Using a conditional discrimination procedure, pigeons were exposed to a nonverbal analogue of qualifying autoclitics such as "definitely" and "maybe." It has been suggested that these autoclitics are similar to tacts except that they are under the control of private discriminative stimuli. Instead of the conventional assumption…

This study replicated and extended Wright (2006) and Whitehurst, Ironsmith, and Goldfein (1974) by examining whether preschool aged children would increase their use of passive grammatical voice rather than using the more age-appropriate active grammatical construction when the former was modeled by an adult. Results showed that 5 of the 6…

Major variables related to reinstatement of speech in hospitalized mute and near-mute schizophrenics were isolated and investigated. The study consisted of four parts: (1) verbal conditioning of mute and near-mute chronic schizophrenics using four experimental groups and two control groups, (2) four extra-laboratory measures for testing…

Some 80, white, schizophrenic patients were administered the Taylor Personality Scale of Manifest Anxiety (MAS), the Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI) and were tested on an operant conditioning task. Hypotheses tested were: (1) effectiveness of social reinforcement (verbal approval) on a verbal conditioning task would be enhanced by subjecting…

A major concern of this report was to compare the effect of three verbal reinforcement combinations (VRCs) on the rate at which children learn a simultaneous two-choice discrimination problem. The experiments were designed to test the following: (1) whether relative effectiveness of the VRCs was dependent upon task complexity or subject age; (2)…

Discusses teaching strategy which included arrangement of conditions and contingencies ofreinforcement to motivate students to learn. Identifies student reinforcers and systematically controls reinforcement. Suggests controlled experimentation to compare effectiveness of techniques with other methods of motivation. (Author/CJ)

Because spatial environment plays an important role in regulating human behavior, the environmental conditions of room size, furniture arrangement and interpersonal distance were systematically varied and studied with 54 male undergraduates for their ability to influence the verbal operant conditioning of positive affective self-reference…

Presented is a series of studies in which the efficacy of applying operant conditioning methodologies to the problem of stuttering was examined. One requirement was that the designed therapeutic programs utilize only verbal contingent stimuli (reinforcers and punishers) in the traditional therapeutic setting (client and therapist seated together…

Because training teachers to collect observational data and to use operant techniques has frequently been found to be prohibitively time-consuming, the author attempted to develop simpler, more efficient training procedures. This report presents the results of a study in which these procedures were implemented. Teachers followed a three step…

A program for secondary remedial reading instruction was developed to use operant conditioning techniques with the following major objectives: (1) to train the student to decode words systematically, (2) to develop the student's verbal repertoire, (3) to improve reading comprehension, and (4) to shape scholarly attitudes and behavior. Pupils were…

The effectiveness of positive and negative evaluative comments for children's learning was assessed in a two-choice discrimination task. Results indicate that negative comments after incorrect responses greatly facilitated learning while positive comments after correct responses had little effect. To explain the findings, a naturalistic analysis…