Does analysis brevity result in loss of control? A consecutive case series of 26 single‐session interview‐informed synthesized contingency analyses

A believable demonstration of control over problem behavior is a necessary component of the functional analysis process. Control during a functional analysis has traditionally been defined in a binary manner: Differentiated outcomes point to an identifiable function and undifferentiated outcomes do not. However, it might be beneficial to characterize control as strong, moderate, or weak in order to evaluate the strength of evidence for experimental control during an efficient functional analysis format that requires only a single session. We analyzed the levels of control using 26 single‐session interview‐informed synthesized contingency analyses (IISCAs). Although shorter session duration (i.e., first 3 or 5 min of each session) tended to reduce the level of control, the majority of single‐session IISCAs resulted in evidence indicating strong levels of control when data from the full 10‐min session were included in the analysis.     

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: do experimenter-presented interlopers have any effect?

When a person is in a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state, they will sometimes recall a word that is similar in sound to the word they are attempting to retrieve. Woodworth (1929) argued that these interloper words both cause and sustain TOT states, whereas Brown and McNeill (1966) suggested that they are part of the process that leads to TOT resolution. Jones and Langford (1987) and Jones (1989) explicitly presented interloper words along with definitions of words that subjects were asked to recall. They reported that interlopers that were phonologically related to the target word increased the incidence of TOTs and concluded that this supported Woodworth's position. In three experiments, we adopted the interloper paradigm, but also included a control group who heard the definitions without interloper words. In Experiment 1, the definitions that Jones used with phonological interlopers created more TOTs even when no interlopers were presented. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we matched definitions for the number of TOTs they produced in the absence of interlopers. Under these circumstances we found no effect of interloper words at all. We conclude that there is no evidence from this paradigm to support the idea that interloper words are involved in either the causation or resolution of TOTs.     

Memory aids in reality orientation: a single-case study

A single-case study of retraining both verbal and behavioural orientation in an 84-yr-old patient with senile dementia is described. In contrast to the traditional approach of employing RO sessions in which verbal learning and subsequent free recall is employed, the patient was provided with a watch and a diary containing personalized information and a daily behavioural itinerary. Results suggest that such memory aids can increase orientation and when effective use of these aids becomes the target of a specific behavioural training then purposive behaviour can be engineered.     

EFFECTS OF WRIST WEIGHTS ON SELF-INJURIOUS AND ADAPTIVE BEHAVIORS

The effects of wrist weights on the self-injurious and adaptive behaviors of a young boy with profound mental retardation were evaluated. Application of wrist weights reduced SIB by 92% and was associated with either increases or stable levels of multiple novel and preexisting adaptive behaviors.     

FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS AND TREATMENT OF CIGARETTE PICA

A series of analyses was conducted to assess and treat the pica of cigarette butts by a young man with mental retardation and autism. First, we demonstrated that pica was maintained in a condition with no social consequences when the available cigarettes contained nicotine but not when the cigarettes contained herbs without nicotine. Second, a choice assessment (Fisher et al., 1992) confirmed that tobacco was preferred over the other components of the cigarette (e.g., paper, filter, etc.). Third, an analogue functional analysis (Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, & Richman, 1982/1994) demonstrated that cigarette pica was maintained independent of social consequences. Fourth, a treatment designed to interrupt the hypothesized response—reinforcer relationship reduced consumption of cigarettes to zero. Finally, because cigarette pica occurred primarily when the individual was alone or under minimal supervision, a procedure based on stimulus control was developed to improve the effectiveness of the intervention in these situations.     

Individual differences in visual discrimination of letters.

Research on the distinctive features of letters has been inconclusive. Investigators may have overlooked individual variations in their data which would have supported feature-extraction hypotheses but were concealed by analyses which averaged data into group means. Response latencies from a matching discrimination task with the 26 English capital letters were analyzed with INDSCAL, a multidimensional scaling procedure which weights individual contributions to a psychological space. Underlying a dimensions were linearity, curvature, angularity, and closure. The solution disclosed that individuals utilized these features differentially in the visual discriminations. The results suggest that future research in visual feature extraction will benefit from the examination of individual variations in the perceptual process.