A total of 30 infants with an average age of 83.4 days were trained for one l8-minute, two nine-minute, or three six-minute sessions separated by 24-hour intervals in order to investigate long-term retention of operant foot kicking acquired in the mobile conjugative reinforcement paradigm. (Author/CI)

An operant conditioning technique was used to study visual discrimination of simple patterns by infants aged 6-12 weeks. The appropriate direction of head turning to the patterns was developed and maintained by social reinforcement. Results showed that visual discriminative control of the direction of head turning can be achieved. (WY)

Presents two studies which investigated the effects of social stimulation on infant's vocalization rates. Experiment I focused on response-contingent and response-independent social stimulation. Experiment II focused on continuous or omitted social stimulation. In both studies, social stimulation increased vocalization and the rate of responding…

Investigates the role of instructions in operant conditioning research with children. Subjects are verbally instructed to make an unreinforced response while an incompatible response is monetarily rewarded. Examines the effects of experimenter presence and characteristics of the adult giving the instructions. (DP)

A total of 12 elementary school children participated in a study on the effect of percentage in variable amounts of reinforcement under several variable interval schedules. (MS)

Aims to clarify the distinction between elicitation and reinforcement discussed in Bloom (1984); to make explicit theoretical and methodological assumptions about the experimental analysis of infant behavior as shown in components of Poulson (1983); and to clarify differences in interpretation of other infant vocal conditioning research.…

Suggests that the use of the operant conditioning paradigm, as it has been applied to infant social, vocal behavior, fails to take into account the social nature of human infants over and above the rigid theoretical rationale of the Paradigm. (MP)

Three experiments examined whether newborns are sensitive to an operant-conditioning task involving unprepared relation between a response and a stimuli. Found that newborns tested under the High-Amplitude Sucking procedure were involved in an operant-learning situation, in that an increase in sucking rates could be obtained after an auditory…

Children's avoidance responses were conditioned and then extinguished in a laboratory analog of a social threat situation. (DP)

Using an objective measure of attention obtained during a baseline period, assesses in two studies the effects of attention on operant learning among 240 infants 14 weeks of age who were rewarded for kicking with a pattern of lights and tones. (RH)

Two normal and two mentally retarded children were trained to earn pennies by pressing a key according to a multiple variable-interval extinction schedule of reinforcement. Retarded children differed from normal children by producing more positive than negative discriminative stimuli. (Author/DB)