TEACHING COIN SUMMATION TO THE MENTALLY RETARDED1

A procedure to teach four mild and moderately retarded persons to sum the value of coin combinations was tested. Subjects were first taught to count a single target coin, and then to sum that coin in combination with coins previously trained. Five American coins and various combinations were trained. Modelling, modelling with subject participation, and independent counting by the subject constituted the training sequence. The subjects improved from a mean pretest score of 29% to 92% correct at posttest. A four-week followup score showed a mean of 79% correct. A multiple-baseline design suggested that improvement in coin-counting performance occurred only after the coin was trained. The results indicate that this procedure has potential for teaching the retarded to sum combinations of coins in 5 to 6 hr of instruction.     

The life tasks model: Enhancing psychological and spiritual growth in the aged

ABSTRACT

The life tasks model is an active, mutual, and potentially universal approach to the spiritual care of the aged. A life task is a responsibility, once undertaken, that lasts a lifetime. Three tasks are identified. Task 1 is the discovery of hidden learning. The process of discovery draws on implicit learning that comes into awareness. This leads to task 2, testing in which learning brought into awareness is tested by other life experiences. The final task is task 3, integration, in which a more aware and cohesive self is formed. Ideally, this leads to service or vocation. Progress on the life tasks is illustrated by responses in a qualitative study of older adults. Although this model can be applied to self-growth and ministry to all ages, it is well suited to the care of the aged.     

Task-defined associations are mode specific for selection of relevant dimension but mode independent for selection of location mapping

When compatible and incompatible mappings of a location-relevant task are mixed, or a location-relevant task is mixed with a task for which stimulus location is irrelevant, the benefit of the compatible mapping is eliminated for physical locations and enhanced for location words. Two experiments examined the influence of presenting the location information for the mixed conditions in different stimulus modes (physical location or word). Experiment 1 showed that the effects of mixing location-relevant and location-irrelevant tasks on the spatial compatibility and Simon effects are reduced when the location information is presented in different modes for the two tasks. Experiment 2 showed, in contrast, that the mode distinction had little influence on the effects of mixed compatible and incompatible mappings for location-relevant tasks: The compatibility effect was eliminated for physical locations and enhanced for words, as when there is no mode distinction. Thus, when location is relevant for one task and colour for the other, the task-defined associations of locations to responses are mode specific, but when location is relevant for both tasks, the associations are mode independent.     

Combining speed and accuracy to assess error-free cognitive processes

Both the speed and accuracy of responding are important measures of performance. A well-known interpretive difficulty is that participants may differ in their strategy, trading speed for accuracy, with no change in underlying competence. Another difficulty arises when participants respond slowly and inaccurately (rather than quickly but inaccurately), e.g., due to a lapse of attention. We introduce an approach that combines response time and accuracy information and addresses both situations. The modeling framework assumes two latent competing processes. The first, the error-free process, always produces correct responses. The second, the guessing process, results in all observed errors and some of the correct responses (but does so via non-specific processes, e.g., guessing in compliance with instructions to respond on each trial). Inferential summaries of the speed of the error-free process provide a principled assessment of cognitive performance reducing the influences of both fast and slow guesses. Likelihood analysis is discussed for the basic model and extensions. The approach is applied to a data set on response times in a working memory test. The authors wish to thank Roger Ratcliff, Christopher Chabris, and three anonymous referees for their helpful comments, and Aureliu Lavric for providing the data analyzed in this paper.     

Enactment enhances integration between verb and noun, but not relational processing, in episodic memory

Improved recall has consistently been demonstrated following motor activation at encoding (SPT), compared to traditional verbal learning (VT). Enhancements of item-specific processing and relational processing have been proposed as possible mechanisms to account for this SPT effect. There is ample evidence supporting the notion of enhanced item-specific processing, however it is still unclear whether enhancement of relational processing contributes to improved recall. In the present study, 2 experiments were designed to address this issue. In Experiment 1, memory under 2 encoding conditions (VT vs. SPT) and 3 recall conditions (free recall vs. category-cued recall vs. verb-cued recall) were studied in 3 large samples (N= 500-600). Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1, and controlled for the use of actual objects, short-term memory effects, and carryover effects, in Experiment 1. The results in both experiments showed an interaction between type of encoding and type of recall. Verb-cued recall was affected differently by SPT encoding, as compared to category-cued recall and free recall. The results indicate that enhanced integration between verb and noun is an effect of SPT encoding, whereas enhanced relational processing is not.     

A Comparison of Least-to-Most Prompts and Progressive Time Delay on the Disruptive Behavior of Students with Autism

We compared the effects of two instructional strategies on the frequency of errors and episodes of disruptive behavior of 4 students with autism. In Phase I, easy and difficult tasks were presented to determine whether the tasks were associated with differential rates of disruptive behavior. Phase II compared the effects of a least-to-most prompting procedure (LTM) to a progressive time delay procedure (PTD) on errors and disruptive behavior when difficult tasks were presented. Observers sequentially recorded instructor instructions, response prompts, prompts for appropriate sitting, and feedback statements; and student disruptive, correct, error, and no responses during 1:1 sessions. Results showed PTD produced fewer errors than LTM for all 4 students, and lower rates of disruptive behavior for 2 students. When PTD was implemented as the final phase with 2 of the students, rates of disruptive behavior associated with the task previously taught with LTM immediately decreased. Conditional probability statements indicated that disruptive behavior occurred infrequently with all 4 students when effective response prompts were used.     

Contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior: instructional control of human loss avoidance

Instructions can override the influence of programmed schedules of reinforcement. Although this finding has been interpreted as a limitation of reinforcement schedule control in humans, an alternative approach considers instructional control, itself, as a phenomenon determined by subjects' reinforcement histories. This approach was supported in a series of experiments that studied instructional and schedule control when instructions either did or did not accord with the schedule of reinforcement. Experiment I demonstrated that accurate instructions control discriminative performances on multiple avoidance schedules, and that such control persists in a novel discrimination. Experiments II and III showed that elimination of instruction-following occurs when inaccurate instructions cause subjects to contact a monetary loss contingency. Experiment IV demonstrated the reinforcing properties of accurate instructions. Skinner's view of rule-governed behavior is consistent with these findings, and can be extended to account for many aspects of instructional control of human operant behavior.     

A company-based lottery to reduce the personal driving of employees

A company-based lottery was used to reduce the number of nonessential miles employees drove their personal cars each day and thereby save gasoline. Employees were divided into an experimental and a contrast group. The experimental design involved two conditions: (a) a baseline in which no consequences were attached to driving behavior, and (b) a month-long lottery in which the experimentals were rewarded for decreasing their percentage of average miles driven per day relative to their initial baseline average. The experimentals received an ABA order of conditions while the contrast group remained in baseline. The lottery condition consisted of four weekly lotteries and one grand drawing held at the end of the month. During the lottery condition, the experimentals reduced their average daily mileage by 11.6% relative to their initial baseline (7.85 miles per employee per day) while the contrast employees increased their average mileage by 21.2%. Both groups exceeded their initial baseline averages in the return to baseline. The study was almost cost-effective because the experimentals' gas savings ($75) was within $4 of the cost of motivating them to reduce their mileage ($79).     

An elicitation method for multiple linear regression models

This paper describes a method of quantifying subjective opinion about a normal linear regression model. Opinion about the regression coefficients and experimental error is elicited and modeled by a multivariate probability distribution (a Bayesian conjugate prior distribution). The distribution model is richly parameterized and various assessment tasks are used to estimate its parameters. These tasks include the revision of opinion in the light of hypothetical data, the assessment of credible intervals, and a task commonly performed in cue-weighting experiments. A new assessment task is also introduced. In addition, implementation of the method in an interactive computer program is described and the method is illustrated with a practical example.