A method to establish stimulus control and compliance with instructions

We evaluated a unique procedure to establish compliance with instructions in four young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who had low levels of compliance. Our procedure included methods to establish a novel therapist as a source of positive reinforcement, reliably evoke orienting responses to the therapist, increase the number of exposures to instruction–compliance–reinforcer contingencies, and minimize the number of exposures to instruction–noncompliance–no reinforcer contingencies. We further alternated between instructions with a high probability of compliance (high‐p instructions) with instructions that had a prior low probability of compliance (low‐p instructions) as soon as low‐p instructions lost stimulus control. The intervention is discussed in relation to the conditions necessary for the development of stimulus control and as an example of a variation of translational research.     

Priming involuntary autobiographical memories

Involuntary autobiographical memories occur frequently in daily life and are usually triggered by cues in one's environment. This study investigated the possibility that priming plays a role in the production of involuntary memories. In Study 1, participants recorded their involuntary memories in a diary for 14 days and then completed a questionnaire assessing their cognitive activity during the recording period. Participants indicating frequent thought about significant others on the questionnaire showed significantly more involuntary memories related to such individuals than a control group. In Studies 2 and 3, participants recorded their involuntary memories in diaries for 14 days and were primed with recall sessions in the laboratory during that period (recalling episodes from high school, Study 1, the past year, or ages 13–16, Studies 2 & 3). The results of both studies showed significant priming effects in the involuntary memories of participants for all of the periods primed. The possibility that priming plays a significant role in the daily production of involuntary memories is discussed.     

Simple kinetic information for transparent depth

The present paper reports three investigations of new kinetic information for transparent depth using computer-generated dot patterns. An initial demonstration showed that separation in depth could be obtained by translating rectangular lattices of dots through one another like intersecting columns of marching soldiers. The first two experiments showed that diagonal interactions between lattices created significantly stronger separation than did horizontal or vertical interactions (horizontal was, in turn, stronger than vertical) and that patterns which translated through one another without any of the individual elements intersecting were better separated than those whose rows or columns intersected in register. The third experiment showed that random patterns interacting in any direction created the strongest separations of all the patterns observed. Results were taken to indicate that a unified theory of depth information, developed in the context of James Gibson’s ecological optics, must incorporate both spatial and kinetic structure in its specification of necessary and sufficient stimulus conditions.     

IN PURSUIT OF GENERAL BEHAVIORAL RELATIONS

Efforts to develop behavioral technologies from advances in basic research assume that results from studies with nonhuman subjects can, in some instances, be applied to human behavior. The behavioral principles likely to be most useful for application are those that represent robust general behavioral relations. Basic and applied research on behavioral momentum suggests that there is a general behavioral relation between the persistence of behavior and the rate of reinforcement obtained in a given situation. Understanding the factors that affect behavioral persistence may have important implications for applied behavior analysts that justify studies aimed at establishing the generality and limits of the functional relation between reinforcement rate and behavioral persistence. Strategies for establishing the generality of behavioral relations are reviewed, followed by a brief summary of the evidence for the generality of behavioral momentum.     

Preliminary comparison of two negative reinforcement schedules to reduce self-injury

This study compared the effectiveness of differential negative reinforcement of other behavior (DNRO) and alternative behavior (DNRA) for reducing self-injurious tantrums maintained by escape from demands in a 4-year-old girl with severe retardation. Both DNRA and DNRO reduced self-injury and increased independent performance of two tasks (tooth brushing and bathing); however, improvement on both measures was greater with the DNRA intervention.