Transportability of equivalence-based programmed instruction: efficacy and efficiency in a college classroom

College students in a psychology research-methods course learned concepts related to inferential statistics and hypothesis decision making. One group received equivalence-based instruction on conditional discriminations that were expected to promote the emergence of many untaught, academically useful abilities (i.e., stimulus equivalence group). A negative control group received no instruction, and a positive (complete instruction) control group received instruction on all possible relations (those taught to, and emerging untaught in, the stimulus equivalence group). On posttests, the stimulus equivalence group performed as well as the positive control group (and both outperformed the negative control group), but those in the equivalence-based instruction condition achieved this outcome with significantly less training, thereby demonstrating the efficiency of equivalence-based instruction. Social validity measures indicated that participants found the instruction to be beneficial and as enjoyable as traditional teaching methods.     

重复刺激的末位优势效应

探讨在RSVP任务中重复刺激的呈现位置和报告方式对重复知盲效应的影响, 检验该研究提出的注意资源最优化假设和末位优势效应。实验1操作了刺激性质和重复刺激位置, 得出了刺激性质和重复刺激位置的交互效应; 实验2操作了刺激性质和情景信息, 结果是交互效应不显著; 实验3操作了刺激性质和报告方式, 出现了刺激性质和报告方式的交互效应。该结果表明: (1)由于注意资源分配的优化, 重复刺激有末位优势效应。(2)重复知盲的产生不是发生在知觉阶段, 而是发生在报告阶段。(3)注意资源分配最优化理论比建构/归因理论能更合理地解释重复知盲的发生。     

汉字识别侧抑制效应的实验研究

以汉字作为实验材料,采用侧抑制任务范式,考察了不同性质冲突任务下的汉字识别情况.结果发现:反应冲突条件下的反应时显著长于无冲突条件,侧抑制效应非常明显;刺激冲突任务中,只有字音干扰条件表现出了侧抑制效应,字形和字义干扰条件下的反应时与无冲突条件均无显著差异.实验结果说明,侧抑制效应可能受认知加工阶段的影响;汉字字音与形、义特征的加工过程可能并不相同,语音的激活可能要早于语义和字形的激活.     

Evaluation of an efficient method for training staff to implement stimulus preference assessments

We used a brief training procedure that incorporated feedback and role-play practice to train staff members to conduct stimulus preference assessments, and we used group-comparison methods to evaluate the effects of training. Staff members were trained to implement the multiple-stimulus-without-replacement assessment in a single session and the paired-stimulus method in another single session. In all 16 cases (2 assessments for 8 trainees), correct responding increased to over 80% accuracy; in 14 of those 16 cases, it increased to over 90% accuracy. Thus, training produced mastery-level performance in a single training session in almost all cases.     

Developing stimulus control of young children's requests to teachers: classwide applications of multiple schedules

Children may recruit their teachers' attention at undesirably high rates or at inconvenient times. Tiger and Hanley (2004) described a multiple-schedule procedure to reduce ill-timed requests, which involved providing children with two distinct continuous signals that were correlated with periods in which teacher attention was either available or unavailable. The current study extended the application of multiple schedules by evaluating the effectiveness of the procedure when implemented by private-school teachers in 3 elementary classrooms. Following the introduction of the multiple schedules, student approaches toward their teacher were maintained during desirable periods but were minimized during undesirable periods.     

Empirical validation of a procedure to correct position and stimulus biases in matching-to-sample

The development of position and stimulus biases often occurs during initial training on matching-to-sample tasks. Furthermore, without intervention, these biases can be maintained via intermittent reinforcement provided by matching-to-sample contingencies. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a correction procedure designed to eliminate both position and stimulus biases. Following key-peck training, a group of 6 pigeons had extended exposure to matching-to-sample contingencies without a correction procedure, a group of 4 pigeons was briefly exposed to a simultaneous matching-to-sample procedure to assess biases prior to exposure to the correction procedure, and a group of 5 pigeons was exposed directly to the correction procedure. The correction procedure arranged that every time an incorrect match was made, the trial configuration was repeated on the subsequent trial until a correct match was made. Extended exposure to matching-to-sample contingencies without a correction procedure was associated with reduced biases eventually for most subjects, but rapid development of near-perfect accuracy and bias-free performance was observed upon the implementation of the correction procedure regardless of the type of bias. Bias-free performance was maintained following subsequent exposure to a zero-delay MTS procedure.     

多感觉整合测量范式中存在的影响因素探讨

已有的多感觉整合研究范式多采用不同单通道刺激和双通道刺激随机呈现的方式进行测量。在这种范式中混有通道转换效应, 该效应可能导致多感觉整合的测量结果不准确。因此, 分析清楚实验范式中通道转换效应的影响因素, 并以此为依据设计合理的整合测量范式, 是进行多感觉整合研究的一个必要前提。本文首先通过实验一验证了在经典的整合测量范式中通道转换效应的影响方式; 进而, 在实验二中通过控制前后刺激的信号强度的一致性, 分析了通道转换效应的特点。综合分析显示, 通道转换效应是由前一刺激差异所造成的对当前刺激通道加工的注意资源分配和警觉水平的变化所导致。该结果表明, 在多感觉行为测量中, 需先根据前一刺激通道分类后再进行分析。     

Modality,Quantification, and Many Vlach-Operators

Consider two standard quantified modal languages \(\textbf{\textsf{A}}\) and \(\textbf{\textsf{P}}\) whose vocabularies comprise the identity predicate and the existence predicate, each endowed with a standard S5 Kripke semantics where the models have a distinguished actual world, which differ only in that the quantifiers of \(\textbf{\textsf{A}}\) are actualist while those of \(\textbf{\textsf{P}}\) are possibilist. Is it possible to enrich these languages in the same manner, in a non-trivial way, so that the two resulting languages are equally expressive—i.e., so that for each sentence of one language there is a sentence of the other language such that given any model, the former sentence is true at the actual world of the model iff the latter is? Forbes (1989) shows that this can be done by adding to both languages a pair of sentential operators called Vlach-operators, and imposing a syntactic restriction on their occurrences in formulas. As Forbes himself recognizes, this restriction is somewhat artificial. The first result I establish in this paper is that one gets sameness of expressivity by introducing infinitely many distinct pairs of indexed Vlach-operators. I then study the effect of adding to our enriched modal languages a rigid actuality operator. Finally, I discuss another means of enriching both languages which makes them expressively equivalent, one that exploits devices introduced in Peacocke (1978). Forbes himself mentions that option but does not prove that the resulting languages are equally expressive. I do, and I also compare the Peacockian and the Vlachian methods. In due course, I introduce an alternative notion of expressivity and I compare the Peacockian and the Vlachian languages in terms of that other notion.