Teaching children with autism to request help with difficult tasks

We taught three children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder to request help using an interrupted chain procedure during which we manipulated task materials such that the child was either incapable or capable of independently completing a link of a behavior chain. We initially observed undesirable generalization of requests for help during capable trials when teaching was introduced during incapable trials for two participants and to a lesser extent for the third participant. However, with repeated exposure to differential prompting and reinforcement across incapable and capable trials, differential responding was observed across EO‐present and EO‐absent trials for all three participants during both teaching sets and one generalization set that was never exposed to teaching procedures. These findings suggest that it is important to consider the antecedent conditions under which the response should occur when teaching children to request help.     

Exchange‐based communication training may not consistently facilitate communication in the absence of the requested item

The role of stimulus presence on spontaneous communication was assessed with 3 participants in a nonconcurrent multiple baseline with embedded reversals design. Participants were taught to request 2 highly preferred items. Once mastery criterion was met, test sessions were conducted with stimuli either visible or absent from the room, and request rate was measured. For 2 participants, training produced requests in both the presence and absence of the stimulus. For one participant, however, the presence of the stimulus was necessary to evoke the response. Results suggest that teaching individuals to request items when they are present may not consistently lead to requests when those items are absent.     

Evaluating the effects of functional communication training in the presence and absence of establishing operations

We conducted functional analyses of aberrant behavior with 4 children with developmental disabilities. We then implemented functional communication training (FCT) by using different mands across two contexts, one in which the establishing operation (EO) that was relevant to the function of aberrant behavior was present and one in which the EO that was relevant to the function of aberrant behavior was absent. The mand used in the EO-present context served the same function as aberrant behavior, and the mand used in the EO-absent context served a different function than the one identified via the functional analysis. In addition, a free-play (control) condition was conducted for all children. Increases in relevant manding were observed in the EO-present context for 3 of the 4 participants. Decreases in aberrant behavior were achieved by the end of the treatment analysis for all 4 participants. Irrelevant mands were rarely observed in the EO-absent context for 3 of the 4 participants. Evaluating the effectiveness of FCT across different contexts allowed a further analysis of manding when the establishing operations were present or absent. The contributions of this study to the understanding of functional equivalence are also discussed.     

A rose by any other name is not the same: the role of orthographic knowledge in homophone confusion errors

Homophone confusion errors were examined in a series of 6 experiments. Across a variety of tasks, readers consistently made more errors on homophone trials than on control trials. These effects were established in Experiment 1 using a semantic-decision task in which participants judged whether pairs of words were related or unrelated. For both related and unrelated trials, error rates were higher for homophones as compared with controls. Results such as these have previously been taken as evidence for the role of phonology in lexical access and reading. However, differences in orthographic knowledge (more specifically, knowledge of spelling-to-meaning correspondences) across participants and homophone items significantly predicted homophone errors across all tasks. In addition, spelling tasks and multiple-choice questionnaires revealed differences in orthographic knowledge across participants and homophone items. Although these results do not rule out a role for phonology in lexical access, they indicate that homophone confusion errors may also be due to factors other than phonology.     

“This doesn’t look too hard”: A mixed methods exploration of self‐efficacy and sources of self‐efficacy information in a novel puzzle task

Studies have found self‐efficacy to be a key predictor of performance across domains (e.g., Feltz & Magyar, 2006; Judge & Bono, 2001). However, few studies have examined how self‐efficacy and the sources of self‐efficacy information change over time, and most of these studies utilized tasks participants were familiar or experienced with. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how participants weighed and interpreted the sources of self‐efficacy information during initial learning of a novel puzzle task. A secondary aim was to explore differences between student‐athletes and non‐athletes in the sources of self‐efficacy information. Sixty‐three college students completed measures of self‐efficacy, sources of self‐efficacy information, and performed trials of the Tower of Hanoi Puzzle, a wooden puzzle solving test requiring participants to move wooden pieces from one point to another in a specific order. Quantitative results revealed hierarchical performance self‐efficacy for the number of moves required and time required to solve the puzzle significantly changed across the four trials. Qualitative results indicated verbal and imaginal experiences were the two most prominent sources of participants’ self‐efficacy information on trial 1, but by trial 4 mastery experiences and verbal information were the most prominent sources, also suggesting that that the influence of self‐efficacy sources may change over time. Implications for practitioners to assist individuals with novel cognitive tasks are discussed.     

Discrimination of picture requests for missing items among young children with developmental disabilities

Two experiments were conducted to assess discrimination of picture requests for missing items among young children with developmental disabilities. In Experiment 1, three children were first taught to request one object when it was missing from a set of two related leisure items. In Experiment 2, two children were taught to request one object belonging to a set of three leisure items. In both studies the requesting response consisted of pointing to a photograph of the missing item. After acquisition of the initial request, discrimination of picture requests was assessed when the second item (Experiment 1) and second or third item (Experiment 2) was missing. Requests for the untrained items emerged in the presence of natural maintaining contingencies and in the absence of instructional prompts for all but the third child in Experiment 1. This child required continued intervention on the initial request. The results suggest that for some children a sequence of intervention and the programming of natural maintaining contingencies may prove effective in promoting the discrimination of picture requests for missing items among young children with developmental disabilities.     

Effects of cell-phone and text-message distractions on true and false recognition

This study examined the effects of electronic communication distractions, including cell-phone and texting demands, on true and false recognition, specifically semantically related words presented and not presented on a computer screen. Participants were presented with 24 Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists while manipulating the concurrent presence or absence of cell-phone and text-message distractions during study. In the DRM paradigm, participants study lists of semantically related words (e.g., mother, crib, and diaper) linked to a non-presented critical lure (e.g., baby). After studying the lists of words, participants are then requested to recall or recognize previously presented words. Participants often not only demonstrate high remembrance for presented words (true memory: crib), but also recollection for non-presented words (false memory: baby). In the present study, true memory was highest when participants were not presented with any distraction tasks during study of DRM words, but poorer when they were required to complete a cell-phone conversation or text-message task during study. False recognition measures did not statistically vary across distraction conditions. Signal detection analyses showed that participants better discriminated true targets (list items presented during study) from true target controls (items presented during study only) when cell-phone or text-message distractions were absent than when they were present. Response bias did not vary significantly across distraction conditions, as there were no differences in the likelihood that a participant would claim an item as "old" (previously presented) rather than "new" (not previously presented). Results of this study are examined with respect to both activation monitoring and fuzzy trace theories.     

ASSESSMENT OF STIMULI CONTROLLING THE REQUESTS OF STUDENTS WITH SEVERE MENTAL RETARDATION DURING A SNACK ROUTINE

This study assessed stimuli controlling requests during a snack routine after extensive request training with a delayed prompt procedure. During training sessions, one of three three-item snack groups was presented to 3 subjects with severe mental retardation. Assessment sessions involved (a) training conditions (all items were visible), (b) presenting two of three items from a particular group, or (c) presenting no items. One subject requested food items when no food items were present, 2 frequently requested a missing item when the two other items were visible, and all subjects requested visible items. Procedures for assessing stimulus control, such as those described in the current paper, should lead to a better understanding of the variables controlling behaviors that initially appear perplexing and unpredictable.     

Preattentive guidance of eye movements during triple conjunction search tasks: The effects of feature discriminability and saccadic amplitude

Eye movements were monitored during the performance of triple conjunction search tasks. Stimuli varied in color, shape, and orientation. Across trials, the target was either present or absent, and displays consisted of 6, 12, or 24 stimuli. Stimulus discriminability was manipulated for the shape dimension, with half of the participants seeing displays of Es and Fs (low-discriminability [LD] condition) and half seeing displays of Cs and Ts (high-discriminability [HD] condition). Participants in both conditions performed two search tasks. In the single-feature (SF) task, the target stimulus shared one feature with each of the distractors, whereas in the two-feature (TF) task, it shared two features with each distractor. An examination of saccadic endpoints revealed that participants were more likely to fixate on distractor stimuli sharing color (SF task) or color and shape (TF task) with the target. This was a robust finding, being observed across participants, saccades of different amplitudes and sequential position, and following short and long latencies to move. The extent to which participants made use of shape information increased with discriminability.     

Visual search for rare targets: distracter tuning as a mechanism for learning from repeated target-absent searches

In the typical visual search experiment, participants search for targets that are present on half of the trials and absent on the other half. However, many real-world tasks involve targets that are present only occasionally. Given this, it is important to know how people deal with the problem of finding targets they have little experience with. One possibility is that they develop an awareness of the degree to which they have effectively completed a search through complex target-absent scenes. To test this hypothesis, we had participants complete two relatively long search tasks in which only a minority of trials included targets. Stimuli were cluttered real-world scenes, and targets were defined by category. We examined participants' ability to terminate search on the target-absent scenes based on an accurate assessment of scene difficulty. Scene difficulty was estimated by computing the mean correct-trial response time (RT) for each of the target-absent scenes across all participants. These group RTs were then correlated with each participants' individual correct-trial RTs for the same stimuli to assess the degree to which a given participant's search-termination times were correlated with those of the group. These correlations successfully predicted participants' target-detection success in both experiments. These experiments suggest that an integral part of visual search is the need to calibrate search behaviour to scenes of varying levels of complexity even when no targets are present.     

The effect of pointing on spatial working memory in a 3D virtual environment

Pointing to locations can either help or hinder people's ability to recall spatial information. Prior research has focused on two‐dimensional spatial memory and pointing in real world tasks. The effect of pointing on three‐dimensional spatial memory in virtual environments remains unexplored. We examine this effect by comparing participants' recall when they point to and memorize a series of three‐dimensional locations using a gesture interface, and when they only passively view and memorize the spatial array. Thirty‐three participants completed 50 trials in both conditions. The results reveal that pointing has a negative effect on memory in the three‐dimensional virtual environment. These findings held across memory in the x–y plane of the computer screen as well as memory in the virtual third dimension. When they pointed during encoding, participants also responded more slowly, suggesting a higher cognitive load. Thus, active pointing may cause interference when users are simultaneously performing spatial memorization tasks.     

Causal status as a determinant of feature centrality

One of the major problems in categorization research is the lack of systematic ways of constraining feature weights. We propose one method of operationalizing feature centrality, a causal status hypothesis which states that a cause feature is judged to be more central than its effect feature in categorization. In Experiment 1, participants learned a novel category with three characteristic features that were causally related into a single causal chain and judged the likelihood that new objects belong to the category. Likelihood ratings for items missing the most fundamental cause were lower than those for items missing the intermediate cause, which in turn were lower than those for items missing the terminal effect. The causal status effect was also obtained in goodness-of-exemplar judgments (Experiment 2) and in free-sorting tasks (Experiment 3), but it was weaker in similarity judgments than in categorization judgments (Experiment 4). Experiment 5 shows that the size of the causal status effect is moderated by plausibility of causal relations, and Experiment 6 shows that effect features can be useful in retrieving information about unknown causes. We discuss the scope of the causal status effect and its implications for categorization research.     

Contextual influences on the sequential congruency effect

The sequential congruency effect (SCE) refers to the reduction in the size of the congruency effect following incongruent, relative to congruent, trials. Prior evidence indicated that the SCE does not generalize across tasks or different conflict-producing feature dimensions. We present results from a Stroop task showing that when the local list context is such that all colors and words appear in the same proportion of congruent trials, the SCE is present, but when those same items vary in the proportions congruent, the SCE is absent. We suggest that if stimuli are sufficiently consistent in the informativeness of their dimensions for the responses, individuals will attempt to track such information and weight the dimensions accordingly. In this way, the SCE reflects sequential adjustments to the weights given to individual stimulus dimensions in an attempt to track this information.     

Do updating tasks involve updating? Evidence from comparisons with immediate serial recall

Updating tasks require participants to process a sequence of items, varying in length, and afterwards to remember only a fixed number of the elements of the sequence; the assumption being that participants actively update the to-be-recalled list as presentation progresses. However recent evidence has cast doubt on this assumption, and the present study examined the strategies that participants employ in such tasks by comparing the serial position curves found in verbal and visuo-spatial updating tasks with those seen in standard serial recall tasks. These comparisons showed that even when the same number of items are presented or recalled, participants perform less well in an updating than a serial recall context. In addition, while standard serial position effects were observed for serial recall, marked recency and reduced or absent primacy effects were seen in updating conditions. These findings suggest that participants do not typically adopt a strategy of actively updating the memory list in updating tasks, but instead tend to wait passively until the list ends before trying to recall the most recently presented items.     

Do updating tasks involve updating? Evidence from comparisons with immediate serial recall

Updating tasks require participants to process a sequence of items, varying in length, and afterwards to remember only a fixed number of the elements of the sequence; the assumption being that participants actively update the to-be-recalled list as presentation progresses. However recent evidence has cast doubt on this assumption, and the present study examined the strategies that participants employ in such tasks by comparing the serial position curves found in verbal and visuo-spatial updating tasks with those seen in standard serial recall tasks. These comparisons showed that even when the same number of items are presented or recalled, participants perform less well in an updating than a serial recall context. In addition, while standard serial position effects were observed for serial recall, marked recency and reduced or absent primacy effects were seen in updating conditions. These findings suggest that participants do not typically adopt a strategy of actively updating the memory list in updating tasks, but instead tend to wait passively until the list ends before trying to recall the most recently presented items.     

Effects of a problem-solving strategy on the independent completion of vocational tasks by adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have few employment opportunities and a lower job quality than individuals of typical development. Social deficits and lack of independence may contribute to underemployment and unemployment of individuals with ASD. The ability to solve problems might ameliorate some of these barriers. We taught four adolescents with ASD a problem-solving strategy (i.e., use of a textual activity schedule) to assist with independent completion of vocational tasks in the face of three types of problems (e.g., missing or broken items) and nonproblem situations. Following introduction of the problem-solving strategy, all four participants independently completed the tasks when a problem was presented and responding generalized to untaught vocational tasks.     

Working memory and updating processes in reading comprehension

In this study, we examine the relation between reading comprehension ability and success in working memory updating tasks. Groups of poor and good comprehenders, matched for logical reasoning ability, but different in reading comprehension ability, were administered various updating tasks in a series of experiments. In the first experiment, the participants were presented with lists of words, the length of which (4-10 words) was unknown beforehand, and were required to remember the last 4 words in each series. In this task, we found a decrease in performance that was related to longer series and poor reading ability. In the second experiment, we presented lists of nouns referring to items of different sizes, in a task that simulated the selection and updating of relevant information that occurs in the on-line comprehension process. The participants were required to remember a limited, predefined number of the smallest items presented. We found that poor comprehenders not only had a poorer memory, but also made a greater number of intrusion errors. In the third and fourth experiments, memory load (number of items to be selected) and suppression request (number of potentially relevant items) were manipulated within subjects. Increases in both memory load and suppression requests impaired performance. Furthermore, we found that poor comprehenders produced a greater number of intrusion errors, particularly when the suppression request was increased. Finally, in a fifth experiment, a request to specify the size of presented items was introduced. Poor comprehenders were able to select the appropriate items, although their recall was poorer. Altogether, the data show that working memory abilities, based on selecting and updating relevant information and avoiding intrusion errors, are related to reading comprehension.     

Trial distinctiveness in visuospatial working memory: effects on individual differences

ABSTRACT

Previous research has shown that proactive interference (PI) negatively affects performance on working memory (WM) tasks, particularly when to-be-remembered items are similar across trials, and that individuals with low WM spans are more susceptible to PI than those with high spans. The two experiments of the present study further explored individual differences in susceptibility to PI in the visuospatial domain. The similarity of the to-be-remembered locations was manipulated across trials by varying whether locations were presented in different colours and/or accompanied by unique sounds. It was hypothesised that these manipulations would reduce PI, improving participants’ memory. In addition, because of their increased susceptibility to PI, it also was hypothesised that low spans would benefit more than high spans from increases in distinctiveness. The results of both experiments were consistent with these hypotheses, suggesting that even low-span individuals can overcome the effects of PI, given the right task support.     

Proactive interference from items previously stored in visual working memory

This study investigates the fate of information that was previously stored in visual working memory but that is no longer needed. Previous research has found inconsistent results, with some showing effective release of irrelevant information and others showing proactive interference. Using change detection tasks of colors or shapes, we show that participants tend to falsely classify a changed item as "no change" if it matches one of the memory items on the preceding trial. The interference is spatially specific: Memory for the preceding trial interferes more if it matches the feature value and the location of a test item than if it does not. Interference results from retaining information in visual working memory, since it is absent when items on the preceding trials are passively viewed, or are attended but not memorized. We conclude that people cannot fully eliminate unwanted visual information from current working memory tasks.