A developmental study of choice reaction time: the effect of two forms of stimulus degradation on encoding.

To assess the effects of environmental enrichment, 156 normal, full-term institutionalized infants were randomly assigned to Group I (30 min per day of supplementary vestibular stimulation), Group II (30 min per day of supplementary vestibular-plus-verbal stimulation), or Group III (untreated controls). Stimulation began at about the age of 12 days and continued until the children were adopted, approximately 6 weeks later. Children were assessed at regular intervals on the Gesell Developmental Schedules, until the age of 27 months. Group comparisons revealed no significant treatment effects.     

Effects of warm and neutral models on the attention of observational learners

The study was conducted to examine observers' attention to adults following warm and neutral interactions with them. Forty-two preschool and 36 third grade girls interacted with a pair of female models in one of three treatment conditions in which models were, respectively, warm and neutral, neutral and neutral, or warm and warm. Subiects then witnessed the models play a picture-preference game and were asked to recall the models' responses. Analyses of the children's overt attention to the models' responses revealed a greater attention to a warm model when in the presence of both a warm and neutral model and less distraction by nonsocial stimuli when at least one warm model was present. A significant positive correlation was obtained between attention to and recall of the models' responses.     

Studies in observational paired-associate learning: Informational,social, and individual difference variables

Four experiments examined the relative importance of informational (proportion of correct responses and kinds of errors emitted by a model), social (model competency, sex of model, video vs. audio taped model), and individual difference (sex of subject, grade) variables in observational paired-associate learning. In Experiments I–III, vicarious subjects received cycles of study-model-test trials, while direct subjects were given the same sequences with intervening test or stimulus familiarization trials. In Experiment IV, vicarious subjects received cycles of study-test-model-test trials, while direct subjects received the cycles with a test trial replacing the model trial. No confirmation was provided on test and model trials. Whereas the effects attributable to social and individual difference variables were generally negligible, mere accuracy of the model's responses repeatedly covaried with performance on the last test trial of each cycle. Conditional analyses established that (1) vicarious facilitation is comparable across cycles and localized in items responded to incorrectly on immediately preceding test trials, and (2) observers learn fewer incorrect than correct model responses. Vicarious groups performed at reliably higher levels than direct subjects on model correct but not incorrect items. The results strongly suggest a close correspondence between direct and vicarious verbal learning principles and mechanisms.     

Cue selection in verbal discrimination learning of retarded subjects.

A series of experiments was conducted to examine cue function in trigram verbal discrimination learning by retarded subjects. The issue was to determine the factors that control attention in this type of learning situation. The two variables of chief interest were trigram meaningfulness and reinforcement history. The major general conclusion was that retarded subjects employ complex cue selection strategies in solving a verbal discrimination involving compound verbal stimuli. Major findings were as follows: (a) Retarded subjects exhibit a response bias in favor of words over nonsense trigrams; (b) relatively little active cue selection based on meaningfulness was observed; (c) a compound stimulus discrimination was more difficult to learn than a discrimination involving single verbal stimuli; (d) compound and single stimuli may be processed differently in original discrimination learning; (e) cue position probably controls attention in compound discrimination learning; and (f) a frequency theory of verbal discrimination learning is supported by these data.     

Nest material and food as reinforcers for fixed-ratio responding in mice

Three experiments investigated the importance of operant-reinforcer distance as a factor affecting continuous reinforcement (CRF) and fixed-ratio (FR) performance in mice, with nest material and food as reinforcers. In Experiment 1, nest material (paper strips) was presented on a series of FR schedules of increasing size, with the operandum located as close as possible to the reinforcer dispenser. Subjects compensated for increases in FR size by proportionately increasing their response output, but ratio strain occurred at low FR values. In Experiment 2, response rate was found to be inversely related to operant-reinforcer distance on a CRF schedule with nest material as reinforcer. In Experiment 3, food was presented on a series of FR schedules at two levels of deprivation, and with three operant-reinforcer distances. Operant-reinforcer distance was found to affect CRF response rate, degree of compensation for increases in FR size, and occurrence of ratio strain, but only when deprivation level was low. The results support the view that nest material and food share fundamentally similar reinforcing properties, but that nest material is a weaker reinforcer under normal test conditions.     

Transfer of a response controlling stimulus duration across discrimination problems

In the acquisition phase, pigeons learned to peck at a changeover key to shorten the duration of S? but not of S+ presented on the food key in a discrimination problem. In the transfer phase, the significance of S+ and S? was changed through extinction of both, equal reinforcement, or discrimination reversal, while the changeover key was not available. Transfer tests then showed appropriate modification of the changeover response. Similar transfer was demonstrated across orthogonal stimulus dimensions. Further analytic studies showed that this transfer of the changeover response did not depend upon mediation due to differential response rates to the food key. This research strategy enriches the study of the “second learning process” by providing an indicator of stimulus control in all phases of the procedure. Direct transfer between different problems also indicates that discriminative stimuli, although physically dissimilar, have the same “psychological value” for the subject.     

Immediate and delayed punishment of human behavior by loss of reinforcement

Young adult humans pressed a key to obtain money. When responding was punished by presentation of a stimulus signifying that money was lost, response frequencies decreased and response latencies increased. Since these changes did not increase relative earnings, the aversive properties of loss of reinforcement were manifested independently or reinforcement gain. When loss punishment was delayed for either 10, 20, or 40 sec the extent of suppression was found to vary inversely with the response-punishment interval. Subsequent manipulations indicated that the effectiveness of delayed punishment was increased when the response also produced immediate conditioned punishment, i.e., a stimulus paired with the delayed loss stimulus. Instructions about the response-punishment contingency had similar effects. The findings were consistent with animal studies of delayed shock punishment, insofar as a similar delay-of-punishment gradient was observed, and with studies of delayed positive reinforcement, insofar as mediation through conditioned punishment (or instructions) increased the effectiveness of delayed punishment.     

Immediate and delayed reinforcers for flavor preferences in rats

When rats received, on alternate days, one flavored saccharin solution for 5 min and a differently-flavored saccharin solution for 60 min, they showed no consistent preference between the flavors. On the other hand, when they received one flavor in a concentrated saccharin solution and a different flavor in a dilute one, they preferred the first flavor in tests with saccharin concentration held constant; also, rats learned to prefer a flavor immediately followed by a concentrated saccharin solution to one followed by nothing. They showed no consistent preference, however, between a flavor followed 30 min later by a concentrated saccharin solution and one followed by nothing; but they learned to prefer a flavor followed 30 min later by a dextrose solution to one followed by nothing. In other words, consummatory responding did not reinforce flavor preference, sweet taste did so with immediate but not delayed reinforcement, and nutrition did so even with delayed reinforcement.     

Hypothesis analysis of sameness-difference learning-set by capuchin monkeys

Sameness-difference discriminations were presented to capuchin monkeys and hypothesis analysis was applied to the data. Learners and nonlearners evidenced differences in overall performance and in relative strengths of hypotheses. Learners initially displayed markedly more random than position responding whereas nonlearners evidenced more position than random responding and remained particularly prone to position habits. Stimulus preference and aversion, suppressed by learners by the end of training, reemerged at the onset of two-object discriminations containing previously preferred and aversive stimuli. Hypothesis analysis indicated that when preferred stimuli were positive the correct hypothesis was more evidenced, and stimulus preference or aversion as well as random hypotheses were less evidenced, than when aversive stimuli were positive.     

Asymptotic reinforced responding as a function of the operant level of the instrumental response

The relationship between operant level (base rate) and asymptotic reinforced instrumental responding was investigated in several contingencies in which licking was contingent upon running, under different FR schedules. For Group I the relationship was examined by selecting rats who naturally differed in their running base rates and for which the licking base rates were equivalent. For Group II the relationship was examined by selecting rats with equivalent running and licking base rates, but whose running rates were eventually made to differ by manipulating wheel-torque requirements. Asymptotic reinforced instrumental responding was found to be linearly related to pre-contingent running base rates, for all FR schedules, and independent of the procedures used to obtain differing running base rates. The results support Premack's contention that asymptotic reinforced instrumental responding is a joint function of the reinforcing response and the operant level of the instrumental response.