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The operant conditioning of conversation.

Human conversation is a natural place to begin the study of social responses. In a conversation, a number of individuals use one another's responses as cues for their own behavior. So long as a conversation is being held, the speakers must talk in some order. Four experiments were conducted to test whether differentially reinforcing a group of speakers can bring the order of speakers under experimental control. The results are all consistent with the hypothesis. The paper also devises and evaluates different procedures for studying conversational sequences and examines associated statistical problems.

Communication↗

Operant conditioning in the bat Phyllostomus hastatus.

Bats of the species Phyllostomus hastatus were trained to press a pigeon key with food as the reinforcer. Patterns of responding under fixed-ratio, fixed-interval, and variable-interval schedules of reinforcement were similar to those typically shown by other species. In a simple auditory discrimination, responding readily came under stimulus control. It is suggested that the behavioral method could be applied to various problem areas of bat behavior.

Animals↗

Successful operant conditioning procedures with an institutionalized aggressive geriatric patient.

The present investigation utilized a modified differential reinforcement of other behaviors (DRO) schedule with an exclusionary time-out procedure to treat a sixty-nine year-old aggressive male. Dependent measures included confirmed incidents of physical and verbal aggressive behavior monitored across an ABAB design with a four month follow-up. During the experimental conditions, contingent tangible reinforcers were provided for non-aggressive behavior. Such rewards were progressively diminished over the course of treatment utilizing a systematic fading scheme. Results indicated a clear demonstration of behavioral control and clinically significant treatment effects during both experimental periods. Implications for future research are discussed.

Aged↗

Operant conditioning of mental retardates' visual monitoring.

To study improvement of visual monitoring of retardates, specialized training methods backed up by incentives were used. The extent to which these training techniques might be expected to produce results which would generalize to those situations in which the retardate was required to monitor without the increased signal rate and knowledge of results was explored. Subjects were 8 female mental retardates with IQs from 38 to 69. Detection of an aperiodic pattern change during pre-training was compared with final performance after 4 training sessions. During training, the task difficulty was increased until during the final training session it approximated the test conditions. Immediate knowledge of results was given for correct detections and false positive responses. Tokens were given to the subjects, based on the scores at the end of the session. After the final session these tokens were exchanged for prizes. As predicted, training under these conditions significantly enhanced the retardates' performance and transferred to the condition with no knowledge of results.

Adolescent↗

Operant conditioning of activities of daily living on a psychogeriatric ward: a simple method.

On a psychogeriatric ward a simple token economy was established by handing out coffee and cigarette tickets for demands of concrete Activities of Daily Living from 14 men and 16 women. During the treatment period the number of target behaviors increased dramatically and many positive spin-off effects were observed. It was concluded that simple token economies of even 18 weeks can easily be introduced and administered and produce decisive positive changes with respect to psychogeriatric patients' activities of daily living, staff attitudes, and ward atmosphere.

Activities of Daily Living↗