A short form of the Common Beliefs Survey III

Previous studies have shown that the Common Beliefs Survey III (CBS III) is an irrational beliefs inventory with satisfactory psychometric properties. We extended research on the CBS by examining this 54-item inventory for redundant material, and substantially abbreviated it without compormising its reliability or validity. This article describes the development of the new, 19-item short form (CBS19), convenient for clinical use, that preserves the psychometric properties of the original.     

Consider the source: One step in assessing premise acceptability

Premise acceptability is conceptually connected to presumption. To say that a premise is acceptable just when there is a presumption in its favor is to give a first approximation to this connection. A number of popular principles of presumption suggest that whether there is a presumption for a premise, belief, or claim depends on the sources which vouch for it. Sources consist of internal belief-generating mechanisms and external testimony. Alvin Plantinga's notion of warrant lays down four conditions upon a source for the belief which it generates to be warranted. We argue that there is a presumption for a premise, belief, or claim if and only if there is a presumption of warrant for that premise,belief or claim. This amounts to the thesis that there is a presumption for a belief from a challenger's point of view if and only if there is a presumption from that person's point of view that her cognitive faculties which have generated the belief have been functioning properly, in an appropriate cognitive environment, in accord with a segment of her design plan aimed at the truth, and that these faculties are reliable. In light of our argument for this thesis, we may legitimately claim that one way to determine that there is a presumption for a belief is to determine that there is a presumption of warrant for that belief, and thus that in determining whether there is a presumption for a belief or premise, we may consider the source.     

Teaching peer reinforcement and grocery words: An investigation of observational learning and instructive feedback

A multiple probe across behaviors design, replicated across participants, assessed the effectiveness of constant time delay in teaching appropriate peer reinforcement and grocery words to 3 elementary students with moderate intellectual disabilities. Additionally, pretests and posttests assessed the acquisition of the participants' observational learning (acquisition of peers' grocery words) and instructive feedback (related information supplied by the teacher in the consequent event). Results indicate that the participants learned (a) how to appropriately reinforce peers, (b) to read their grocery words, (c) some of the targeted stimuli of their peers, and (d) much of the instructive feedback that was associated with each of the grocery words. Maintenance data indicate that the participants maintained their target grocery words at high levels of accuracy.     

A comparison of multiple versus single examples of the correct stimulus on task acquisition and generalization by persons with developmental disabilities

In teaching discriminations to persons with retardation, we often presume we will improve acquisition and generalization if we use multiple examples of boththe correct and incorrect stimuli. Two experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis. In the first experiment, 7 persons with moderate retardation learned to discriminate between functional words under two conditions. In one condition, Multiple Example of S- Only,1 example of the correct stimulus (S+) and 10 examples of the incorrect stimulus (S-) were used during acquisition. In the other condition, Multiple Examples of S+ and S-,10 examples of the S+ and 10 examples of the S- were used. Results showed that the condition which presented only a single example of S+ was superior 16 times and inferior 4 times during acquisition, generalization, and maintenance. A second experiment was conducted to (a) replicate the methodology and procedures in Experiment 1 with different participants, (b) determine whether the results were replicable, and (c) obtain efficiency data. Results replicated the findings of the first experiment. The condition which presented only a single example of S+ was superior on measures of (a) trials to criterion, (b) percent correct during acquisition, and (c) minutes to criterion. On measures of generalization, the two conditions were relatively equal. Thus, the condition which presented only a single example of the correct stimulus was more efficient and was just as effective in generalization as the condition which presented multiple examples of both the S+ and S-. These surprising results were discussed in terms of stimulus control, why students performed just as well during generalization when only one example of the S+ was used, why acquisition was also poorer for this condition, and how future studies might address these points.     

Effects of differential reinforcement on the behavior and self-esteem of children with emotional and behavioral disorders

Students in a residential special school for children with emotional and behavioral disorders participated in a study designed to reduce their levels of inappropriate behavior. The residential care staff rated the students' behavioral problems and their class teachers rated their overt self-esteem pre and post intervention. In addition, the students completed self-ratings of their self-esteem. The students were divided into two groups, experimental and control. A multiple baseline across behaviors design was used to assess behavioral changes in the experimental group. Both groups received tangible rewards to the same level but only the experimental group received them contingent upon behaving appropriately. Results showed that the experimental group students made substantial reductions in their levels of inappropriate behavior, which were maintained at a three-month followup. Also, ratings of their behavioral problems by residential child care staff suggested that this improvement in behavior had generalized beyond the classroom to the residential setting. However, no significant differences were found between the pre- and post-intervention ratings of their self-esteem or teacher ratings of their overt self-esteem.     

When are supercomputers worth the bother?

The availability of the UNIX operating system on large supercomputers has greatly simplified the importation of research software from workstations and minicomputers. Supercomputers generally offer much greater memory and storage than do smaller machines, which may make their use mandatory for some large applications. Realization of the full performance offered by vectorizing supercomputers such as the Cray C90 sometimes requires modification of existing code. The use of high-level interpreters for the development of applications is recommended, to minimize the amount of compiled code that must be optimized.