USING REINFORCEMENT AND CUEING TO INCREASE HEALTHY SNACK FOOD CHOICES IN PRESCHOOLERS

We examined the effects of behavioral procedures to modify the food choices of preschoolers during a snack period at school (training setting) and at home (generalization setting). In the first experiment, we evaluated the usefulness of nutrition training and a generalization programming strategy of cueing to improve healthy snacking; in the second experiment we investigated the effect of nutrition training alone. In addition, three cases are presented that illustrate individualized procedures to facilitate generalization of healthy snacking to home. Results indicated that children's healthy snack choices increased in the preschool training setting, that generalization to home was achieved only when procedures to program it were implemented, and that the best results were found when the generalization procedures were tailored to the individual child.     

Defaults in update semantics

The aim of this paper is twofold: (i) to introduce the framework of update semantics and to explain what kind of semantic phenomena may successfully be analysed in it: (ii) to give a detailed analysis of one such phenomenon: default reasoning.     

Duration and rate of reinforcement as determinants of concurrent responding

The duration and frequency of food presentation were varied in concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules of reinforcement. In the first experiment, in which pigeons were exposed to a succession of eight different schedules, neither relative duration nor relative frequency of reinforcement had as great an effect on response distribution as they have when they are manipulated separately. These results supported those previously reported by Todorov (1973) and Schneider (1973). In a second experiment, each of seven pigeons was exposed to only one concurrent schedule in which the frequency and/or duration of reinforcement differed on the two keys. Under these conditions, each pigeon's relative rate of response closely matched the relative total access to food that each schedule provided. This result suggests that previous failures to obtain matching may be due to factors such as an insufficient length of exposure to each schedule or to the pigeons' repeated exposure to different concurrent schedules.     

The number of ways to label a structure

It has been observed that the number of different ways in which a graph withp points can be labelled isp! divided by the number of symmetries, and that this holds regardless of the species of structure at hand. In this note, a simple group-theoretic proof is provided.This work was supported by Grant MH 10834 from the National Institute of Mental Health.     

The effects of probability of test success,test importance,and risk of detection on the incidence of cheating

This study attempts to investigate the incidence of test cheating under various situational conditions. Twenty four fifth and sixth grades (611 pupils) were randomly assigned to treatment conditions formed by all possible combinations of the three variables being studied: high or low probability of test success, high or low risk of detection, and high or low test importance. The highest incidence of cheating occurred in groups under the combination of conditions of low probability of test success, low risk of detection, and high test importance. The results were discussed in terms of the extent of risk (of being caught cheating) vs. the extent of the “payoff” (i.e. avoiding failure) as they each affect test cheating.     

Effects of receptive language training on receptive and expressive language development

The effects of a six-month training program in receptive language on receptive and expressive language development were investigated. Developmentally retarded preschoolers were pretested and posttested on one standardized test of receptive language and two tests of expressive language. Both the training and control groups participated in a preschool program. In addition, the training group received a two-sequence training program: (1) reinforcement for matching responses to modeling cues and accompanying verbal requests, and (2) reinforcement for appropriate responses to verbal requests alone. The training group demonstrated a significant increase in appropriate responses to verbal request over base-rate performance after the training and also demonstrated a significantly improved posttest performance on one test of expressive language as compared to the control group.The authors wish to thank Mrs. Helen Huggins and the staff of the Aid to Retarded Children's Preschool Training Center, San Francisco, California, for their assistance in this study. A modified version of this paper was presented at the Gatlinburg Conference on Mental Retardation, March, 1974, Gatlinburg, Tennessee.