The present study investigated whether Pavlovian conditioning contributes, in the form of the response operandum serving as a conditioned stimulus, to the increase in the rate of response for 1% liquid-sucrose reinforcement when food-pellet reinforcement is upcoming. Rats were exposed to conditions in which sign tracking for 1% sucrose was…

Calls for the inclusion of classical conditioning in educational psychology courses and texts because such conditioning can effectively alleviate anxiety and related problems in students. (IRT)

An examination of the differences between radical and conventional behaviorism is presented in this article. The radical behaviorism of B. F. Skinner is compared with the phenomenological thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty emphasizing the manner in which each of these men understands human behavior. (JC)

Initial experiment demonstrated operant acquisition of an instrumental hand-pulling response in 4-8-month-old infants; the effect achieved with contingent, noncontingent, delayed reinforcement, and the suppression, recovery, and facilitation effects of noncontingent stimulation are discussed. (Author)

Comparison of advantages and disadvantages of unit ventilators, rooftop units, and the Unviersity Residential Building Systems (URBS) designed units. (KJ)

Criticism of the study relating effects of therapist warmth to desensitization include: the use of surrogate, student subjects; nonstandard desensitization procedures; and no control group. Morris and Suckerman respond that the first two criticisms rely on selective reading of the literature and the third is irrelevant. (NG)

The fear conditioning paradigm is used to investigate the roles of various genes, neurotransmitters, and substrates in the formation of fear learning related to contextual and auditory cues. In the brain, nitric oxide (NO) produced by neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) functions as a retrograde neuronal messenger that facilitates synaptic…

It is important as we look at the educational environment to understand that it is a complex system that calls for analyses at multiple levels. One who enters from a single theoretical orientation is at a distinct disadvantage. Particularly when unique students arrive with various emotional and behavioral difficulties, being restricted to a narrow…

A. P. Blaisdell, K. Sawa, K. J. Leising, and M. R. Waldmann (2006) reported evidence for causal reasoning in rats. After learning through Pavlovian observation that Event A (a light) was a common cause of Events X (an auditory stimulus) and F (food), rats predicted F in the test phase when they observed Event X as a cue but not when they generated…

Based on an MA thesis submitted to the University of Illinois.

The basic principles of operant and classical conditioning are presented, and their applications for the in-service training of teachers are discussed. Certain classroom behaviors are analyzed and applied to the classic stimulus-response paradigm. Activities are generically classified as positive or negative reinforcers and these reinforcers, in…

Study was designed to investigate the effects of signalled non-contingent reward on the operant behaviour of human subjects. (Authors)

The present study attempted to duplicate earlier findings and to investigate the effects of mechanical as well as personal reinforcement. However, the acquisition and extinction differences between oral and anal scoring types reported in the earlier studies were not obtained with either personal or mechanical reinforcement. (Author)