Changes in a multiple-response repertoire during response-contingent punishment and response restriction: Sequential relationships

A multiple-response baseline of four activities was established using gerbils as subjects. When one of the baseline responses was punished (Experiment 1) or restricted (Experiments 2 and 3), only the most probable of the alternative baseline responses increased. The response most likely to follow the punished or restricted responses during baseline sessions was also suppressed during subsequent punishment or response-restriction treatment.     

Issues in multivariate assessment of a large-scale behavioral program

Several social and research issues directly affected the development and implementation of multivariate assessment in a large community-based applied research program. Examples are drawn from experiences of the Preparation through Responsive Educational Programs Project for disruptive and skill deficient adolescents in suburban, rural, and urban junior high school settings, focusing on the assessment of academic and social skill development and long-term skill maintenance. The social context altered both project treatment and follow-up plans, requiring assessment of potentially unintended effects and decreasing consistency across sites. Future community acceptance of such programs may depend on the investigators' adaptation to diverse community pressures for program conduct and assessment and the measurement of phenomena that are not always directly observable.     

An experimental analysis of the effects of d-amphetamine and cocaine on the acquisition and performance of response chains in monkeys.

In one component of a multiple schedule of food presentation, monkeys acquired a different four-response chain each session by responding sequentially on three keys in the presence of four geometric forms (learning). In the other component, the four-response chain was the same each session (performance). Both d-amphetamine and cocaine, at the higher doses, disrupted the behavior in the learning component; the overall response rate decreased, the overall accuracy was impaired (i.e., percent errors increased), and there was less within-session error reduction. The performance component was generally less sensitive than the learning component to the disruptive effects of both drugs on rate and accuracy. After pre-feeding or during an extended session, the response rate decreased in both components, but accuracy was generally unaffected. When the four discriminative stimuli in both components were removed, the behavior was disrupted to a greater extent in the performance component. The disruptive effects of both drugs on behavior in the learning component were attenuated when the drugs were administered during the session after the response chain had been acquired. It was concluded that the greater sensitivity of the learning component to disruptive drug effects is related to the relatively weak stimulus control and/or the lower rate of reinforcement associated with that component.     

Reducing residential electrical energy use: payments, information, and feedback

Monetary payments, energy information, and daily feedback on consumption were employed to reduce electricity use in four units of a university student housing complex. A combined multiple-baseline and withdrawal design permitted both within- and between-unit comparisons. Payments produced immediate and substantial reductions in consumption in all units, even when the magnitude of the payments was reduced considerably. Feedback also produced reductions, but information about ways to conserve and about the cost of using various appliances did not. It was also found that, in general, payments combined with either information or feedback produced no greater effect than payments alone.     

Community applications of instructional technology: teaching writers of instructional packages

A community education program, to develop a variety of performance competencies in large numbers of neighborhood residents, requires a technology for preparing learning units administerable by community members themselves. The effects of a writing manual, designed to teach nonprofessionals to prepare such instructional packages, were analyzed in two experiments. Experiment I employed a multiple-baseline design across three university student trainees. The results showed that appropriate program writing increased by 75% after completion of the manual. The results of Experiment II, with two low-income neighborhood residents serving as trainees, showed that packages produced by trained writers resulted in a greater increase in skill activities than sets of training stimuli produced by untrained writers.     

Time-series analysis in operant research

A time-series method is presented, nontechnically, for analysis of data generated in individual-subject operant studies, and is recommended as a supplement to visual analysis of behavior change in reversal or multiple-baseline experiments. The method can be used to identify three kinds of statistically significant behavior change: (a) changes in score levels from one experimental phase to another, (b) reliable upward or downward trends in scores, and (c) changes in trends between phases. The detection of, and reliance on, serial dependency (autocorrelation among temporally adjacent scores) in individual-subject behavioral scores is emphasized. Examples of published data from the operant literature are used to illustrate the time-series method.     

SOCIAL-SKILLS TRAINING FOR UNASSERTIVE CHILDREN: A MULTIPLE-BASELINE ANALYSIS1

The effects of social-skills training consisting of instructions, feedback, behavior rehearsal, and modelling were examined in a multiple-baseline analysis in four unassertive children. The treatment was effective in that the behaviors selected for modification changed markedly. The effects of treatment generalized from trained to untrained items (interpersonal situations requiring assertive responding) and gains were maintained at the two- and four-week followup probe sessions. In addition, overall assertiveness in all subjects increased from baseline assessment to the conclusion of treatment and into followup.     

TEACHING COIN EQUIVALENCE TO THE MENTALLY RETARDED1

A program was designed to teach coin equivalence to mentally retarded adolescents. Coin equivalence was defined as choosing several different combinations of coins to equal specified target values. A pretest-posttest matched-groups design was employed with an experimental group receiving the monetary training, and a no-training control group. A multiple baseline across coin-counting responses was also incorporated in the experimental group. Training was divided into six stages, each teaching one specific method of combining coins to equal 10 target values from 5¢ through 50¢. A three-component response chain was used, requiring (a) naming, (b) selecting and counting, and (c) depositing target monetary values into a coin machine. Experimental subjects improved significantly in coin equivalence performance and maintained their skill on follow up tests; control subjects did not.     

TWO-TO-ONE versus ONE-TO-ONE STUDENT-TEACHER RATIOS IN THE OPERANT VERBAL TRAINING OF RETARDED CHILDREN1

The operant training of two retarded children simultaneously on a picture-naming task was investigated as an alternative to the more commonly reported one-to-one student-teacher ratio. In Experiment I, two conditions were compared in which the children received primary reinforcement on a fixed-ratio schedule for responding correctly on prompt and probe trials in a standardized picture-naming procedure. During the “Group Condition”, the experimenter alternated from one child to the other after each primary reinforcement, after each incorrect response, after each response omission, and after each 10-sec period in which a child did not “attend” (by making a trial-initiating response) when it was his or her turn to be worked with. During the “Individual Condition”, the experimenter worked with only one child, and presented trials whenever the child made attending responses. Experiment I demonstrated that the Group Condition was more efficient than the Individual Condition in terms of total correct responses and total pictures learned per unit of training time. Incidental learning was also found in that the children learned some of each others' pictures as well as their own, thus indicating a further advantage of the larger student-teacher ratio. In Experiment II, an attempt was made to equate the two conditions, except for the presence of two children in the Group Condition, by ignoring the child in the Individual Condition for brief periods equal to those that occurred in the Group Condition when the experimenter presented training trials to the other child. The results demonstrated that the greater efficiency of the Group Condition was not due to the manner in which training time was allocated to the two members of a group. It also replicated the finding that the children learned some of each others' words in the Group Condition.     

Positive contrast, negative induction, and inhibitory stimulus control in the rat

In Experiment I, 24 rats were trained on a multiple variable-interval variable-interval schedule with a doorlight and white noise serving as component cues. Two groups were then shifted to a multiple extinction variable-interval schedule, and a third group was maintained on the multiple variable-interval variable-interval schedule. The multiple extinction variable-interval condition produced positive contrast when either the light or noise signalled extinction, and both of these cues acquired inhibitory stimulus control as measured by a combined cue test. In Experiment II, the multiple variable-interval variable-interval condition was shifted to multiple extinction variable-interval for one group, to multiple variable-time variable-interval for a second group, and was unchanged for the third group. The two experimental conditions produced identical patterns of response-rate reduction in the altered component, but the multiple extinction variable-interval condition produced positive contrast, whereas the multiple variable-time variable-interval condition did not. Subsequent combined cue and resistance to reinforcement tests revealed that the cue signalling extinction acquired stronger inhibitory stimulus control than the cue signalling variable time.