A comparison of performance feedback procedures on teachers' treatment implementation integrity and students' inappropriate behavior in special education classrooms

This study examined the extent to which treatment integrity of 4 special education teachers was affected by goal setting, performance feedback regarding student or teacher performance, and a meeting cancellation contingency. Teachers were trained to implement function-based treatment packages to address student problem behavior. In one condition, teachers set a goal for student behavior and received daily written feedback about student performance. In a second condition, teachers received daily written feedback about student performance as well as their own accuracy in implementing the intervention and would be able to avoid meeting with a consultant to practice missed steps by implementing the intervention with 100% integrity. This latter package increased treatment integrity the most above baseline levels. Higher levels of treatment integrity were significantly correlated with lower levels of student problem behavior for 3 of the 4 teacher-student dyads. Three of the 4 teachers also rated both feedback procedures as highly acceptable. Implications for increasing and maintaining treatment integrity by teachers via a consultation model are discussed.     

情境特异比例一致变化对冲突效应的影响

采用Hedge和Marsh任务与比例一致性操纵相结合,分别以刺激的空间位置和形状作为比例一致操纵的情境线索,考察刺激-反应联结学习与注意调节在比例一致效应中的作用。结果发现,在情境比例一致操纵下,冲突效应的效应量受到比例一致操纵的影响产生反转。表明刺激-反应联结学习在情境特异比例一致效应中起到主要作用。     

Comparisons of standardized and interview-informed synthesized reinforcement contingencies relative to functional analysis

We compared the functions of problem behavior identified by (a) a functional analysis (FA), (b) an interview-informed synthesized contingency analysis (IISCA) that was informed by the results of an open-ended interview and a structured observation, and (c) a standardized-synthesized contingency analysis (SSCA) in which we synthesized three common functions of problem behavior across 12 individuals in a controlled consecutive case series. We then compared outcomes across assessments. The FA was sufficient in identifying the variables maintaining problem behavior for 11 of the 12 participants, replicating the findings of Fisher, Greer, Romani, Zangrillo, and Owen (2016). Error type (i.e., false positives, false negatives) and error prevalence were similar across functions identified by the IISCA and the SSCA, calling into question the utility of the open-ended interview and the structured observation that informed the IISCA.     

The Significance of Contingency and Detours in Hans Blumenberg’s Philosophical Anthropology

Although time was a predominate theme in Continental philosophy for the first half of the twentieth century, philosophical attention has increasingly shifted to space. This paper contributes to the phenomenology of space through Hans Blumenberg’s philosophical anthropology. Blumenberg elucidates the significance of phenomenological distance for the contingent existence of humans. Spanning from the experience of early human ancestors to history and epistemology, Blumenberg’s work reveals how contingency pervades human existence. Blumenberg understands names, myths, rhetoric, and metaphors as cultural techniques that function as means of self-preservation by distancing an overwhelming and disorienting reality and managing the felt contingency of human existence. Developing upon Blumenberg’s insights into human contingency and distance, the paper argues that detours offer a way to address the contemporary, existential issues posed by the increasing rate of technological change and environmental problems.     

FURTHER EVALUATION OF ANTECEDENT SOCIAL EVENTS DURING FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS

The value of a reinforcer may change based on antecedent events, specifically the behavior of others (Bruzek & Thompson, 2007). In the current study, we examined the effects of manipulating the behavior of the therapist on problem behavior while all dimensions of reinforcement were held constant. Both participants' levels of problem behaviors increased as a function of the altered behavior of the therapist without direct manipulation of states of satiation or deprivation.     

Mangabeys (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Cercocebus torquatus lunulatus</Emphasis>) solve the reverse contingency task without a modified procedure

Problem solving often relies on generating new responses while inhibiting others, particularly prepotent ones. A paradigm to study inhibitory abilities is the reverse contingency task (Boysen and Berntson in J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 21:82–86, 1995), in which two different quantities of food are offered to an individual who receives the array he did not choose. Therefore, mastery of the task demands selecting the smaller quantity to obtain the larger one. Several non-human primates have been tested in the reverse contingency task. To date, only great apes and rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) have succeeded in the original task, with no need of procedural modifications as the large-or-none contingency, correction trials or symbolic stimuli substituting for actual food quantities. Here, four mangabeys were presented with two stimulus arrays of one and four raisins in the context of the reverse contingency task. Three of them learned to perform the task well above chance without a modified procedure. They also reached above-chance performance when presented with two stimulus arrays of zero and four raisins, despite the initial difficulty of choosing a null quantity. After a period of 7–10 months, in which the animals were not tested on any task, all three subjects continued to perform well, even when presented with novel quantity pairs.     

Ignorance reflects preference: the influence of selective ignoring on evaluative conditioning

In the current experiment, we investigated the mechanism underlying the modulation of evaluative conditioning (EC) due to selective attention. Conditioned stimulus–unconditioned stimulus (CS–US) pairs were presented in a just recently introduced adapted Flanker paradigm [Blask, K., Walther, E., & Frings, C. (2016). When congruence breeds preference: The influence of selective attention processes on evaluative conditioning. Cognition and Emotion. doi:10.1080/02699931.2016.1197100] with CSs as targets and USs as task-irrelevant distracters. In order to disentangle stimulus congruency and response compatibility and in order to observe a possible impact of response compatibility, EC in an incongruent/incompatible condition was compared to EC in an incongruent/neutral condition. Results show that EC and contingency memorywere significantly reduced in the incongruent/incompatible condition relative to the incongruent/neutral condition. These findings support the notion that the modulation of EC due to selective attention can be based on the selective ignoring of the US at the level of response compatibility.     

An evaluation of the single‐session interview‐informed synthesized contingency analysis

Functional analysis can often be a lengthy process requiring time and resources not readily available to practitioners working with children who exhibit severe problem behavior. The interview‐informed synthesized contingency analysis (IISCA) was recently developed as an alternative functional analysis format that improved analytic efficiency by requiring only 25 min to conduct. Furthermore, a within‐session analysis of the first test session of the entire IISCA could reduce the process to as little as a single 5‐min session. We extended this previous research by conducting what was termed the single‐session IISCA with three boys who exhibited severe problem behavior. A function‐based treatment package, including reinforcement thinning, informed by the results of the single‐session IISCA nearly eliminated problem behavior for all three participants. We suggest that the single‐session IISCA could be a viable alternative to other functional analysis formats when time is limited.     

Temporal Creation and Cosmological Arguments in Early-Modern Calvinism

This study examines the varieties of cosmological arguments deployed in the natural theologies of early-modern Calvinism. Some of the first Reformed forays into theistic proofs make use of Thomist arguments which allow for the logical possibility of creation from eternity. In the seventeenth century, many Reformed theologians prefer to use arguments against the possibility of an eternal world – arguments which had been defended by medieval theologians such as Bonaventure. But these arguments in turn faced criticism in the seventeenth century, and many of the Reformed supplemented them or replaced them with others. The argument from the mutability of the world to its temporal beginning became increasingly popular among Reformed thinkers. Historical arguments from the recent rise of arts and sciences or biological species supplemented the philosophical arguments for the world's beginning. Their theological commitment to the impossibility of eternal creation may explain why the Reformed did not typically use the Clarke and Leibniz argument from contingency.     

自尊研究的现状与问题

自尊概念从诞生以来一直受到不同领域研究者的广泛关注。但在诸多研究和理论的推进之下, 对于其概念内涵与外延的界定并没有达成统一, 与相关概念之间也存在一定程度的混淆与误用。研究以历史为线索, 对自尊概念发展进程中最具影响力的几种观点进行了总结与评述, 并对相关概念进行了比较与辨析。在此基础上, 研究还对现阶段自尊研究的热点话题--真实自尊的概念进行了梳理, 明确了其与虚假自尊或过分追求的自尊之间的本质差异, 即自尊的权变性与条件性, 以期为后续实证研究的展开提供依据。