Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons^™

An Arbitrary Matching Training Supplement To The Avc Discrimination Test, Charles P. Butler

Masters Theses

Kerr, Meyerson and Flora (1977) devised a series of small learning tasks that could be used to assess developmentally disabled individuals on the typical tasks to be performed in a school setting or sheltered workshop and required only very simple equipment. Davine (1990) suggested that there may be transitional skills between AVC levels IV and V not found by Kerr et al. Davine looked at four experimental steps designed to test this notion. The results of this study were inconclusive. Wilson (1991) tested the same notion by devising a series of non identity matching tasks which were generally found to …

Lesions Of The Perirhinal Cortex But Not Of The Frontal, Medial Prefrontal, Visual, Or Insular Cortex Block Fear-Potentiated Startle Using A Visual Conditioned Stimulus, Jeffrey B. Rosen, Janice M. Hitchcock, Mindy Miserendino, William A. Falls, Serge Campeau, Michael Davis

Psychology Faculty Publications

The present study is part of an ongoing series of experiments aimed at delineation of the neural pathways that mediate fear-potentiated startle, a model of conditioned fear in which the acoustic startle reflex is enhanced when elicited in the presence of a light previously paired with shock. A number of cortical areas that might be involved in relaying information about the visual conditioned stimulus (the light) in fear-potentiated startle were investigated. One hundred thirty-five rats were given 10 light-shock pairings on each of 2 consecutive days, and l-2 d later electrolytic or aspiration lesions in various cortical areas were performed. …

The Effect Of Associative Distance On The Formation Of Transitive Relations, Robert G. Brown Jr.

Dissertations

Three children, aged eight to eleven years, were taught a series of conditional discriminations using two classes of 26 abstract visual stimuli. The conditional relations were ordered such that the correct comparison stimuli of one relation served as the sample stimuli for the next relation. This allowed for the formation of a series of derived relations (both transitive and equivalence) that differed in terms of the number of intervening nodes. At regular intervals, the subjects' performances on the different transitive relations were tested using unreinforced probe trials.

All three subjects made virtually no errors on transitive relations containing up to …

Motivational Effects On A Psychometric Measure Of Prefrontal Brain Functioning In Patients With Chronic Schizophrenia And Related Disorders, Paul C. Smith

Dissertations

This study compared multiple sequential performances on a computerized version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Grant & Berg, 1948; Harris, 1986) by adult men receiving institutional inpatient treatment for chronic schizophrenia and related disorders. Participants were exposed to differential test conditions of minimal post-session non-contingent token reinforcement (baseline phases) and enhanced intra-session performance-contingent token reinforcement (experimental phase). Each major participant resided at the same continuing treatment unit at Kalamazoo Regional Psychiatric Hospital receiving similar social therapies but idiosyncratic psychotropic medication regimens, changes in which were tracked in relation to test performances. A simple single-subject reversal design was employed with …

Letter Recognition By Mentally Retarded Adults: Improving Performance Through Differential Outcomes, Paul R. Malanga

Masters Theses

Four mentally retarded adults were taught to recognize (i.e., discriminate) finger spelling letters when presented as members of unchanging pairs (e.g., A and E, G and H). Correct responses were followed by food or verbal praise. On average, terminal accuracy was significantly greater when a correct response to a given letter was consistently followed by a particular outcome (e.g., food followed correct responses to A and praise followed correct responses to E) than when nondifferential outcomes were arranged (e.g., food followed 50% of all correct responses and praise followed the remaining 50%, regardless of whether the responses were to A …

Appeal And Vulnerability Patterns In Girl Victims Of Incest, Ruth Mausert-Mooney

Dissertations

This study compared certain personal characteristics and behaviors of sexually abused girls with those of matched controls. Experimental subjects were 49 girls, aged 6 to 16 years, who had been sexually abused by an older male family member. Fifty girls who had not experienced sexual abuse served as the comparison group, matched on the basis of age, race and socioeconomic status.

Demographic and psychological measures were completed by each research participant and her mother. Videotapes were made of an initial session in which each child met an unknown male tester.

This study hypothesized and affirmed that sexually abused girls appeared …

Job Aids, Feedback, And The Teaching Of Verbal-Reasoning, Angela Williams Campbell

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to test the effects of a job aid and feedback on learning to solve directional verbal-reasoning problems, and (2) to examine whether students’ skills transferred to similar problems following the removal of both the job aid and feedback. Some previous researchers who studied problem solving utilized the think-aloud technique and used solutions generated by expert problem solvers. The think-aloud technique, although perhaps a good one, is not practical in the classroom. In the main study, a job aid was incorporated within the problem so students would be able to use guidance toward …

A Comparison Of Four Methods To Teach Complex Verbal Concepts Using A Computer-Assisted Instruction Program, John Byron Connors

Dissertations

This study compared four instructional programs which taught terminology in behavioral psychology using computer-assisted instruction (CAD with college students. The independent variable was the type of instruction presented by one of four CAI programs: (a) Rules Only, (b) Rules Plus Positive Examples, (c) Rules Plus Negative Examples, and (d) Rules Plus Positive and Negative Examples. The dependent variables were the: (a) pretest scores, (b) posttest scores, (c) 1-week delayed posttest scores, and (d) preference questionnaire scores. Using the pretest as a covariate, results approached significance (p=.07) on posttest scores only for the Rules Only and Rules Plus Positive Examples over …

Effects Of Feedback Type And Signal Probability On Quality Inspection Accuracy, Matthew A. Mason

Dissertations

A computer simulation was developed to examine the effects of feedback type (immediate, delayed, or none) and signal probability (p = 0.05 or 0.12) on the accuracy of identifying signals (missing components), inspection response rate, and response sensitivity (d'). Subjects were randomly assigned to one of six experimental groups: (1) immediate feedback with a signal probability of 0.05 (1/0.05), (2) delayed feedback with a signal probability of 0.05 (D/0.05), (3) no feedback with a signal probability of 0.05 (N/0.05), (4) immediate feedback with a signal probability of 0.12 (1/0.12), (5) delayed feedback with a signal probability of …

A Comparison Of Blood Volume Pulse And False Biofeedback In The Treatment Of Migraine, Paul Greilick

Dissertations

The efficacy of temporal artery blood volume pulse (BVP) biofeedback in the treatment of migraine was investigated. After four pre-treatment baseline psycho-physiological monitoring sessions, 8 migrainuers were randomly assigned to undergo 12 sessions of either BVP biofeedback or a placebo procedure (false feedback). Both treatments resulted in clinically significant and statistically equivalent reductions in headache activity and medication intake. Subjects exhibited substantial within-session decreases in BVP amplitude during pre-treatment baseline sessions and during false feedback, and the introduction of BVP biofeedback failed to increase the magnitude or the rate of BVP amplitude reductions. All subjects failed to show evidence of …

Preventive Dental Care- Instruction And Contingency Management In The Acquisition And Maintenance Of Oral Hygiene Skills, Sandra K. Kallstrom

Masters Theses

Inadequate oral hygiene is one of the largest problems facing the dental profession to date. It is estimated that 98% of individuals suffer from dental problems associated with neglect. The objective of this study was to develop effective techniques which aided in the acquisition and maintenance of oral hygiene skills. This study compared the effects of instruction and demonstration with contingency management on plaque percentage scores. A between-subjects design was used with one control and three experimental groups. The results indicated that, oral hygiene instruction and demonstration appear to be ineffective in reducing plaque scores. Significant plaque reductions where found …

Extinction Of Fear-Potentiated Startle: Blockade By Infusion Of An Nmda Antagonist Into The Amygdala, Michael Davis, William A. Falls, Mindy Miserendino

Psychology Faculty Publications

Data derived from in vitro preparations indicate that NMDA receptors play a critical role in synaptic plasticity in the CNS. More recently, in vivo pharmacological manipulations have suggested that an NMDA-dependent process may be involved in specific forms of behavioral plasticity. All of the work thus far has focused on the possible role of NMDA receptors in the acquisition of responses. However, there are many examples in the behavioral literature of learning-induced changes that involve the reduction or elimination of a previously acquired response. Experimental extinction is a primary example of the elimination of a learned response. Experimental extinction is …

Factor Analysis Of The Personal Profile System, Thomas G. Henkel, James Noel Wilmoth

Publications

Principal components extraction with orthogonal and oblique rotations tested construct validity for the Personal Profile System. MOST-LIKE endorsements of 96 behavioral descriptors were coded with 4, LEAST-LIKE with 1, and unendorsed with 2.5. Descriptor data from 1,045 senior noncommissioned Air Force officers were normalized. Four factors accounted for 85% of total variance, with 19 descriptors loading significantly on two factors and the remaining 77 on just one factor. The measure of sampling adequacy for every descriptor exceeded .94. One factor for the varimax-rotated (best) analysis was bi-scalar, loading on Steadiness and Compliance descriptors; a second resembled Influencing, a third loaded …