Free-time as a consequence for behavior in classroom settings: A critical review

Osborne (1969) presented adolescent hearing impaired students with five minutes of free- time contingent upon remaining seated for 15 minutes in the classroom. This procedure substantially reduced the frequency of out- of- seat behavior. Since the publication of this seminal work, 49 studies have used free- time as a consequence to change behavior. This review critically examines these 49 studies. The review shows that free-time has been used effectively with a variety of different behaviors and student populations, and with different methods of delivery. Based on a synthesis of information from the review, optimal methods for the use of free-time are suggested. Finally, it is concluded that additional research is needed, especially to answer the question of why free-time is effective.     

AN ANALYSIS OF ERROR-CORRECTION PROCEDURES DURING DISCRIMINATION TRAINING

Mechanisms involved in error-correction procedures during behavioral acquisition were examined. Seven developmentally delayed subjects participated in match-to-sample discrimination training, consisting of three conditions arranged in a multielement design. Correct responses in all conditions were followed by praise and either food or pennies. In the baseline condition (differential reinforcement), an error produced no consequences. In the practice condition, an error was followed by repetition of the trial until a correct response occurred. In the avoidance condition, an error was followed by additional trials consisting of irrelevant stimuli; this condition separated the effects of repeated exposure to the same task from those of negative reinforcement, both of which existed in the practice condition. All 7 subjects made noticeable progress in the baseline condition. However, 5 of the 7 performed better in one of the error-correction conditions: 2 performed better in the practice condition, and 3 performed better in the avoidance condition. These data indicate that error-correction procedures may serve multiple functions and suggest that the practice requirement in this study included both avoidance and stimulus control components. More generally, the data indicate that additional control procedures should be included in acquisition studies to identify the relevant behavioral mechanism(s).     

Police communication programmes aimed at burglary victims: A review of studies and an experimental evaluation

The effects and side-effects of a victim assistance project aimed at victims of burglary are experimentally evaluated. Key features of the programme included the provision of burglary prevention information by police officers during a personal interaction with the victim through a positive and limitative communication strategy. Results suggest that important programme goals (for example, stronger satisfaction with police performance, a more internal risk orientation concerning victimization, stronger preventive intentions) were met. One of the positive effects for which experimental support was found was an improvement in police-victim relations. As regards side-effects the programme led neither to response generalization, nor to increased fear of crime outside the home. However, the side-effects of increased fear in the home did occur in female victims and victims with an external risk-orientation. The implications for future victim assistance projects in this domain are finally discussed.     

Graded differential reinforcement: Response-dependent reinforcer amount

After key pecking had been autoshaped, six pigeons were exposed to a condition in which the duration of grain availability at the end of an 8-second trial depended on the number of responses emitted during the trial (0.25-second access to grain per response). This procedure, called correlated reinforcement, alternated across conditions with the automaintenance baseline in which the 8-second trial terminated with a constant 2.5-second access to grain. Two control procedures were run; in both, the reinforcer durations were yoked to those obtained in the last correlated session. In the yoked control no responses were required, but in the single-response yoked control at least one response was required to receive the yoked duration. The correlated condition maintained response rates above those produced by the two control conditions. These results may be accounted for by differential reinforcement.     

Sentence comprehension and production in children with cochlear implants: Errorless procedures and equivalence-based instruction

Research supports equivalence-based instruction (EBI) and matrix training for increased listening and speaking skills in children with cochlear implants (CI). We incorporated errorless procedures to optimize the EBI and evaluated the effects on the auditory comprehension and verbal responding at-sentences level in six CI children who were readers and showed inaccurate tacting. Subject-verb-object sentences were arranged in two matrices; diagonal combinations were trained and evaluated non-diagonal combinations. EBI included stimulus fading and exclusion to directly teach the dictated sentence-picture matching; written-sentences construction upon dictation also was taught. Probes assessed the derived stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response relations. All participants learned the auditory-visual discriminations and the exclusion resulted in fewer errors than on a stimulus fading procedure. Five participants formed equivalence classes and increased verbal responding to equivalent stimuli, especially pictures tacting. They also showed recombinative generalization for both matrices. Professionals can incorporate errorless procedures to EBI for improving sentence comprehension, tacting, and productivity in CI children.     

A vignette study of novices' interviewing skills of asylum seekers

The aim of the current research was to replicate Van Veldhuizen, Horselenberg, Landstrom, et al.’s (2017) vignette study among novice Estonian police cadets to map their interviewing skills. Sixty-one police cadets from the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences were asked to respond to one of four vignettes that contained fictitious asylum narratives. Two of the vignettes contained no evidence for the origin of the asylum seeker, and the other two contained no evidence for the claim of persecution. The cadets were asked to formulate five questions that would help them to assess the credibility of the applicant's claim. We coded the style, type, and content of the questions. Our analyses showed that, in line with best practice, the cadets mainly formulated open questions in an information-gathering style. A thematic analysis revealed that when a claim about origin was assessed, cadets typically formulated questions about life in the country of origin, identity documents, and the flight to Europe. When assessing a persecution claim, in contrast, they mostly formulated case-specific questions.     

Pareto simulated annealing—a metaheuristic technique for multiple-objective combinatorial optimization

This paper presents a multiple-objective metaheuristic procedure—Pareto simulated annealing. The goal of the procedure is to find in a relatively short time a good approximation of the set of efficient solutions of a multiple-objective combinatorial optimization problem. The procedure uses a sample, of so-called generating solutions. Each solution explores its neighbourhood in a way similar to that of classical simulated annealing. Weights of the objectives, used for their local aggregation, are tuned in each iteration in order to assure a tendency for approaching the efficient solutions set while maintaining a uniform distribution of the generating solutions over this set. A computational experiment shows that the method is a better tool for approximating the efficient set than some previous proposals. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

民警社交媒体自我呈现对工作满意度的影响—积极情绪的中介作用

为探讨民警在社交媒体中自我呈现策略与工作满意度的关系,以及积极情绪的中介作用,采用积极情感消极情感量表、工作满意度量表以及自我呈现问卷对242名民警进行问卷调查,结果表明：（1）民警在社交媒体中的积极自我呈现和真实自我呈现分别与积极情绪、工作满意度两两之间显著正相关,积极自我呈现与积极情绪、工作满意度的相关性更高;（2）民警在社交媒体中的积极自我呈现和真实自我呈现对工作满意度有正向预测作用,并通过积极情绪的中介作用对工作满意度产生影响。     

Personality and cognitive processes in life and death decision making: An exploration into the source of judgment errors by police special squads

This study sought to understand judgment errors by special police units such as those documented after the assault by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas. The study examined the relation between personality traits, the cognitive organization of safety and survival skills, and past deadly force encounters in 131 tactical and command officers of Violent Crimes and Fugitives Task Forces, and as they executed live high‐risk arrest warrants in an all‐inclusive decision‐making simulation environment. Logistic regressions showed that getting shot on the job was related to very low neuroticism and low sensation (experience) seeking among officers. Getting shot in a deadly force encounter during a simulated team entry was also related to low neuroticism and low experience seeking. Making safety and survival errors in a simulated entry was positively related to toughmindedness in Task Force tactical officers but negatively related to toughmindedness in Task Force leaders. Principle components factor analysis of 27 self‐reported safety and survival competencies showed that, generally, TF leaders reasoned with higher cognitive processes of analysis and deliberation while tactical personnel reasoned more in terms of reactive and procedural knowledge. Getting shot during a simulated dangerous encounter was more likely to occur when there was a mismatch between task demands and an officer's preference of one knowledge system over another. It was speculated that the poor judgment by command staff at Waco might have been related to their use of a procedural knowledge system when higher cognitive processes were needed. Greater experience with executing arrest warrants would have triggered the recognition of a serious anomaly, which would have primed the use of higher cognitive processes.     

公共政策制定程序对政策可接受性的影响

根据程序公正理论提出公共政策制定程序与公众对政策的可接受性的关系问题。研究一通过访谈不同领域的学者,初步揭示了公共政策及其制定程序存在的问题——对公共问题不敏感,解决问题的措施成效低。研究二用问卷调查公众对一个制定中的公共政策的态度,恰与政策制定者的愿望相反,公众并不认可政府解决问题的设想,也不认同政府举行的听证会的结果。研究三设计了一个非等组前后测准实验,在两个互联网站的电子公告板上比较根据不同的公共政策制定程序的政策的可接受性。结果证明,制定政策时了解公众态度可增强政策的针对性,提高解决问题措施的成效和可接受性