The effects of unsignalled delayed reinforcement

Pigeons' pecks were reinforced according to a variable-interval schedule. A delay-of-reinforcement procedure was then added to the schedule, or a yoked-control procedure was arranged where the reinforcers occurred independently of responding according to the same variable-interval schedule. During the delay-of-reinforcement procedure, the first peck after a reinforcer was scheduled began a delay timer and the reinforcer was delivered at the end of the interval. No stimulus change signalled the delay interval and responses could occur during it, so that the obtained delays were often shorter than those scheduled. Responding under this procedure was highly variable but, in general, behavior was substantially reduced even with the shortest delay used, 3 sec. In addition, the rates maintained by delayed reinforcement were only slightly greater than those maintained by the yoked-control procedure, suggesting that adventitious pairings of response and reinforcer were responsible for some of the maintenance of behavior that did occur. The results challenge recent conceptions of reinforcement as involving response-reinforcer correlations and re-emphasize the role of temporal proximity between response and reinforcer.     

A programmable tone generator for presenting melodic and harmonic patterns in music research

This report describes the design of a programmable tone generator, a digitally controlled system for generating complex tones. The PTG will provide sequential series of single tones or simultaneously sounding two- and three-tone groups over a four-octave range. Programming of the PTG is accomplished by paper tape using a digital, binary configuration. The current version will interface with Grason-Stadler Series 1200 equipment.     

When psychiatric patients interact with computer terminals: Problems and solutions

A computer system for on-line psychiatric patient assessment has been developed at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Salt Lake City. Unlike the typical on-line computer system designed for skilled terminal operators, this system is designed to interact with unskilled psychiatric patients. Special design considerations necessary to support this approach are discussed.     

Computer technology in mental health care: “Toys” or tools?

An argument is made that applications of on-line computer technology which are truly relevant to decision making constitute the new “tools of the trade” in mental health care delivery.     

Interventional relevance and retrofit programming: Concepts for the improvement of clinician acceptance of computer-generated assessment reports

A brief historical review of research on the use of computers in mental health service delivery is presented. The computer-assisted psychiatric assessment project (PAU) at the Salt Lake City VA Hospital is briefly described in the perspective of previous research. It is noted that the initial design for the PAU was deficient in the development of a computer generated reporting scheme which is totally acceptable to clinicians. Two conceptual innovations, interventionally relevant reporting and retrofit programming, are introduced. These are described as providing solutions to the problem of obtaining clinician acceptance of computer-generated assessment reports. Pilot research on the use of these concepts is presented.     

Development of an on-line management information system for community mental health centers

An on-line computerized management information system has been developed at the Salt Lake City VA Hospital and is currently being implemented at Salt Lake Community Mental Health Center. An introduction to this system, including systems design and procedures for development, are presented. The advantages of on-line technology as compared to batch processing technology are also discussed.     

Performance in concurrent interval schedules

Four pigeons were trained under concurrent variable-interval variable-interval and fixed-interval variable-interval schedules in a two-key situation. Both response allocation and time allocation to the two schedules were measured when various reinforcement rates were arranged on each key. All animals showed an approximately constant proportional preference for the variable-interval schedule over the fixed-interval schedule. These results support Schneider's (1969) analysis of fixed-interval schedule performance.