Disruption of a temporal discrimination under response-independent shock

The responding of rats was reinforced on one key after a 1-sec auditory stimulus and on a second key after a 5-sec stimulus. With errors punished by a short timeout, all subjects achieved a high level of accuracy. A chain of responses during the stimuli mediated the performance so that when the auditory signals were omitted accuracy decreased only slightly. Response-independent aversive stimulation superimposed upon this procedure both suppressed the total amount of behavior and reduced the accuracy of the discriminative performance, the intensity of the stimulus determining the error rate. The increase in errors under these conditions may have depended in part upon differential suppression of members of the response chain, but such suppression was not necessary, since error rate increased even in its absence. Furthermore, the locus of response disruption within the chain was not consistent from day to day either for any individual animal or across animals.     

Setting generality: some specific and general effects of child behavior therapy

The present study attempted to assess experimentally, functional relationships between home and school settings. Two children, both considered deviant in their homes and in their schools, were observed in both settings. The observations revealed that the children's deviant behaviors at home were quite similar to their deviant behaviors at school. Contingency operations were then performed in the children's homes. Results showed that the children's behavior changed predictably in the homes and remained at baseline level in school.