Discrimination learning and stimulus generalization by impulsive and reflective children

The proposition that impulsive children inhibit expressive behavior less than reflective children was investigated by providing third grade impulsive and reflective boys with either differential or nondifferential forms or successive discrimination training prior to tests for stimulus generalization. Consistent with specific predictions derived from Spence's theory on the roles of excitation and inhibition, it was found that: (a) Reflectives acquired the discrimination more rapidly, (b) reflectives achieved a higher level of discriminative performance, (c) impulsives exhibited more variable response reates during the nonreinforced stimulus, and (d) the type of training interacted with the child's conceptual tempo to determine the elevation and shape of the post-discrimination generalization gradients. The results provide support for the construct validity of the Matching Familiar Figures Test of reflectivity-impulsivity.     

The use of structured learning therapy and transfer programming with disruptive adolescents in a school setting

In behavior change literature, little attention has been paid to the systematic study of variables affecting transfer of training. The present study employed a skill-training method known as Structured Learning Therapy (SLT) for the dual purpose of testing the effectiveness of this method and to identify variables that will promote transfer of training. Forty-three disruptive male adolescents were assigned to three experimental and two control conditions. One experimental group received SLT plus an additional transfer-enhancing procedure referred to as Transfer Programming (TP) which consisted of in vivo practice of treatment gains and peer reinforcement. Another group received only SLT, and a third group received only TP. One control group received only brief instructions pertaining to the nature of the skill, while the second group served as an attention control. Consistent with predictions, the results were that the two groups receiving the SLT performed significantly better than the three groups not receiving SLT on all dependent measures at posttest. These differences generally maintained at follow-up. Contrary to expectations, the implementation of TP did not prove to promote transfer of training beyond that found with SLT alone.     

Pigeons' performance under differential reinforcement of low rate schedules depends upon the operant

Pigeons were reinforced with grain for pecking a key or depressing a foot treadle according to differential reinforcement of low rate (DRL) schedules. Birds which depressed a treadle performed efficiently on DRL schedules as high as DRL 35-sec; while birds reinforced for keypecking showed low efficiency under DRL 14-sec. While treadle pressing and keypecking differ along a number of dimensions (including force requirement of the operant and differences in temporal distributions of responses), the present results are consistent with an interpretation based on differences in the degree to which these two responses are elicited by periodic presentations of food.     

The optional shift performance of reflective and impulsive girls

The optional shift performance of 52 reflective and 50 impulsive second-grade girls was assessed under two response-consequence conditions: (a) reward for correct responses only, and (b) reward for correct responses and a penalty for incorrect responses. Reflection—impulsivity was defined on the basis of performance on the Matching Familiar Figures test. The reflectives showed a significantly greater percentage of reversal shifts than the impulsives. The impulsives showed more reversal shifts under the penalty condition than the reward alone condition whereas the performance of the reflectives was the same in both consequence conditions. A test of statistical association indicated that reflection—impulsivity may be as strongly related to reversal shift performance as age and perceptual pretraining. The results are interpreted as indicating that individual differences in perceptual search strategies may have an important influence on the problem-solving behavior of children.     

The use of modeling to increase independent behavior

Three experiments were conducted aimed at increasing independence via use of modeling procedures in, respectively, two samples of neurotic outpatients and a sample of psychiatric inpatients. Significant gains in independence emerged in all three investigations. Subsidiary findings are reported regarding the operation in clinical contexts of ‘modeling-enhancers’ of demonstrated effectiveness in laboratory settings.     

The interactive effect of introversion-extraversion with caffeine induced arousal on verbal performance

In a test of the arousal hypothesis of introversion-extraversion, subjects were pre- and post-tested on practice Graduate Record Examination verbal performance items while administered caffeine at either 0, 2, or 4 mg/kg of body weight. Introverts increased dramatically in performance between the 0 and 2 mg/kg conditions and then decreased even more dramatically between the 2 and 4 mg/kg conditions. Extraverts showed decrements in performance at the 0 mg/kg level, improved slightly at the 2 mg/kg level, and showed marked improvement at the 4 mg/kg level. Further analyses revealed that introverts increased in both speed and accuracy at low levels of stimulation but then decreased in both at higher levels of stimulation. Extraverts showed continued increases in speed and accuracy across the increasing arousal levels.     

Patterning,partial reinforcement,and N-length effects at spaced trials as a function of reinstatement of retrieval cues

Four experiments are reported which demonstrate the importance of the reinstatement of retrieval cues in partial-reinforcement experiments using spaced trials. Reinstatement occurs when the goalbox and startbox are of the same brightness (gray). Nonreinstatement occurs when the goalbox and startbox are of different brightnesses (black-and-white striped vs gray). Under reinstatement conditions, both a partial-reinforcement effect (PRE) and N-length effects were observed whether small reward or large reward was used. Under nonreinstatement conditions, a PRE was observed when large reward was used but not when small reward was used; N-length effects were not observed either with large or small reward. Finally, using a 24-hr intertrial interval, single alternation patterning was found only with a group receiving large reward, a long nonreward confinement duration, and reinstatement. These results are not consistent with the notion that massed and spaced trials are governed by separate mechanisms, and support an explanation of both massed and spaced trials based on E. J. Capaldi's sequential theory.     

Immediate and delayed punishment of human behavior by loss of reinforcement

Young adult humans pressed a key to obtain money. When responding was punished by presentation of a stimulus signifying that money was lost, response frequencies decreased and response latencies increased. Since these changes did not increase relative earnings, the aversive properties of loss of reinforcement were manifested independently or reinforcement gain. When loss punishment was delayed for either 10, 20, or 40 sec the extent of suppression was found to vary inversely with the response-punishment interval. Subsequent manipulations indicated that the effectiveness of delayed punishment was increased when the response also produced immediate conditioned punishment, i.e., a stimulus paired with the delayed loss stimulus. Instructions about the response-punishment contingency had similar effects. The findings were consistent with animal studies of delayed shock punishment, insofar as a similar delay-of-punishment gradient was observed, and with studies of delayed positive reinforcement, insofar as mediation through conditioned punishment (or instructions) increased the effectiveness of delayed punishment.     

Differential reinforcement of lever-press durations: Effects of deprivation level and reward magnitude

Three experiments investigated the performance of rats on a task involving differential reinforcement of lever-press durations. Experiment 1, which employed a discrete-trials procedure, manipulated deprivation level between subjects and reward magnitude within subjects. The minimum lever-press duration which would result in reward was varied from .4 to 6.4 sec. It was found that low deprivation resulted in longer mean durations and less response variability at the higher criterial values than did high deprivation. The magnitude of reward was not found to affect performance. Experiment 2 manipulated reward magnitude between subjects while holding deprivation level constant, and used the same general procedures as in Experiment 1. Small reward resulted in longer mean lever-press durations and less variability in responding than did large reward at the higher criterial values. The intertrial intervals were omitted in Experiment 3 in which deprivation level was varied between subjects and reinforcement was delivered only for response durations extending between 6.0 and 7.6 sec. Low deprivation resulted in longer mean lever-press durations and less response variability than did high deprivation, but the probability of a rewarded press duration did not differ between groups. The results overall are consistent with the hypothesis that low deprivation and small reward magnitude lead to weaker goal-approach responses and, hence, to less competition with lever holding. The deprivation and reward magnitude manipulations did not appear to influence lever holding performance by affecting the ability of animals to form temporal discriminations.     

Effects of a brief stimulus accompanying reinforcement on instrumental responding in pigeons

The responding of pigeons on a variable interval schedule of reinforcement was investigated in four experiments. In some conditions in each experiment reinforced keypecks were accompanied by a brief (0.5-sec) flash of the houselight. This procedure resulted in a low rate of response in comparison with that found in conditions when response-contingent light flashes occurred uncorrelated with reinforcement (Experiments 1 and 2) or when no light flash was presented (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 allowed a comparison between the effects of a signal accompanying the reinforced response and one accompanying the delivery of “free” food. Signaling the delivery of earned food produced a lower rate of response than did signaling the delivery of free food. The role of stimulus-reinforcer and response-reinforcer associations in producing these effects is discussed.     

The minimum principle and the perception of absolute,common, and relative motions

Wheel-generated motions have served as a touchstone for discussion of the perception of wholes and parts since the beginning of Gestalt psychology. The reason is that perceived common motions of the whole and the perceived relative motions of the parts are not obviously found in the absolute motion paths of points on a rolling wheel. In general, two types of theories have been proposed as to how common and relative motions are derived from absolute motions: one is that the common motions are extracted from the display first, leaving relative motions as the residual; the other is that relative motions are extracted first leaving common motions as the residual. A minimum principle can be used to defend both positions, but application of the principle seems contingent on the particular class of stimuli chosen. We propose a third view. It seems that there are at least two simultaneous processes—one for common motions and one for relative motions—involved in the perception of these and other stimuli and that a minimum principle is involved in both. However, for stimuli in many domains the minimization of relative motion dominates the perception. In general, we propose that any given stimulus can be organized to minimize the complexity of either its common motions or its relative motions; that which component is minimized depends on which of two processes reaches completion first (that for common or that for relative motions); and that the similarity of any two displays depends on whether common or relative motions are minimized.     

Task instructions and strategy transfer in the directed forgetting performance of mentally retarded adolescents

The influence of task explanation on strategy transfer was studied in educable mentally retarded adolescents (13 to 15 years old). A directed forgetting task was used in which the person was required to recall short sequences of picture names. In some sequences there was a cue to forget the first few pictures (irrelevant information) and to remember only the subsequent pictures (relevant information). During the first session the amount of explanation given the directed forgetting task was varied, and during the second, some of the subjects were trained to rehearse in a simple sequential memory task. Transfer of training was then examined on a retest of the directed forgetting task. The majority of subjects trained to rehearse and given a minimal explanation of the directed forgetting task maintained the strategy on trials which were identical to those used during rehearsal training, but failed to generalize the strategy on other trials. The results indicate that providing a full explanation of the task requirements does not assure strategy generalization, but providing only a minimal explanation makes strategy generalization unlikely.     

Alleviating forgetting of active shock-avoidance by apparently unrelated food presentations

A series of four experiments investigated why forgetting of an active shock-avoidance response was reduced when an apparently unrelated appetitive experience occurred both prior to avoidance training and during the retention interval between training and testing. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated the reliability of the phenomenon and found that a sufficient condition for the effect was the presentation of food from a pellet dispenser (not an operant response per se). Experiment 3 demonstrated that the effect was not the result of enhanced activity. Experiment 4 showed that forgetting was still reduced when the appetitive experience occurred only prior to active avoidance or only during the retention interval. The results are discussed in regard to the reinstatement of the reinforcer representation.     

Psychological differentiation and the evaluation of juridic information: Cognitive and affective consequences

The cognitive and evaluative involvements of field dependence-independence in the processing of available information were examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, ninety-six female undergraduates were assigned to field-dependent and field-independent conditions (via a median split on Embedded Figures Test scores). Half were given information about the trial of a man accused of attempted manslaughter that was suggestive of guilt; the other half received information suggestive of innocence. They were asked to indicate their confidence in the guilt or innocence of the defendant, and to recall arguments from the information they received. Field-dependent subjects were significantly more extreme in their confidence judgments, particularly in the exonerating conditions. They also showed nonsignificantly poorer recall. In Experiment 2, forty-eight subjects from Experiment 1 were given arguments biased in the opposite direction of their original sets. Field-dependent subjects were significantly more likely to shift their confidence judgments and report discomfort when the new information suggested innocence, and to underrecall new information when it suggested guilt. Field-dependent subjects again showed poorer recall. The results of both experiments were discussed in terms of their support for a field-dependence value bias and encoding deficiency.     

Instrumental and contingent saccharin licking in rats: Response deprivation and reinforcement

Instrumental licking of .4% saccharin solution was increased by the contingent opportunity to lick a less-preferred saccharin solution when the contingency schedule deprived the subject of the contingent response, but not otherwise. Schedules that imposed comparable amounts of response deprivation produced comparable increases in instrumental responding. The results support the hypothesis that instrumental responding will increase if and only if the contingency schedule deprives the subject of the contingent response. They also support the implication that the predicted increase will occur even if the contingent response has a lower operant level than the instrumental response.     

The influence of chance and contingency factors on the vocational choice process of nonprofessional workers

The present study investigated the perceived influence of chance and contingency factors on the career choices of nonprofessional workers. The sample was composed of 447 female workers and 470 male workers. As part of a larger study the workers listed the factors that had influenced their choice of their first job, their present job, and their most satisfying job. They were also asked to consider their entire work history and note events, people, or personal inclinations which influenced their vocational decisions. The workers then rated each of 27 chance or contingency factors concerning the extent of influence (great, some, none) on their career choices. The results are examined and discussed relative to the perceived importance of chance and contingency factors on the career choices of nonprofessional workers. The implications of the results for vocational theory and career counseling are considered.     

Speech versus sign comprehension in autistic children: analysis and prediction

Autistic children have severe problems in acquiring language. For this reason, special techniques have been developed to teach them speech and sign language. It is not known, however, whether these children will profit more from speech or sign training. The research literature implies that verbal imitative ability may predict language learning characteristics particularly in the speech modality. In view of this possibility, two groups of autistic children--good versus poor verbal imitators--were studied within the context of a receptive label acquisition task. Good imitators acquired receptive speech whereas poor imitators typically did not. Both groups acquired receptive signs. The results were discussed in terms of the role that imitative ability may play with respect to language acquisition in this population.     

Controlling nonverbal displays: Facial expressions and tone of voice

This study investigated the hypothesis that facial expressions are more controllable and closer to one's awareness than vocal cues. Specifically, it was suggested that nonverbal displays are a function of three factors: (a) expressiveness, or the tendency to display spontaneous nonverbal cues: (b) controllability, or the ability to voluntarily suppress or exaggerate one's spontaneous display: and (c) demeanor, or the sender's tendency to convey a particular impression regardless of his/her experienced emotion. Subjects' facial and vocal reactions to affective stimuli were recorded in a spontaneous condition or under instructions to magnify or conceal reactions to these stimuli. It was shown that information conveyed by facial expressions was best accounted for by controllability whereas information conveyed by tone of voice was best accounted for by expressiveness and demeanor.