Comparing functional analysis and paired-choice assessment results in classroom settings

The results of a functional analysis of problem behavior and a paired-choice assessment were compared to determine whether the same social reinforcers were identified for problem behavior and an appropriate response (time allocation). The two assessments were conducted in classroom settings with 4 adolescents with mental retardation who engaged in severe problem behavior. Each student's classroom teacher served as the therapist for all phases of assessment. The two assessment procedures identified the same social reinforcers for problem and appropriate behavior for 3 of 4 participants.     

“鸡尾酒会”环境中的知觉线索的去掩蔽作用

在有多人同时说话的嘈杂环境中,为什么具有正常听力的人能在一定的程度上听懂目标语句？研究这个著名的“鸡尾酒会”问题的一个新进展是将干扰言语的作用区分出了能量掩蔽和信息掩蔽两种成分。与发生在外周系统的能量掩蔽不同,信息掩蔽发生在心理层次并受到认知过程的调节。因此,主观空间分离、与目标语句节奏相关的视觉信号以及对目标语句某些特征的熟悉程度等知觉线索都具有去掩蔽作用。考察可减少信息掩蔽的知觉线索的交互作用及其高级认知调节是今后重要的研究内容     

大学生合作学习的问题解决过程及其对问题解决水平的影响

以认知风格为依据,将合作学习小组分为场依存同质组、场独立同质组以及异质组。通过小组对开放问题以及逻辑问题的解决,考察不同认知风格个体、不同类型小组的问题解决过程。同时考察问题解决过程对问题解决水平的影响。结果表明：（1）个体在解决不同类型问题时的过程体验不同。（2）问题解决过程在个体的认知风格和逻辑问题解决水平之间起调节作用。（3）不同类型小组的问题解决过程不同。（4）合作是影响小组合作学习效果的重要因素之一。     

A Bayesian analysis of human decision-making on bandit problems

The bandit problem is a dynamic decision-making task that is simply described, well-suited to controlled laboratory study, and representative of a broad class of real-world problems. In bandit problems, people must choose between a set of alternatives, each with different unknown reward rates, to maximize the total reward they receive over a fixed number of trials. A key feature of the task is that it challenges people to balance the exploration of unfamiliar choices with the exploitation of familiar ones. We use a Bayesian model of optimal decision-making on the task, in which how people balance exploration with exploitation depends on their assumptions about the distribution of reward rates. We also use Bayesian model selection measures that assess how well people adhere to an optimal decision process, compared to simpler heuristic decision strategies. Using these models, we make inferences about the decision-making of 451 participants who completed a set of bandit problems, and relate various measures of their performance to other psychological variables, including psychometric assessments of cognitive abilities and personality traits. We find clear evidence of individual differences in the way the participants made decisions on the bandit problems, and some interesting correlations with measures of general intelligence.     

The Moral Philosophy of Raimond Gaitaand Some Questions of Methodin the Philosophy of Religion

Raimond Gaita's moral philosophy is distinguished by, among other things, its attention to the role of embodied, enacted witness in disclosing certain moral values, and its understanding of the emotions as forms of thought. In this paper, I consider how Gaita's insights on these matters may be applied to certain questions in the philosophy of religion, paying particular attention to the nature of religious experience and 'the problem of evil'. I suggest that Gaita's discussion of how we come to recognise moral values or 'meanings' can be extended to the question of how we might recognise religious meanings. On this view, religious experience may take the form of an appreciation of the meaning borne by a material context (rather than, for example, some supra-sensory encounter with a supernatural agent), and our sense of the goodness or otherwise of the world may be answerable to the authoritative example of particular lives.     

A systematic examination of different parameters of presession exposure to tangible stimuli that maintain problem behavior

We examined the effects of three different presession conditions on tangibly maintained problem behavior for 2 students with autism, using individual-participant multielement designs. First, an analogue functional analysis demonstrated that problem behavior was maintained by access to tangible items. Next, topographies of item rejection were identified. Finally, students were exposed to (a) brief access, (b) no access, and (c) satiation to the tangible items prior to tangible sessions. The results demonstrated high levels of problem behavior following the brief-access and no-access presession conditions and low levels of problem behavior following the satiation condition. The findings are discussed in the context of how satiation might best be defined for these sorts of evaluations.     

AN EVALUATION OF RESURGENCE DURING TREATMENT WITH FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING

Extinction‐induced resurgence is the recurrence of previously reinforced behavior when another behavior is placed on extinction (Lieving, Hagopian, Long, & O'Connor, 2004). This phenomenon may account for some instances of treatment relapse when problem behavior recovers during extinction‐based treatments. The current study sought to determine whether resurgence of problem behavior would reliably occur with 5 participants who received treatment with FCT. Results showed that problem behavior reemerged for all but 1 participant when the communicative response was exposed to extinction or thin schedules of reinforcement. These findings suggest that resurgence may account for some instances of response recovery during treatment, and that the described procedure may be useful for the further study of resurgence and eventual prevention of this phenomenon.     

THE EFFECTS OF TEACHING PRECURRENT BEHAVIORS ON CHILDREN'S SOLUTION OF MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION WORD PROBLEMS

We examined the effects of teaching overt precurrent behaviors on the current operant of solving multiplication and division word problems. Two students were taught four precurrent behaviors (identification of label, operation, larger numbers, and smaller numbers) in a different order, in the context of a multiple baseline design. After meeting criterion on three of the four precurrent skills, the students demonstrated the current operant of correct problem solutions. These skills generalized to novel problems. Correct current operant responses (solutions that matched answers revealed by coloring over the space with a special marker) maintained the precurrent behaviors in the absence of any other programmed reinforcement.     

USE OF LATENCY TO PROBLEM BEHAVIOR TO EVALUATE DEMANDS FOR INCLUSION IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSES

Few direct‐assessment procedures are designed to identify potential negative reinforcers (e.g., including demands in the escape condition of functional analyses). Two participants were systematically exposed to a series of demands nominated by caregivers as potential negative reinforcers. Sessions ended following the first instance of problem behavior, and a hierarchy of demand aversiveness was created based on the latency to the first problem behavior. Subsequent functional analyses confirmed the predictive value of the hierarchy, with shorter latency demands consistently producing more differentiated functional analysis outcomes.     

A semantics-based approach to the "no negative evidence" problem

Previous studies have shown that children retreat from argument-structure overgeneralization errors (e.g., * Don't giggle me ) by inferring that frequently encountered verbs are unlikely to be grammatical in unattested constructions, and by making use of syntax-semantics correspondences (e.g., verbs denoting internally caused actions such as giggling cannot normally be used causatively). The present study tested a new account based on a unitary learning mechanism that combines both of these processes. Seventy-two participants (ages 5–6, 9–10, and adults) rated overgeneralization errors with higher (* The funny man's joke giggled Bart ) and lower (* The funny man giggled Bart ) degrees of direct external causation. The errors with more-direct causation were rated as less unacceptable than those with less-direct causation. This finding is consistent with the new account, under which children acquire—in an incremental and probabilistic fashion—the meaning of particular constructions (e.g., transitive causative = direct external causation) and particular verbs, rejecting generalizations where the incompatibility between the two is too great.