Do establishing operations alter reinforcement effectiveness?

Michael (this issue) defines an establishing operation (EO), such as food deprivation, as (a) altering the effectiveness of reinforcement as well as (b) evoking behavior. Although this dual role for EOs is compelling, it is possible that such operations have only evocative effects (i.e., function only in the form of antecedent control). The main question raised here is how the reinforcement-altering function can be experimentally analyzed. Evolutionary and conceptual implications of the two-function EO are also considered.     

Implications and refinements of the establishing operation concept

In this paper I discuss (a) three steps in the development of establishing operation (EO) terminology, (b) my early neglect of its possible relevance to applied behavior analysis, (c) the importance of functional analysis methodology for increasing awareness of EO issues, and (d) three comprehensive reviews that clarify the role of EOs in applied work. I then review and further analyze seven topics that require further clarification or that have been raised since my 1982 and 1993 articles: the EO evocative effect, deprivation and satiation, problem behavior maintained by attention, decreasing behavior evoked by a transitive conditioned establishing operation, EOs in the context of escape and avoidance, academic demand, and decreasing behavior evoked by a reflexive conditioned establishing operation.     

Manipulating the evocative and abative effects of an establishing operation: influences on challenging behavior during classroom instruction

In this study we examined the evocative and abative effects of an establishing operation on challenging behavior during classroom instruction for a student with severe disabilities including autism. A prior functional analysis indicated that his challenging behavior was maintained by access to preferred snack items. During classroom instructional sessions these snack items were visible but not available to the student. In other words challenging behavior was placed on extinction during instruction. Immediately prior to instructional sessions the student received either access to snack items or did not receive access to snacks. Access versus no access to snacks prior to instruction was systematically controlled using a multi‐element design. Results demonstrated higher levels of challenging behavior during instruction when the student did not have access to snacks prior to instruction. Very little challenging behavior occurred during instructional sessions when the student had prior access to snacks. Implications for considering the evocative and abative effects of establishing operations when implementing operant extinction in applied settings are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Isolating the evocative and abative effects of an establishing operation on challenging behavior

Establishing operations (EO) influence operant responding by altering the reinforcing effectiveness of consequences (reinforcer establishing or abolishing effect) and changing the frequency of behavior that has been reinforced by those consequences in the past (evocative or abative effect) (Michael, 1982 , 1993 ). In this study we attempted to isolate the evocative and abative effects of an EO for positively reinforced challenging behavior with a person with autism and developmental disabilities. The study consisted of three phases. First, an analogue functional analysis identified attention as maintaining challenging behavior. Second, access to attention was systematically controlled (continuous access versus no access) immediately prior to functional analysis sessions in which the participant received attention on an FR1 schedule. Results of this phase indicated that challenging behavior occurred at higher levels during the functional analysis sessions when access to attention was restricted immediately prior to sessions (i.e., no access appeared to function as an EO). In the third phase, prior access to attention was again controlled as in the second phase of the study, however the participant was then placed on extinction. The results of this final phase seem to indicate that no access to the reinforcer prior to extinction had an evocative effect (produced high levels of responding) whereas access to the reinforcer had an abative effect (produced lower levels of responding) during extinction sessions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Preliminary Examination of Motivating Operation and Reinforcer Class Interaction

The interaction effects between motivating operations and reinforcer classes were evaluated using a superordinate multielement design. Two individuals with developmental disabilities participated. Participants were exposed to a motivating operation condition—pre‐session access until rejection or pre‐session restriction for 24 h—followed by a reinforcer assessment, in which the reinforcer response requirements progressively increased. Reinforcers, stimuli representative of primary, conditioned, and token reinforcers, were available on alternating sessions. The results showed that pre‐session access and restriction produced reliable evocative and abative effects across reinforcer classes. For one of the participants, the effectiveness of the motivating operation appeared to be influenced by the reinforcer class. The interaction effects between motivating operations and reinforcer classes are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A preliminary examination of the evocative effects of the establishing operation

We attempted to isolate the evocative effects of the establishing operation for positively reinforced problem behavior with 2 participants. The study consisted of three phases. First, a functional analysis identified tangible items (Participant 1) and attention (Participant 2) as maintaining problem behavior. Second, access to tangible items and attention was systematically controlled (continuous access vs. no access) immediately prior to functional analysis sessions in which these consequences were delivered contingent on problem behavior. Results of this phase indicated that problem behavior occurred at higher levels when access to tangible items and attention was restricted. In the third phase, prior access was again controlled, but problem behavior produced no consequences. Results of this final phase indicated that problem behavior occurred at higher levels during extinction sessions when participants did not have prior access to the reinforcers.     

A mediational model of trait negative affectivity, dispositional thought suppression, and intrusive thoughts following laboratory stressors

Two studies examined the relationships among trait negative affectivity, dispositional thought suppression, and intrusions in non-clinical samples. In Study 1 (N=87), participants were presented with a series of emotionally evocative images and intrusions were examined 48 h after presentation via self-report. In Study 2 (N=118), intrusions were examined using a behavioral Key-press and self-report at two time points (5 and 20 min) following exposure to a series of emotionally evocative images. In each study, participants were assessed for trait negative affectivity and the tendency to engage in thought suppression in response to unpleasant cognitions. Results from both studies support a model in which chronic thought suppression fully mediates the relationship between negative affectivity and the frequency of intrusions.     

The effects of total sleep deprivation on the generation of random sequences of key-presses, numbers and nouns

According to a recent hypothesis, executive functions should be particularly vulnerable to the effects of total sleep deprivation. Random generation is a task that taps executive functions. In three experiments we examined the effects of total sleep deprivation on random generation of keypresses, numbers, and nouns, in particular on the suppression of prepotent responses and the selection of next responses by way of applying a local-representativeness heuristic. With random key-presses suppression of prepotent responses did not suffer from lack of sleep, but it became poorer at a sufficiently high pacing rate. In contrast, suppression of prepotent responses suffered when numbers and nouns were generated. According to these findings different types of random generation tasks involve different types of inhibitory process. With only four response alternatives, but not with larger response sets, application of the local-representativeness heuristic was impaired after a night without sleep. In terms of a simple formal model, serial-order representations of the preceding responses are used in selecting the next response only for the small response set, and not for larger response sets. Thus, serial-order representations are likely to suffer from loss of sleep. These findings strongly suggest that random generation involves multiple processes and that total sleep deprivation does not impair all sorts of executive functions, but only some.     

Distinguishing between discriminative and motivational functions of stimuli.

A discriminative stimulus is a stimulus condition which, (1) given the momentary effectiveness of some particular type of reinforcement (2) increases the frequency of a particular type of response (3) because that stimulus condition has been correlated with an increase in the frequency with which that type of response has been followed by that type of reinforcement. Operations such as deprivation have two different effects on behavior. One is to increase the effectiveness of some object or event as reinforcement, and the other is to evoke the behavior that has in the past been followed by that object or event. "Establishing operation" is suggested as a general term for operations having these two effects. A number of situations involve what is generally assumed to be a discriminative stimulus relation, but with the third defining characteristic of the discriminative stimulus absent. Here the stimulus change functions more like an establishing operation than a discriminative stimulus, and the new term, "establishing stimulus," is suggested. There are three other possible approaches to this terminological problem, but none are entirely satisfactory.     

Emotion deficits in schizophrenia: timing matters

The past two decades of research on emotional response in schizophrenia has demonstrated that people with schizophrenia do not have a marked deficit in reported emotional experience in the presence of emotionally evocative stimuli. However, the extent to which people with schizophrenia maintain their emotional state to guide future behavior remains a largely unexplored area of investigation. In the present study, we tested hypotheses about whether people with schizophrenia maintained their emotional state in the absence of emotionally evocative stimuli. In addition to reported emotional experience, we measured startle response magnitude both during the viewing and after the offset of emotional pictures to assess whether people with schizophrenia (n = 31) and without schizophrenia (n = 28) differ in their patterns of immediate response to emotional pictures and in their patterns of maintenance of these responses. Our findings indicated that people with and without schizophrenia did not differ in their self-report or startle response magnitude during presentation of emotional pictures. However, healthy controls maintained these responses after the stimuli were removed from view, but people with schizophrenia did not.     

Predation, aggression, and activity levels in food-deprived sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus and L. gibbosus): motivational interactions

Three experiments investigated the effects of food deprivation on several behavioral categories in two species of sunfish. In Experiment 1, predatory behavior and general activity were observed under five levels of deprivation. For both species, predation measures increased in a similar negatively accelerating manner with increasing deprivation, while activity changed in a more complex fashion. Experiment 2 examined the effects of deprivation on activity in a novel environment and showed that the deprivation effects of Experiment 1 were masked by the response to the new setting. In Experiment 3, measures of aggression toward intruders of each species were recorded from resident fish of both species under three levels of food deprivation. Both species were more aggressive toward conspecifics, and bluegills were more aggressive overall. Aggression was significatly influenced by food deprivation, with the effects dependent on the species making up the pair. Theories of motivational summation, generalized drive, and activity-mediated aggression were unable to explain the differential effects of hunger on the three behavioral categories observed. A dynamic boundary-state model of behavior control was found to predict the motivational interactions observed between distinct behavioral control systems.     

Motivating Operations Affect Stimulus Control: A Largely Overlooked Phenomenon in Discrimination Learning

Several recent studies have explored what Michael (e.g., 1982) termed the value-altering effect and the behavior-altering effect of motivating operations. One aspect of the behavior-altering effect that has garnered no recent attention involves changes in stimulus control produced by motivating operations. To call attention to this aspect of the behavior-altering effect, we herein review 11 studies that are concerned with the influence of varying levels of food or water deprivation on stimulus generalization. These studies suggest that motivating operations influence stimulus control (a) by changing the evocative strength of not just an established discriminative stimulus, but also of stimuli that are physically similar to it; (b) by changing the range of stimuli that evoke the operant in question; and (c) by exerting these effects in a graded fashion. These findings are potentially of conceptual and applied significance, and it appears that further research examining how motivating operations alter stimulus control, including some studies suggested herein, is warranted.     

The Isolation of Motivational, Motoric, and Schedule Effects on Operant Performance: A Modeling Approach

Dissociating motoric and motivational effects of pharmacological manipulations on operant behavior is a substantial challenge. To address this problem, we applied a response‐bout analysis to data from rats trained to lever press for sucrose on variable‐interval (VI) schedules of reinforcement. Motoric, motivational, and schedule factors (effort requirement, deprivation level, and schedule requirements, respectively) were manipulated. Bout analysis found that interresponse times (IRTs) were described by a mixture of two exponential distributions, one characterizing IRTs within response bouts, another characterizing intervals between bouts. Increasing effort requirement lengthened the shortest IRT (the refractory period between responses). Adding a ratio requirement increased the length and density of response bouts. Both manipulations also decreased the bout‐initiation rate. In contrast, food deprivation only increased the bout‐initiation rate. Changes in the distribution of IRTs over time showed that responses during extinction were also emitted in bouts, and that the decrease in response rate was primarily due to progressively longer intervals between bouts. Taken together, these results suggest that changes in the refractory period indicate motoric effects, whereas selective alterations in bout initiation rate indicate incentive‐motivational effects. These findings support the use of response‐bout analyses to identify the influence of pharmacological manipulations on processes underlying operant performance.     

Establishing operations, cognition, and emotion

In this paper we argue that behavior analysts have tended to neglect the study of important aspects of complex human behavior, including cognition and emotion. This relative neglect has been costly in terms of mainstream psychology's perception of the field of behavior analysis and in terms of our ability to provide a more thorough account of human behavior. Observations and findings from the clinical context are offered as examples of behavior that are not readily explained by the three-term contingency, and we argue that an adequate account of these behaviors must include principles derived from recent behavior-analytic work, in particular a better understanding of the short- and long-term effects of establishing operations. The concept of the establishing operation and its implications for understanding complex human behavior are discussed.     

Reinforcement value and fixed‐interval performance

The concept of reinforcement value summarizes the effect of different variables, such as reinforcement delay, reinforcement magnitude, and deprivation level, on behavior. In the present set of experiments, we evaluated the effect of reinforcement devaluation on performance under FI schedules. The literature on timing and reinforcement value suggests that devaluation generates longer expected times to reinforcement than the same intervals trained under control conditions. We devalued reinforcement with delay in Experiments 1A, 1B, and 2, and diminished deprivation in Experiments 3A and 3B. Devaluation reduced response rates, increased the number of one‐response intervals, and lengthened postreinforcement pauses, but had inconsistent effects on other timing measures such as quarter life and breakpoint. The results of delayed reinforcement and diminished deprivation manipulations are well summarized as reinforcement devaluation effects. These results suggest that devaluation may reduce stimulus control. In addition, we argue that the process by which delayed reinforcement affects behavior might also explain some effects observed in other devaluation procedures through the concept of reinforcement value.     

A descriptive taxonomy of environmental operations and its implications for behavior analysis

Environmental operations may be classified according to whether they have evocative or function-altering effects. Evocative events, such as the presentation of unconditioned and conditioned stimuli, establishing operations, and discriminative stimuli, serve to increase, decrease, or maintain the momentary frequency of behavior. Function-altering operations, such as operant and respondent conditioning, the correlation of stimuli, and the presentation of certain verbal stimuli, serve to increase, decrease, or maintain the evocative and function-altering (e.g., reinforcing or punishing) functions of other events. This paper expands upon the functional taxonomy of environmental events described by Michael (1993a). The resulting classification scheme should permit behavior analysts to more easily respond to similarities and differences between functional environmental events. This paper discusses implications of the suggested taxonomy for how behavior analysts talk about motivational variables, discriminative stimuli, the operant unit of analysis, and the distinction between operant and respondent conditioning.     

Parental criticism and externalizing behavior problems in adolescents: the role of environment and genotype-environment correlation

Genetic factors are important for the association between parental negativity and child problem behavior, but it is not clear whether this is due to passive or evocative genotype-environment correlation (rGE). In this study, we applied the extended children-of-twins model to directly examine the presence of passive and evocative rGE as well as direct environmental effects in the association between parental criticism and adolescent externalizing problem behavior. The cross-sectional data come from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden (N = 909 pairs of adult twins) and from the Twin Study of Child and Adolescent Development (N = 915 pairs of twin children). The results revealed that maternal criticism was primarily due to evocative rGE emanating from their adolescent's externalizing behavior. On the other hand, fathers' critical remarks tended to affect adolescent problem behavior in a direct environmental way. This suggests that previously reported differences in caretaking between mothers and fathers also are reflected in differences in why parenting is associated with externalizing behavior in offspring.     

Neighborhood Deprivation during Early Childhood and Conduct Problems in Middle Childhood: Mediation by Aggressive Response Generation

The tremendous negative impact of conduct problems to the individual and society has provided the impetus for identifying risk factors, particularly in early childhood. Exposure to neighborhood deprivation in early childhood is a robust predictor of conduct problems in middle childhood. Efforts to identify and test mediating mechanisms by which neighborhood deprivation confers increased risk for behavioral problems have predominantly focused on peer relationships and community-level social processes. Less attention has been dedicated to potential cognitive mediators of this relationship, such as aggressive response generation, which refers to the tendency to generate aggressive solutions to ambiguous social stimuli with negative outcomes. In this study, we examined aggressive response generation, a salient component of social information processing, as a mediating process linking neighborhood deprivation to later conduct problems at age 10.5. Participants (N = 731; 50.5 % male) were drawn from a multisite randomized prevention trial that includes an ethnically diverse and low-income sample of male and female children and their primary caregivers followed prospectively from toddlerhood to middle childhood. Results indicated that aggressive response generation partially mediated the relationship between neighborhood deprivation and parent- and teacher-report of conduct problems, but not youth-report. Results suggest that the detrimental effects of neighborhood deprivation on youth adjustment may occur by altering the manner in which children process social information.     

On the effects of noncontingent food delivery during naturally occurring periods of deprivation and satiation

Four adults diagnosed with moderate to profound mental retardation performed a manual response that was reinforced with food identified from a stimulus preference assessment. During baseline, the response was reinforced on a variable ratio (VR) schedule. Participants were then exposed to noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) plus extinction, and no‐food (i.e., extinction) conditions. A combination multielement and reversal design was used to evaluate intervention effects. For each participant, sessions were conducted both before and after the midday meal during baseline and NCR‐plus‐extinction conditions, thus capitalizing on naturally occurring states of food deprivation and satiation. Results showed that response rates were slightly higher during deprivation sessions than during satiation sessions during NCR‐plus‐extinction and VR schedules for three of the four participants. For three participants, initial NCR schedules did not reduce responding; however, subsequent NCR schedules, which were twice as dense, were effective in reducing response rates. The results are discussed in terms of the development of NCR as a reductive technology and the manipulation of establishing operations applied to the habilitation of individuals with developmental disabilities. The use of a basic experimental preparation as a method of examining decelerative interventions is also addressed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.