Developing correspondence between the non-verbal and verbal behavior of preschool children

Correspondence was developed between children's non-verbal and verbal behavior such that their non-verbal behavior could be altered simply by reinforcing related verbal behavior. Two groups of six children each were given food snack at the end of the day: for reporting use of a specific preschool material during free play (procedure A); and then only for reports of use which corresponded to actual use of that material earlier that day (procedure B). Initially, procedure A alone had little or no effect on the children's use of materials. Procedure B resulted in all of the children in one group actually using a specific material, and after repeating procedures A and B with this group across a series of different materials, procedure A alone was sufficient to significantly increase use of a specific material. Correspondence between verbal and non-verbal behavior was produced such that, in this group of 4-yr-old disadvantaged Negro children, "saying" controlled "doing" 22 or more hours later. In the second group, procedure B initially did not increase the use of a specific material; rather, the children's reports decreased so as to correspond to the intermittent use of the material. It appeared from subsequent procedures with this group that maintenance of a high level of reporting was crucial to the saying-then-doing correspondence seen in the first group.     

Pigeons' withdrawal from an appetitive conditioned inhibitor under two training procedures

The approach-withdrawal behaviour of pigeons to a red keylight was measured under three conditions; a negative contingency (NC) between keylight and food reinforcement, a CI or conditioned inhibition procedure where the keylight was non-reinforced in compound with a tone which was reinforced when presented alone, and a random control procedure (RC). The keylight-food contingencies in CI and NC were identical, and keylight and food presentation frequency were the same in all conditions. Subsequently the effect of adding the red keylight to a novel CS+ during or after excitatory conditioning was examined (summation test of inhibition). The inhibitory procedures, CI and NC, generally yielded similar functions for the acquisition of withdrawal, and the results of the withdrawal and summation measures were positively correlated. The implications of the results for theories of the acquisition and behavioural action of conditioned inhibitors are discussed.