heightened preference for the just‐productive alternative. Such ‘preference pulses’ may reflect local effects of reinforcers on choice. However, similar pulses may occur after nonreinforced responses, suggesting that pulses after reinforcers are partly unrelated to reinforcer effects. McLean, Grace, Pitts, and Hughes (2014) recommended subtracting preference pulses after responses from preference pulses after reinforcers, to construct residual pulses that represent only reinforcer effects. Thus, a reanalysis of existing choice data is necessary to determine whether changes in choice after reinforcers in previous experiments were actually related to reinforcers. In the present paper, we reanalyzed data from choice experiments in which reinforcers served different functions. We compared local choice, mean visit length, and visit‐length distributions after reinforcers and after nonreinforced responses. Our reanalysis demonstrated the utility of McLean et al.'s preference‐pulse correction for determining the effects of reinforcers on choice. However, visit analyses revealed that residual pulses may not accurately represent reinforcer effects, and reinforcer effects were clearer in visit analyses than in local‐choice analyses. The best way to determine the effects of reinforcers on choice may be to conduct visit analyses in addition to local‐choice analyses.     

Conditioned reinforcement and response strength

Stimuli associated with primary reinforcers appear themselves to acquire the capacity to strengthen behavior. This paper reviews research on the strengthening effects of conditioned reinforcers within the context of contemporary quantitative choice theories and behavioral momentum theory. Based partially on the finding that variations in parameters of conditioned reinforcement appear not to affect response strength as measured by resistance to change, long-standing assertions that conditioned reinforcers do not strengthen behavior in a reinforcement-like fashion are considered. A signposts or means-to-an-end account is explored and appears to provide a plausible alternative interpretation of the effects of stimuli associated with primary reinforcers. Related suggestions that primary reinforcers also might not have their effects via a strengthening process are explored and found to be worthy of serious consideration.     

Self-inhibiting effects of reinforcement

The reinforcers produced by one response reduce the rate of other, concurrently reinforced responses. An analysis of the logical and empirical implications of the relation indicates that one reinforcer must have this effect on responses maintained by other reinforcers even when all reinforcers are produced by the same class of responses. A quantitative expression of the relation leads to a formulation, mathematically equivalent to Herrnstein's (1970), in which the rate of a reinforced response is a joint function of (1) an excitatory effect of the reinforcers produced by that class of responses, and (2) an inhibitory effect of the total reinforcers produced both by that class and by other classes of responses.     

Mechanical restraints as positive reinforcers for aggression

Research suggests that, in some cases, mechanical restraints may function as positive reinforcers. In this study, we conducted a functional analysis of severe aggression exhibited by an individual with a history of wearing arm splints. The results of this functional analysis demonstrated that his aggression was maintained by access to the arm splints. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hearing test for a profoundly retarded human subject

A profoundly retarded 28-yr.-old female was trained to avoid an aversive but harmless shock to the foot by withdrawing the foot upon presentation of a visual cue. She was later unable to learn to avoid the shock consistently upon presentation of an auditory cue, confirming the ward staff's contention that she had a hearing disability. The audiometric technique using negative reinforcement bridges the problems of (1) difficulty in finding positive reinforcers for patients of low functioning and (2) satiation which may result from the continued use of positive reinforcers. The use of aversive stimuli raises ethical concerns. The growing trend in research is that aversive stimuli are permissible for individuals for whom positive techniques have not been effective and when used by trained professionals under careful review.     

Within-session Response Patterns On Conjoint Variable-interval Variable-time Schedules

Operant responding often changes within sessions, even when factors such as rate of reinforcement remain constant. The present study was designed to determine whether within-session response patterns are determined by the total number of reinforcers delivered during the session or only by the reinforcers earned by the operant response. Four rats pressed a lever and 3 pigeons pecked a key for food reinforcers delivered by a conjoint variable-interval variable-time schedule. The overall rate of reinforcement of the conjoint schedule varied across conditions from 15 to 480 reinforcers per hour. When fewer than 120 reinforcers were delivered per hour, the within-session patterns of responding on conjoint schedules were similar to those previously observed when subjects received the same total number of reinforcers by responding on simple variable-interval schedules. Response patterns were less similar to those observed on simple variable-interval schedules when the overall rate of reinforcement exceeded 120 reinforcers per hour. These results suggest that response-independent reinforcers can affect the within-session pattern of responding on a response-dependent schedule. The results are incompatible with a response-based explanation of within-session changes in responding (e.g., fatigue), but are consistent with both reinforcer-based (e.g., satiation) and stimulus-based (e.g., habituation) explanations.     

Preference for reinforcers under varying schedule arrangements: A behavioral economic analysis

The field of behavioral economics combines concepts from economics and operant conditioning to examine the influence of schedules or price on preference for reinforcers. Three case studies are reported in which behavioral economic analyses were used to assess relative preference for reinforcers shown by people with intellectual disabilities when schedule requirements varied. The studies examined (a) preference for different reinforcers, (b) substitutability of reinforcers, and (c) changes in preference as a function of schedule requirements.     

Non‐generalized and generalized conditioned reinforcers: establishment and validation

Conditioned reinforcers, or tokens, are frequently used in clinical settings; however, little applied research has focused on establishing and validating their effectiveness. Following pairing of a novel token with an edible reinforcer in the present study, preference and reinforcer assessments verified that the tokens functioned as conditioned reinforcers. Results indicated that the tokens were established as conditioned reinforcers that matched the reinforcer value of the primary reinforcers with which they had been paired. The effects of motivating operations (MOs) on the effectiveness of these conditioned reinforcers were then evaluated. Conditioned reinforcer effectiveness decreased during satiation conditions. Subsequently it was found that increasing the number of backup reinforcers with which the token was paired resulted in the effectiveness maintaining during satiation conditions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reinforcer identification and evaluation of choice within an educational setting

Current research on preference methodology and the effects of choice with children who are typically developing is limited. This study evaluated two preference methodologies for identifying reinforcers across two choice options within the classroom. These methods include a teacher-generated list of reinforcers, a student-generated list of reinforcers, student choice from both lists, and teacher choice from both lists. Four elementary aged-children with no diagnosed learning or developmental disabilities participated. Both preference methods were effective in identifying reinforcers for all participants. Moreover, both choice options resulted in increases in responding. Results are discussed with respect to reinforcement and the effects of “choice.”     

The substitutability of reinforcers

Substitutability is a construct borrowed from microeconomics that describes a continuum of possible interactions among the reinforcers in a given situation. Highly substitutable reinforcers, which occupy one end of the continuum, are readily traded for each other due to their functional similarity. Complementary reinforcers, at the other end of the continuum, tend to be consumed jointly in fairly rigid proportion, and therefore cannot be traded for one another except to achieve that proportion. At the center of the continuum are reinforcers that are independent with respect to each other; consumption of one has no influence on consumption of another. Psychological research and analyses in terms of substitutability employ standard operant conditioning paradigms in which humans and nonhumans choose between alternative reinforcers. The range of reinforcer interactions found in these studies is more readily accommodated and predicted when behavior-analytic models of choice consider issues of substitutability. New insights are gained into such areas as eating and drinking, electrical brain stimulation, temporal separation of choice alternatives, behavior therapy, drug use, and addictions. Moreover, the generalized matching law (Baum, 1974) gains greater explanatory power and comprehensiveness when measures of substitutability are included.     

Reinforcer Variation in a Token Economy

We evaluated whether generalized conditioned reinforcers mitigate the effects of satiation with an individual with intellectual disabilities. Previous research indicates that generalized conditioned reinforcers are not sensitive to satiation effects. However, this effect has not been investigated on varying classes of backup reinforcers. First, we established a highly preferred (HP) edible as a reinforcer. Then, we provided presession access to the HP edible, and, in a multi‐element comparison, the participant could either earn tokens for only the HP edible, for edibles that were similar to the HP edible, for edibles that were dissimilar to the HP edible, or earn no tokens. A decreasing trend in responding for the HP edible was observed following presession access. Furthermore, the participant completed the task at a high rate when backup reinforcers were dissimilar to the HP edible. Results suggest that varying the classes of stimuli that are used as backup reinforcers may increase the effectiveness of generalized conditioned reinforcers. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.