查看更多>>摘要：In delay discounting, preference reversals refer to shifts in preference from a larger‐later reward to a smaller‐sooner reward. Steep hyperbolic discounting predicts a preference reversal when a smaller‐sooner and larger‐later reward both become temporally proximal; prior research is consistent with this prediction. Hyperbolic discounting does not predict a preference reversal, however, after an individual chooses a larger‐later reward over a smaller‐immediate reward; prior research is inconsistent with this prediction. We sought to replicate and extend these findings using a delay of gratification task in rats. The task included a defection response which allowed rats to reverse their preference after choosing a larger‐later sucrose reinforcer to instead obtain a smaller‐immediate sucrose reinforcer. In Experiment 1, we found that rats would defect on their choice of the larger‐later reinforcer, systematically replicating prior research. We also found that experience on the delay of gratification task led to decreases in defection responses. In Experiment 2, we found that prior experience on an intertemporal choice task, with no opportunity to defect, also led to few defection responses on the delay of gratification task. We discuss our findings in the context of whether inhibitory control or temporal learning could be involved in delay of gratification.
Fernanda S. OdaSarah A. LechagoBruno Eneas SilvaJustin C. Hunt...
22页
查看更多>>摘要：The current study investigated the effects of female and male audiences on gender‐biased verbal behavior and self‐editing using an online chat environment analog. The chat analog allowed access to self‐editing behaviors, which are frequently covert, thus providing additional information about verbal episodes. We examined whether the strength and the dimensions of verbal responses differentially varied across the female and male audience conditions using visual inspection and statistical analysis. Participants were 28 typically developing adults. Overt responses were recorded for interrupting, and both overt and covert responses were recorded for disagreeing, pressuring, and self‐editing. Visual inspection revealed differentiated overt and covert disagreeing, pressuring, and interrupting for some participants, while statistical analysis using Fisher's exact test did not reveal significant differences in the dependent variables between audience's perceived gender and participants' gender. Differentiated responding between female and male audiences suggests that perceived gender can exert stimulus control over a speaker's behavior. Although we didn't observe consistent gender‐biased responding for all the participants, our experimental evaluation functions as a proof‐of‐concept study that can encourage the use of this methodology to study complex social behavior.
查看更多>>摘要：Behavior analysts and psychologists advocate for the use of therapies and strategies based on credible, scientific evidence. Researchers and clinicians regularly advocate for Evidence‐based Practices (EBPs) over questionable “alternatives” because caregivers seldom choose interventions based on scientific evidence alone. This study applied methods and concepts from Consumer Behavior Analysis to conduct a reinforcer‐based evaluation of the consequences that influence treatment choices. Hypothetical Treatment Purchase Tasks (HTPTs) were designed to evaluate how utilitarian (UR; i.e., the efficacy of treatment) and informational sources of reinforcement (IR; i.e., community support for treatment) jointly influence treatment‐related choices. A total of 104 caregivers were recruited using the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) framework to complete two HTPTs. Results indicated that caregivers overall favored treatments with greater IR over those with greater UR, suggesting that indirect contingencies for treatment choices exerted greater overall influence than the direct contingencies of treatment choices (i.e., efficacy). This finding extends the literature on treatment choice by providing a reinforcer‐based perspective on why ‘fad’, questionable, and pseudoscientific practices can achieve and maintain high levels of adoption by caregivers. This work concludes with a discussion of Consumer Behavior Analysis and how reinforcer‐based interpretations of choice can be used to improve efforts to support and advocate for evidence‐based child behavior treatments.
查看更多>>摘要：The present experiment investigated the effects of 1) repeated exposures to escalating punishment intensities and 2) repeated exposure to punishment after periods of vacation on response allocation between punished and unpunished responding in three groups of rats. The first group (intensity?+?vacation) experienced repeated exposures to escalating punishment intensities after a period of vacation (i.e., return to baseline) from punishment. The second group (intensity‐only) experienced repeated exposures to escalating punishment intensities without vacation from punishment. The third group (vacation‐only) experienced repeated exposures to a constant punishment intensity after a period of vacation from punishment. Results showed that superimposition of punishment on one of two concurrently available responses decreased allocation toward the punished response and increased allocation toward the unpunished response. Furthermore, greater changes in allocation were observed with the introduction of a moderate constant intensity than with the introduction of a low intensity that increased across sessions. Reexposure to punishment had different effects between the groups. Although there was evidence that high shock intensities can enhance the efficacy of lower intensities to shift allocation away from the punished response and toward the unpunished response, there was little evidence of changes in response allocation with reintroduction of punishment after a period of vacation.
Sean D. RegnierJustin C. StricklandWilliam W. Stoops
13页
查看更多>>摘要：Contingency management (CM) interventions are the most effective psychosocial interventions for substance use disorders. However, further investigation is needed to create the most robust intervention possible. This study investigated the effects of 1) reinforcer magnitude; and 2) fixed and escalating and resetting incentives on cocaine abstinence in an outpatient trial. In this analysis, 34 treatment‐seeking individuals with Cocaine Use Disorder received either high or low value incentives for providing a benzoylecgonine‐negative urine sample or were in a control condition and received incentives for providing a urine sample regardless of the results. Participants received either escalating and resetting incentives, wherein the value of each incentive increased with consecutive negative samples and reset to the initial level upon a positive sample (Experiment 1), or fixed incentives, wherein they received the same value incentive for each negative urine sample they provided (Experiment 2). Large incentives produced more abstinence, although escalating and resetting reinforcer values did not have a differential effect. Large, fixed incentives promoted abstinence faster than other reinforcers, whereas smaller incentives resulted in poor abstinence and took many visits to achieve initial abstinence. Future research comparing different schedules on cocaine abstinence in a randomized control trial with a larger sample size is required.
William M. BaumCarlos F. AparicioBenigno Alonso‐Alvarez
36页
查看更多>>摘要：Much research has documented rate matching in concurrent variable‐interval schedules, but comparatively little research has examined performance in concurrent variable‐ratio schedules, except in discrete‐trials procedures that sometimes produce probability matching. One should expect that the two types of schedule would result in different performances, because ratio schedules cannot improve with time the way interval schedules do; ratio schedules lack the temporal dynamics of interval schedules. The present experiment exposed rats to concurrent variable‐ratio schedules. Seven unsignaled components were presented in random order within each daily session, with probability ratios ranging from 1:8 to 8:1. Three conditions were studied that varied the overall probability of food while leaving probability ratios the same. Choice appeared to conform to probability matching, because sensitivities in the rate–matching relation were close to 0.5, whereas sensitivities to probability ratio were close to 1.0. The sensitivities alone, however, could not confirm probability matching, because undermatching to rate occurs often. Analyses at smaller time scales supported the interpretation of probability matching. In particular, control by food deliveries was highly local in concurrent variable‐ratio schedules, in contrast with concurrent variable‐interval schedules, in which control is extended. Activity continued to switch between alternatives throughout components, contradicting optimal sampling theory.
Yusuke HayashiNicole M. FisherDonald A. HantulaLydia Furman...
16页
查看更多>>摘要：The present study determined whether behavioral economic demand analysis could characterize mothers' decision to exclusively breastfeed in the workplace. Females, aged between 18 and 50 who have given birth in the past three years, completed a novel demand task with hypothetical scenarios, in which they returned to work with a 2‐month‐old baby. Participants rated their likelihood of breastfeeding their baby at a workplace lactation room versus formula‐feeding their baby at their desk. The distance to the lactation room ranged from 10?s to 60?min. This assessment was conducted with and without hypothetical financial incentives for 6‐month exclusive breastfeeding. Primary dependent measures were demand intensity and change in demand elasticity, which could conceptually represent initiation and continuation of breastfeeding, respectively. Demand for breastfeeding was more intense and less elastic (i.e., more likely to initiate and continue breastfeeding) among mothers with an experience of 6‐month exclusive breastfeeding and under the condition with the financial incentives. The novel demand task can potentially provide a useful behavioral marker for quantifying mothers' decision to initiate and continue exclusive breastfeeding in the workplace, informing workplace policy regarding lactation rooms, identifying risk for early cessation, and developing and individualizing an intervention to assist mothers to exclusively breastfeed in the workplace.
John M. FalligantLouis P. HagopianMichael P. KranakPatricia F. Kurtz...
8页
查看更多>>摘要：The recurrence of a previously eliminated or reduced behavior following a downshift in alternative reinforcement is referred to as resurgence. Resurgence as Choice (RaC) is a quantitative model of behavioral persistence that posits that resurgence is governed by the same behavioral principles that underlie choice behavior. Consistent with the predictions of RaC, extant basic research with animals indicates that resurgence increases as an exponential function of the size of the downshift in alternative reinforcement. Recently, Shahan and Greer (2021) extended this finding to resurgence of problem behavior during schedule thinning following functional communication training (FCT). They found that when resurgence occurred, it increased exponentially as a function of relative decrements in reinforcer availability during schedule thinning with compound schedules of reinforcement. The purpose of the current study was to directly replicate the analytic procedures described in Shahan and Greer to examine resurgence of problem behavior during schedule thinning following FCT using two novel clinical datasets. Our results closely replicate the findings from Shahan and Greer, providing additional support for the generality of resurgence during downshifts in alternative reinforcement in clinical contexts. These results also highlight the potential applicability of RaC for modeling resurgence of problem behavior during FCT schedule thinning.
Leandro S. BoldrinEduardo C. VilelaGuilherme F. PagotiPaula Debert...
14页
查看更多>>摘要：The use of two choices in the matching‐to‐sample (MTS) procedure has been discouraged in the literature because it may lead to “reject control,” resulting in failures to establish equivalence classes. In the present study, reject control was prevented during training with the two‐choice MTS procedure by presenting the correct comparison with one of five possible incorrect comparisons across trials. This procedure was compared to a six‐choice MTS procedure, in which these same six comparison stimuli were presented simultaneously across trials. In Experiment 1, conditional discrimination training and emergent relations testing maintained the same number of comparison choices, two or six. Experiment 2 assessed whether training with two or six choices would result in successful tests under a different configuration from the one with which training occurred (i.e., six or two choices, respectively). In Experiment 3, the conditions were the same as in Experiment 2, but minimal instructions were given to the participants. The results showed the establishment of equivalence classes in all test conditions, thus demonstrating success of the different training conditions. The two‐choice MTS procedure appears to be at least as effective as the six‐choice procedure for training conditional relations and establishing equivalence classes.
NSTL
Wiley