Teacher report and direct assessment of preferences for identifying reinforcers for young children

Teachers were asked to identify and rank 10 preferred stimuli for 9 toddlers, and a hierarchy of preference for these items was determined via a direct preference assessment. The reinforcing efficacy of the most highly preferred items identified by each method was evaluated concurrently in a reinforcer assessment. The reinforcer assessment showed that all stimuli identified as highly preferred via the direct preference assessment and teacher rankings functioned as reinforcers. The highest ranked stimuli in the direct assessment were more reinforcing than the teachers' top-ranked stimuli for 5 of 9 participants, whereas the teachers' top-ranked stimulus was more reinforcing than the highest ranked stimulus of the direct assessment for only 1 child. A strong positive correlation between rankings generated through the two assessments was identified for only 1 of the 9 participants. Despite poor correspondence between rankings generated through the teacher interview and direct preference assessment, results of the reinforcer assessment suggest that both methods are effective in identifying reinforcers for toddlers.     

A preliminary evaluation of the emergence of novel mand forms

Strategies that produce generalized responding are valuable, especially with regard to language acquisition, because relatively little training may result in large behavior changes. Conditions that result in generalized manding were analyzed in the current study. We demonstrated in reversal designs that undesirable or single-word responses were the predominant mand forms of 3 preschool children. Multiple baseline designs with 2 participants and a reversal design with 1 participant were then used to demonstrate the extent to which differential reinforcement of single-word mands (e.g., "cars") or framed mands (e.g., "I want the cars, please") would result in the emergence of other single-word and framed mands for different items (e.g., mands for music, puppets, or puzzles). Results showed that prompting and differential reinforcement of one or two mand frames resulted in the emergence of other framed mands for all participants.     

Recalling episodic and semantic information about famous faces and voices

In this study, we used the distinction between remember and know (R/K) recognition responses to investigate the retrieval of episodic information during familiar face and voice recognition. The results showed that familiar faces presented in standard format were recognized with R responses on approximately 50% of the trials. The corresponding figure for voices was less than 20%. Even when overall levels of recognition were matched between faces and voices by blurring the faces, significantly more R responses were observed for faces than for voices. Voices were significantly more likely to be recognized with K responses than were blurred faces. These findings indicate that episodic information was recalled more often from familiar faces than from familiar voices. The results also showed that episodic information about a familiar person was never recalled unless some semantic information, such as the person's occupation, was also retrieved.     

Response-restriction analysis: II. Alteration of activity preferences

We used response-restriction (RR) assessments to identify the preferences of 7 individuals with mental retardation for a variety of vocational and leisure activities. We subsequently increased their engagement in nonpreferred activities using several procedures: response restriction per se versus a Premack-type contingency (Study 1), supplemental reinforcement for engagement in target activities (Study 2), and noncontingent pairing of reinforcers with nonpreferred activities (Study 3). Results indicated that preferences are not immutable and can be altered through a variety of relatively benign interventions and that the results of RR assessments may be helpful in determining which types of procedures may be most effective on an individual basis.     

Reducing Youth Access to Alcohol: Findings from a Community-Based Randomized Trial

Underage drinking continues to be an important public health problem and a challenge to the substance abuse prevention field. Community-based interventions designed to more rigorously control underage access to alcohol through retailer education and greater enforcement of underage drinking laws have been advocated as potentially effective strategies to help address this problem, but studies designed to evaluate such interventions are sparse. To address this issue we conducted a randomized trial involving 36 communities to test the combined effectiveness of five interrelated intervention components designed to reduce underage access to alcohol. The intervention was found to be effective in reducing the likelihood that retail clerks would sell alcohol to underage-looking buyers, but did not reduce underage drinking or the perceived availability of alcohol among high school students. Post hoc analyses, however, revealed significant associations between the level of underage drinking law enforcement in the intervention communities and reductions in both 30-day use of alcohol and binge drinking. The findings highlight the difficulty in reducing youth drinking even when efforts to curtail retail access are successful. Study findings also suggest that high intensity implementation of underage drinking law enforcement can reduce underage drinking. Any such effects of enhanced enforcement on underage drinking appear to be more directly attributable to an increase in perceived likelihood of enforcement and the resultant perceived inconveniences and/or sanctions to potential drinkers, than to a reduction in access to alcohol per se.     

Recalling semantic information about personally known faces and voices

Previous research that investigated whether biographical information about familiar people is harder to retrieve from voices than from faces produced contrasting results. However, studies that used a strict control of the content of spoken extracts reported that semantic information about familiar people is easier to retrieve when recognising a face than when recognising a voice. In all previous studies faces and voices of famous people were used as stimuli. In the present study, personally familiar people's voices and faces (standard faces and blurred faces) were used. Presenting such people (i.e., participants’ teachers) allowed controlling still more strictly the content of the spoken extracts since it was possible to ask all the target persons to speak the same words. In addition, it was previously stressed that we encounter famous people's faces in the media more frequently than we hear their voice. This methodological difficulty was presumably reduced when teachers’ faces were presented. Present results showed a significant decrease in retrieval of biographical information from familiar voices relative to blurred faces even though the level of overall recognition was similar for blurred faces and voices. The role of the relative distinctiveness of voices and faces is discussed and further investigation is proposed.     

The irrelevant sound effect under articulatory suppression is a suffix effect even with five-item lists

The relationship between the suffix effect and the effect of irrelevant sound on serial recall of auditorily presented lists is investigated in this study. Contrary to the predictions of the phonological loop model, Hanley and Hayes (2012) reported that the irrelevant sound effect was abolished under articulatory suppression when a spoken suffix was added at the end of the list. The experiment reported in this paper uses a shorter list length (five items per list) than that employed by Hanley and Hayes. This is because it cannot realistically be argued that participants will abandon the use of phonological codes to retain the list items with sequences as short as this. Results replicated those of Hanley and Hayes (2012). There was a significant effect of irrelevant sound under articulatory suppression when the list items were followed by an auditory tone. Crucially, however, the effect of irrelevant sound under articulatory suppression was abolished when the list items were followed by a spoken suffix.