Purpose: Investigators taught a 5-year-old boy with autistic disorder and severe language delay to conditionally use requests for assistance. Method: A within-participant multiple-probe design across 3 functional tasks was implemented in order to evaluate the child's acquisition and conditional use of requests for assistance during intervention…

The rate of habituation to food is inversely related to energy intake, and overweight children may habituate slower to food and consume more energy. This study compared patterns of sensitization, as defined by an initial increase in operant or motivated responding for food, and habituation, defined by gradual reduction in responding, for macaroni…

The year 2007 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of B. F. Skinner's "Verbal Behavior", a book that by Skinner's own account was his most important. The received view, however, is that a devastating review by a young linguist not only rendered Skinner's interpretation of language moot but was also a major factor in ending the hegemony…

Testing sensory characteristics on herpetological species has been difficult due to a range of properties related to physiology, responsiveness, performance ability, and the type of reinforcer used. Using the Jacky lizard as a model, we outline a successfully established procedure in which to test the visual sensitivity to motion characteristics.…

To date, only 1 study has evaluated the impact of a Pavlovian drug conditional stimulus (CS) on operant responding. A within-subject operant 1-lever go/no-go (across sessions) design was used to evaluate the impact of Pavlovian contingencies on the discriminative stimulus effects of nicotine (0.4 mg/kg) and ethanol (800 mg/kg) in male Sprague…

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)

Report of the winter meeting of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. Subjects covered are--(1) title subject, (2) predictions for the human habitat in 1994, (3) fans, and (4) fire safety in buildings. (JW)

Classical conditioning is responsible for students' positive and negative feelings, whether directed toward subject matter, peers, teachers, or education in general. This article explains how educators can use classical conditioning principles (such as reinforcement, extinction, and paired stimuli) to create an anxiety-free learning environment.…

A brief introduction to various aspects of operant conditioning is presented, followed by a discussion of ethical concerns. Also discussed in this paper are topics such as (1) what is it? (2) motivation, (3) students need motivating, and (4) a new method. The latter part of the paper is concerned with a year long behavior project in an elementary…

Previous experiments have demonstrated that the simultaneous presentation of independently established discriminative stimuli can control rates of operant responding substantially higher than the rates occasioned by the individual stimuli. This "additive summation" phenomenon has been shown with a variety of different reinforcers (e.g., food,…

The acquisition of lever pressing by rats and the occurrence of unreinforced presses at a location different from that of the reinforced response were studied using different delays of reinforcement. An experimental chamber containing seven identical adjoining levers was used. Only presses on the central (operative) lever produced food pellets.…