Effects of professional group membership,intervention type,and diagnostic label on treatment acceptability

Differences in ratings of treatment acceptability among groups of individuals who are often involved in the recommendation, selection, implementation, and evaluation of behavioral interventions in educational settings were examined. Teachers, school psychologists, and school social workers were presented with a vignette of a 3rd grade student exhibiting a pattern of disruptive problem behavior. The vignette was held constant but diagnostic labels (LD, BD, ADD) and interventions (verbal praise and token economy program versus time out from reinforcement program and verbal praise) for the child in the vignette were varied. After examining the vignette, participants rated the acceptability of the interventions. There was a significant interaction for professional group membership by intervention type on ratings of treatment acceptability. No significant effects of diagnostic label occurred. Implications of the present study and future research directions are discussed. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Correlates of ability patterns in children and adults: Implications for teaching

Several researches are presented as evidence that children with a high verbal -low spatial ability profile fend to respond in the “usual” way to social reinforcement or praise, whereas children with a high spatial - low verbal profile do not find such praise reinforcing. Several implications for teaching such HiS-LoS and HiV-LoS children are seen in these studies and considered in detail. Specifically the following implications are discussed: (a) the need for better identification of children with HiV-LoS and HiS-LoV profiles, (b) what kinds of reinforcers to use with these children in the classroom, (c) group vs. individual instruction, (d) the need to socialize the HiS-LoV child, and (e) the need for care in academic assessment.     

Rats show no preference between free and earned water in an advance-response procedure

Although an arbitrarily specified instrumental response may persist when free reinforcers are concurrently available, the interpretation that earned reinforcers are preferred is tenuous. The present advance-response procedure used both time allocation and advance response rates as indices of preference between free and earned water in rats. When multiple schedule components were two response-dependent schedules with different overall reinforcement rates, higher rates of reinforcement were preferred. However, when the multiple schedule consisted of response-dependent and response-independent components equated for overall rates of reinforcement, no consistent preference for free or earned reinforcers was evident. That a preference for free reinforcers was not obtained is difficult to reconcile with concepts of least effort.     

Decreasing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms utilizing an automated classroom reinforcement device

Psychologists and physicians are frequently approached by parents and, indirectly, by classroom teachers to diagnose and treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Requests are also frequently made for psychostimulant medication to control ADHD behavioral symptoms. One reason for such requests is that alternative classroom approaches to treating ADHD have focused on positive reinforcement, response cost, and token reinforcement programs, all of which can require extensive teacher involvement. One of the major problems with such behavioral approaches is the fact that teachers have limited time to reinforce positive, attentive behaviors, and/or alternative behaviors to ADHD symptoms. This study examined the efficacy of an automated reinforcement device, the Attention Training System (ATS), in decreasing off-task behavior in an 11-year-old, fifth-grade student who had been diagnosed as being affected with ADHD and had been placed in Special Education Resource Room programming. The Attention Training System provides automated token reinforcement in the form of points on a fixed interval schedule when the youngster is on-task. When distractible, impulsive, or hyperactive behavior occurs, the Attention Training device can be activated by a teacher to provide a response-cost consequence of loss of points. The device in this study was coupled with a token reinforcement program whereby points could be exchanged for selected reinforcers at the end of each day. Results indicated that the ATS plus token reinforcement was successful in reducing off-task behavior across classes of three subject areas: Science, Reading, and Social Studies. Results have implications for psychologists and physicians in their attempts to assist families and schools in their management of youngsters with ADHD.     

Instrumental responding by rats on free-operant schedules with components that schedule response-dependent reinforcer omission: Implications for optimization theories

In two experiments, we assessed whether rats optimize the number of reinforcers per response. In Experiment 1, one group of rats was trained to leverpress for food reinforcement on a simple variable-interval (VI) 60-sec schedule. For another group, a negative fixed-ratio component was imposed on the VI schedule to produce a conjoint contingency in which reinforcement became available on the VI schedule but was omitted when the ratio criterion was satisfied. In Experiment 2, one group of rats responded on a VI schedule and also received response-independent food. For another group, responding above a certain rate canceled the response-independent food. Despite the negative contingency experienced by the groups in Experiments 1 and 2, responding was maintained at a level at which the number of obtained reinforcers was reduced substantially below the maximum number possible. In addition, in both experiments, the groups that experienced the negative contingency responded at a lower rate than did a yoked control group that experienced the same frequency of reinforcement but lacked the negative component. These results demonstrate that although rats do not optimize their behavior with respect to reinforcement, they are nevertheless sensitive to some aspect of the instrumental contingency in operation.     

Impact of Verbal Praise on College Students' Time Spent on Homework

Abstract

Verbal praise, a type of external reward addressed in many theories of motivation, has often been recognized as an important mediator in the development of students' motivation in the classroom. However, the lack of consistently replicated findings regarding students' reactions to verbal praise, combined with the paucity of research on post-secondary students, prompted the current investigation. Using an experimental design, the author found that college students exposed to well-administered verbal praise by a professor spent significantly more time doing homework than did students who received no verbal praise. Characteristics of effective verbal praise that contributed to the results, the potential usefulness of verbal praise as an enhancer of student motivation, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Response-cost punishment with pigeons: Further evidence of response suppression via token loss

Four pigeons responded on a two-component multiple token-reinforcement schedule, in which tokens were produced according to a random-interval 30-sec schedule and exchanged according to a variable-ratio 4 schedule in both components. To assess the effects of contingent token loss, tokens were removed after every second response (i.e., fixed-ratio 2 loss) in one of the components. Response rates were selectively lower in the loss components relative to baseline (no-loss) conditions, as well as to the within-condition no-loss components. Response rates were decreased to a greater degree in the presence of tokens than in their absence. To control for the effects of changes in the density of token and food reinforcement, two parts consisted of additional conditions where food density and token loss were yoked to those in a previous loss condition. In the yoked-food condition, tokens were produced as usual in both components, but the overall density of food reinforcement in one of the components was yoked to that obtained during a previous token-loss condition. In the yoked token-loss condition, tokens were removed during one component of the multiple schedule at a rate that approximately matched the obtained rate of loss from a previous token-loss condition. Response rates in these yoked components were less affected than those in comparable loss components, despite similar densities of token, exchange, and food reinforcement. On the whole, the results support the conclusion that contingent token loss serves as an effective punisher with pigeons.     

Excitatory and inhibitory effects of free reinforcers

Rats’ responding was maintained on a random-interval 1-min food schedule. In addition, non-contingent pellets were delivered, independently of the animals’ behavior, at either fixed intervals (Experiment 1) or at random intervals (Experiment 2). As the rate of delivery of the periodic and aperiodic free reinforcers increased, the rate of responding decreased. But these free reinforcers, in addition to having this inhibitory effect, had also a local excitatory effect upon responding: lever-pressing increased to a level above its mean rate following the delivery of a free food pellet. The time course of this behavioral aftereffect of free reinforcers, for both fixed and random intervals, was dependent upon the proportion of the interval between successive free food deliveries. The relation of these results to those obtained with response-contingent reinforcement, free punishment, and in schedule-induced phenomena is discussed.     

The effect of rate of reinforcement and time in session on preference for variability

Pigeons pecked keys on concurrent-chains schedules that provided a variable interval 30-sec schedule in the initial link. One terminal link provided reinforcers in a fixed manner; the other provided reinforcers in a variable manner with the same arithmetic mean as the fixed alternative. In Experiment 1, the terminal links provided fixed and variable interval schedules. In Experiment 2, the terminal links provided reinforcers after a fixed or a variable delay following the response that produced them. In Experiment 3, the terminal links provided reinforcers that were fixed or variable in size. Rate of reinforcement was varied by changing the scheduled interreinforcer interval in the terminal link from 5 to 225 sec. The subjects usually preferred the variable option in Experiments 1 and 2 but differed in preference in Experiment 3. The preference for variability was usually stronger for lower (longer terminal links) than for higher (shorter terminal links) rates of reinforcement. Preference did not change systematically with time in the session. Some aspects of these results are inconsistent with explanations for the preference for variability in terms of scaling factors, scalar expectancy theory, risk-sensitive models of optimal foraging theory, and habituation to the reinforcer. Initial-link response rates also changed within sessions when the schedules provided high, but not low, rates of reinforcement. Within-session changes in responding were similar for the two initial links. These similarities imply that habituation to the reinforcer is represented differently in theories of choice than are other variables related to reinforcement.     

Impact of intervening learning on resurgence in humans with Autism Spectrum Disorders

In the present study, we investigated the degree to which responding would resurge in children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) following an intervening training period comprising different schedules of reinforcement. Twenty-four children of the ages 7–15, with a diagnosis of an ASD, were taught a play a sequence on a variable ratio- (VR) 3 schedule of reinforcement, during a 30-min session. The play sequence was then extinguished before the participants were taught a second play sequence, using a VR-4 schedule for 30 min, a VR-4 schedule for 60 min, or a VR-2 schedule for 30 min. A 5-min extinction session was then conducted to determine the impact that the intervening schedules had on the resurgence of the original behavior. The original sequence resurged to a greater extent for Group VR-4 30 min than it did for the other two groups. The results provide evidence that the length of time between initial training and testing is not a prime determinant of the level of resurgence, but that the amount of conditioning may play a stronger role: The greater the number of reinforcers received, the smaller the resurgence effect.     

Blocking despite changes in reinforcer identity

Rats were trained on a discriminated operant barpressing task according to a standard blocking design. In some conditions, the reinforcer was changed between the pretraining and compound conditioning phases; for other conditions, the reinforcer remained the same across phases. In three separate experiments using both between- and within-subject designs, strong blocking effects occurred regardless of the change in the reinforcer. In a fourth experiment, a multiple schedule of reinforcement was used in which response-independent reinforcers were superimposed on the schedule of response-contingent reinforcers. The degree of response suppression caused by the free reinforcer was greater when the free reinforcers were the same as the response-contingent reinforcers than when they were different. The role played by the reinforcer identity in contingency experiments thus appears to be different from the role it plays in blocking experiments.     

A Psychometric Evaluation of Experienced Teachers

Abstract

This study investigated the effectiveness of praise and knowledge of results in increasing the performance of lower- and middle-class fifth-grade pupils on a numeral cancellation test. The effectiveness of the reinforcers was based upon the mean gain (loss) scores of Tests 9 and 10 over Test 1. Middle-class boys made significantly larger gains under the knowledge-of-results condition than under the praise condition. Under the knowledge-of-results condition, lower-class boys made significantly larger gains than lower-class girls. Other differences were insignificant.     

Influence of schizotypy on responding and contingency awareness on free-operant schedules of reinforcement

Schedules of reinforcement typically produce reliable patterns of behaviour, and one factor that can cause deviations from these normally reliable patterns is schizotypy. Low scorers on the unusual experiences subscale of the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences performed as expected on a yoked random-ratio (RR), random-interval (RI) schedule of reinforcement, with significantly higher rates of responding on the RR schedule than in the RI schedule. However, high scorers in UE showed no such differences between response rates between the RR and RI schedules. In addition, contingency awareness scores were high, and did not differ in low UE scorers for both types of schedule, whilst awareness scores differed significantly between the schedules in high UE scorers, with more awareness of the RR schedule than the RI one. These results suggest that, as well as being unable to differentiate between the RR and RI schedules in terms of response rates, high UE scorers are also unable to verbally describe the RI schedule parameters.     

A systems intervention procedure for the management of aggressive behaviour

A significant reduction (p < .05) in the frequency of aggressive behaviour below baseline was found with eight institutionalized mentally retarded adult males using a systems intervention procedure. Self‐charting, a token system, differential reinforcement of other behaviour, verbal and physical prompts, restraint, time out from reinforcement, seclusion, and teaching alternatives were systematically applied with staff response options being contingent on the degree of control exhibited by the subject. Although it was concluded that this is an effective treatment model, further research was suggested.     

Prediction of concurrent keypeck treadle-press responding from simple schedule performance

Four pigeons pecked keys and pressed treadles for food reinforcers delivered by several variable-interval schedules of reinforcement. Then the subjects responded on several concurrent schedules. Keypecking produced reinforcers in one component, and treadle-pressing produced reinforcers in the other. The changeover delay, which prevented reinforcement after all switches from one response to the other, was 0, 5, or 20 sec long. An equation proposed by Kerrnstein (1970) described the rates of treadle-pressing and keypecking emitted during the variable-interval schedules. The k parameter of this equation was larger for keypecking than for treadle-pressing. The R₀ parameters were not systematically different for the two responses. The rates of keypecking and treadle-pressing emitted during the components of the concurrent schedules correlated with, but were not equal to, the rates of responding predicted by Herrnstein’s equation and the subject’s simple schedule responding. The ratios of the rates of responding emitted during, and the ratios of the time spent responding on, the components of the concurrent schedules conformed to an equation proposed by Baum (1974), but not to Herrnstein’s equation.     

Rate of reinforcement and session duration as determinants of within-session patterns of responding

Rats pressed levers for Noyes pellets or keys for sweetened condensed milk reinforcers delivered by multiple schedules. Session length and baseline rates of reinforcement were varied in two experiments. Rates of responding increased during the early part of the session and then decreased for both responses and reinforcers, as well as for all subjects and values of the independent variables. Changes in response rates across the session sometimes exceeded 500%. Respoiise rates peaked approximately 20 min after the beginning of the session, regardless of session duration, when subjects responded on a multiple variable interval 1-min variable interval 1-min schedule. The function was flatter for longer sessions than it was for shorter sessions. The function was flatter, more symmetrical, and peaked later for lower rates of reinforcement than for higher rates of reinforcement. The function appeared early in training, and further experience moved and reduced its peak. Variables related to reinforcement exerted more control over some aspects of this function than did variables related to responding. These within-session patterns of responding may have fundamental implications for experimental design and theorizing.     

Within-session changes in responding during concurrent schedules that employ two different operanda

Five rats responded on several concurrent schedules in which pressing a key produced reinforcers in one component and pressing a lever produced reinforcers in the other component (Experiment 1). Four pigeons responded on several concurrent keypeck treadlepress schedules (Experiment 2). The programmed rates of reinforcement varied from 15 to 240 reinforcers per hour in different conditions. Rates of responding usually changed systematically within experimental sessions, and the changes were similar for the two components of a concurrent schedule. These results imply that within-session changes in responding may not confound the predictions of theories that describe the ratio of the rates of responding during the two components of concurrent schedules. Instead, within-session changes may be controlled by a mechanism that integrates the reinforcers obtained from the two components.     

Development of preference and spontaneous recovery in choice behavior with concurrent variable-interval schedules

Pigeons pecked on two response keys that delivered reinforcers on a variable-interval schedule. The proportion of reinforcers delivered by one key was constant for a few sessions and then changed, and subjects’ choice responses were recorded during these periods of transition. In Experiment 1, response proportions approached a new asymptote slightly more slowly when the switch in reinforcement proportions was more extreme. In Experiment 2, slightly faster transitions were found with higher overall rates of reinforcement. The results from the first session, after a switch in the reinforcement proportions, were generally consistent with a mathematical model that assumes that the strength of each response is increased by reinforcement and decreased by nonreinforcement. However, neither this model nor other similar models predicted the “spontaneous recovery” observed in later sessions: At the start of these sessions, response proportions reverted toward their preswitch levels. Computer simulations could mimic the spontaneous recovery by assuming that subjects store separate representations of response strength for each session, which are averaged at the start of each new session.     

Optimization of reward rate on concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules

Six rats were placed on concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules with a 15-sec changeover delay (COD). The variable-interval schedules were varied such that the COD comprised between 25% and 100% of the average interreinforcement interval of the more favorable alternative. The obtained reinforcement rate and the rate of changing from one schedule to the other were compared to predictions of Houston and McNamara’s (1981) optimality model of concurrent choice. The pattern of behavioral allocation was consistent with the predictions of the model, although none of the animals was able to achieve optimal performance on any of the presented schedules. Observed behavior reliably tracked optimal behavior in that the ratio of obtained reinforcers to the optimum predicted by Houston and McNamara did not vary as the underlying schedule parameters was changed.     

Differentiating Reinforcement Priorities of Junior High School Students

Two hundred seventh grade Ss were administered a paired comparison scale for the purpose of predicting reinforcer effectiveness of fifteen stimuli. These stimuli were selected from three categories of reinforcement: 1.) verbal and social, 2.) tangible and manipulatable, and 3.) knowledge of progress. Results of the study indicated that the paired comparison scale of determining reinforcing preferences was moderately reliable. On the validation task, Ss performed equally well for the most and least preferred reinforcers. This finding suggests that a S, when selecting from several reinforcers, cannot choose the stimulus which would be most effective in increasing his performance.