Some observations on control by spoken words in children's conditional discrimination and matching by exclusion

This study examined matching-to-sample procedures that might result in the emergence of conditional behavior never explicitly taught. Subjects were preschool children. Two pictures were displayed as comparisons on every trial, and samples were spoken words. In baseline training preceding each of three experiments, children learned to select pictures of a dog, a table, and a banana in response to their spoken English names. Thereafter, probe trials displayed novel comparisons with baseline comparisons: one novel comparison was displayed with the dog and another with the table. The three experiments differed primarily in the nature of the samples presented on probe trials. In Experiment 1, probe samples were novel words, "JAIJAI" and "BREEL." On the probes, each of seven subjects reliably selected the novel comparisons, apparently "excluding" the familiar ones. In Experiment 2, probe samples were from the subjects' baseline. On one probe, for example, the sample was "TABLE," and the subject had to choose either the dog or the novel picture. Exclusion was logically possible because the dog had always before been incorrect in the presence of "TABLE." Under these conditions, however, only two of nine children excluded reliably. In Experiment 3, probe samples were words that had never been samples on any matching-to-sample trial, but that had controlled the children's behavior in other settings. On one probe, for example, the sample was "PENCIL," and the subject had to choose either the dog or a novel picture. Subjects virtually always excluded the former and selected the latter. Unreliable exclusion in Experiment 2, therefore, apparently resulted because the probe samples had previously served also as samples on baseline trials. Spontaneous verbalizations recorded during probing provided further data consistent with this interpretation. The study helps to define variables controlling exclusion performances by showing that such performances are more likely to occur if the sample has no prior experimental history.     

BEHAVIORAL MOMENTUM IN THE TREATMENT OF NONCOMPLIANCE

Behavioral momentum refers to the tendency for behavior to persist following a change in environmental conditions. The greater the rate of reinforcement, the greater the behavioral momentum. The intervention for noncompliance consisted of issuing a sequence of commands with which the subject was very likely to comply (i.e., high-probability commands) immediately prior to issuing a low-probability command. In each of five experiments, the high-probability command sequence resulted in a “momentum” of compliant responding that persisted when a low-probability request was issued. Results showed the antecedent high-probability command sequence increased compliance and decreased compliance latency and task duration. “Momentum-like” effects were shown to be distinct from experimenter attention and to depend on the contiguity between the high-probability command sequence and the low-probability command.     

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A CONSTANT TIME-DELAY PROCEDURE TO TEACH CHAINED RESPONSES TO ADOLESCENTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

The effectiveness of a 5-s constant time-delay procedure to teach three chained food preparation behaviors to four moderately retarded adolescent students was evaluated within a multiple probe design across behaviors. Results indicate that the procedure was effective in teaching all four students to make a sandwich, boil a boil-in-bag item, and bake canned biscuits. The skills maintained with at least 85% accuracy over a 3-month period. Training generalized from the school to the home setting for the 2 subjects that completed generalization probe sessions. The percentage of errors across all skills and students was less than 9%.     

PROMPTING ONE LOW-FAT,HIGH-FIBER SELECTION IN A FAST-FOOD RESTAURANT

Evidence increasingly links a high-fat, low-fiber diet to coronary heart disease and certain site cancers, indicating a need for large-scale dietary change. Studies showing the effectiveness of particular procedures in specific settings are important at this point. The present study, using an A-B-A-B design and sales data from computerized cash registers, replicated and extended previous work by showing that inexpensive prompts (i.e., signs and fliers) in a national fast-food restaurant could increase the sales of salads, a low-fat, high-fiber menu selection. Suggestions also are made pertinent to more widespread use of the procedures.     

Television Food Commericals' Effect on Children's Resistance to Temptation1

This study investigated the effect of television food commercials on children's self-control within a resistance to temptation paradigm. Commercial type, food stimulus type, and the child's sex provided the three independent variables in a 4 × 4 × 2 factorial design. Behavioral and self-report indices of temptation and control were measured. Children were significantly more tempted to transgress for the low-nutrition food, regardless of the commercial shown. Sex differences in reported degree of temptation were found. However, the television commercials did not affect the children's latency to transgress.     

A Test of the Knew-It-All-Along Effect in the 1984 Presidential and Statewide Elections1

The knew-it-all-along effect is investigated by comparing pre- and post-election predictions of subjects concerning three electoral races in the November 1984 elections. The results revealed that when the outcomes of the predictions are known, subjects recall having assigned higher probabilities and percentages to the actual winners of each election, remember having more confidence in the accuracy of these percentages, and claim to have had more knowledge of the candidates than they had before the election. The results were consistent across all three elections and in both repeated-measures and between-pups designs, suggesting that the knew-it-all-along effect is a very robust one. Two underlying processes are hypothesized to account for these results: the availability heuristic and an increase in confidence explanation.     

A survey of celiac-sprue patients: effect of dietary restrictions on religious practices

Celiac-Sprue Disease, also referred to as Non-Tropical Sprue, is a dietary disease. Celiac-Sprue patients were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding the effect of dietary restrictions on participation in the Passover meal and reception of Communion. A pilot study suggested that subjects made changes in their religious practices because of dietary restrictions. A second, more detailed survey, was performed in which 58 subjects participated and 14 religions were represented. The results indicated that many subjects made changes in their religious practices (p less than .01), made changes on their own initiative (p less than .01), or violated diet prescribed for the disease under the religious setting versus other settings (p less than .05).     

Encoding and retrieval processes in learning-disabled, head-injured, and nondisabled young adults

Using a multi-trial, free-recall paradigm (Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning Test; Lezak, 1983), the acquisition and retention by learning disabled (LD) young adults with a Halstead Impairment Index less than or equal to 0.3 (low LD) or greater than or equal to 0.4 (high LD) was compared with that of nondisabled and head-injured (HI) young adults. Significant group differences, particularly during the last three acquisition trials, confirmed the effectiveness of this method in revealing subtle learning and retention deficits. Analyses of Trial 1 recall showed group differences in the prerecency but not the recency portion of the serial position curve, thus implicating long-term but not short-term memory differences between the groups. Analyses of pair frequency (Sternberg & Tulving, 1977) data showed that the three clinical groups had difficulty organizing the to-be-learned material for effective retrieval. Following an interpolated task, retention was poorer for the clinical groups than for the nondisabled and varied inversely with the degree of neuropsychological impairment. Finally, during retention, the nondisabled and low LD groups retained and used the list organization established during acquisition whereas the high LD and HI groups did not.     

Attempts to train novices for beer flavor discrimination: a matter of taste

Inexperienced beer-drinkers who could not pass a beer-flavor discrimination test were divided into a taste group, which received additional perceptual experience with beer flavors; a verbal group, which received instruction in beer flavor terminology; a taste/verbal group, which received both additional experience and instruction; and a control group. Before and after training, all subjects participated in a similarity rating task involving beer flavors and flavor-related adjectives. Additional taste experience--but not increased experience with beer-flavor terminology--improved novices' ability to detect identical beer flavors. Results are discussed in terms of the trainability of flavor discrimination and the role of cognitive factors (both flavor-related and flavor-independent) in marketing beverages.     

The impact of the therapeutic environment

This paper emphasizes the impact of the setting, space, and general physical properties of the clinic upon the difficult patient's profound neediness and absence of inner regulatory structure. Moreover, the clinic's administrative style and requirements often related to fiscal restraints, demands for accountability for both how funds are spent and treatment outcome, all impinge upon the patient. Humanizing clinics so they have the capacity for psychotherapeutic holding and provision of safety for difficult patients are discussed in detail in this contribution.