Buscador de artigos científicos

This study evaluated the use of video self‐evaluation and video feedback to increase the accuracy of yoga poses. The interventions were assessed in a multiple baseline design across behaviors with 2 adults. Results showed that video self‐evaluation increased the accuracy of all poses, and video feedback further increased the accuracy of 1 pose for 1 participant.

This study investigated performance under and preference for continuous and discontinuous work‐reinforcer schedules in 3 students who had been diagnosed with autism. Under continuous schedules, participants completed all work and consumed all reinforcers in contiguous units. Under discontinuous schedules, work and reinforcer access were broken up into smaller units. During the alternating‐schedules phase, session duration was shorter in the continuous schedule for 2 participants. During free choice, all 3 participants preferred the continuous work schedule.

Because it employs an emergent‐learning framework, equivalence‐based instruction (EBI) is said to be highly efficient, but its presumed benefits must be compared quantitatively with alternative techniques. In a randomized controlled trial, 61 college students attempted to learn 32 pairs of proprietary and generic drug names using computer‐based match‐to‐sample presentations of auditory and written drug names. Students who received EBI experienced pairings based on stimulus equivalence theory, and they mastered the material quickly. Control‐group students practiced relations drawn at random from those that the EBI group learned via training or emergence. Students in the criterion‐control group required many more trials to achieve the same accuracy as the EBI group. By way of a yoking procedure, students in the trial‐control group received the same number of trials as the EBI students but achieved poorer accuracy and little mastery. Thus, EBI was more efficient and effective than unstructured presentation.

The generalized matching law (GML) is reconstructed as a logistic regression equation that privileges no particular value of the sensitivity parameter, a . That value will often approach 1 due to the feedback that drives switching that is intrinsic to most concurrent schedules. A model of that feedback reproduced some features of concurrent data. The GML is a law only in the strained sense that any equation that maps data is a law. The machine under the hood of matching is in all likelihood the very law that was displaced by the Matching Law. It is now time to return the Law of Effect to centrality in our science.

The recurrence of negatively reinforced responding of humans was studied in three experiments. In each experiment during Baseline, key‐pressing produced 3‐s timeouts from a requirement to exert finger pressure on a force cell according to variable‐ or fixed‐ratio schedules of reinforcement. In Experiment 1, resurgence was studied by arranging a differential‐reinforcement‐of‐other‐behavior schedule in the second phase, and extinction in the Test phase. In Experiment 2, ABA renewal was studied by extinguishing responding in the second phase in a different context and, in the Test phase, by presenting the Baseline‐phase context when extinction still was in effect. In Experiment 3, reinstatement was studied by arranging extinction in the second phase, followed by the delivery of response‐independent timeouts in the Test phase. Resurgence and renewal occurred consistently for each participant in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. In Experiment 3, reinstatement was observed less consistently in four participants. The results of these experiments replicate and extend to negatively reinforced responding previous findings of the resurgence and renewal of positively reinforced responding obtained mainly with nonhuman animals.

Functional analysis is the most precise method of identifying variables that maintain self‐injurious behavior (SIB), and its use may lead to more effective treatment. One criticism and potential limitation of a functional analysis is that it may unnecessarily expose individuals to a higher risk of injury (Betz & Fisher, 2011). The purpose of this study was to determine if there were higher levels and severity of injury during the functional analysis than outside the functional analysis. We conducted a retrospective records review of 99 participants admitted to an inpatient unit for the treatment of SIB. The results showed that injury rates were relatively low across all situations and that when injuries occurred, they were usually not severe. These findings suggest that the functional analysis of SIB is relatively safe when appropriate precautions are taken.

Derived relational responding is affected by contextual stimuli (Cfunc) that select specific stimulus functions. The present study investigated the transfer of Cfunc contextual control through equivalence relations by evaluating both (a) the maintenance of Cfunc contextual control after the expansion of a relational network, and (b) the establishment of novel contextual stimuli by the transfer of Cfunc contextual control through equivalence relations. Initially, equivalence relations were established and contingencies were arranged so that colors functioned as Cfunc stimuli controlling participants' key‐pressing responses in the presence of any stimulus from a three‐member equivalence network. To investigate the first research question, the three‐member equivalence relations were expanded to five members and the novel members were presented with the Cfunc stimuli in the key‐pressing task. To address the second goal of this study, the colors (Cfunc) were established as equivalent to certain line patterns. The transfer of contextual cue function (Cfunc) was tested replacing the colored backgrounds with line patterns in the key‐pressing task. Results suggest that the Cfunc contextual control was transferred to novel stimuli that were added to the relational network. In addition, the line patterns indirectly acquired the contextual cue function (Cfunc) initially established for the colored backgrounds. The conceptual and applied implications of Cfunc contextual control are discussed.

Giant African pouched rats equipped with video cameras may be a tenable option for locating living humans trapped under debris from collapsed structures. In the present study, 5 pouched rats were trained to contact human targets in a simulated collapsed building and to return to the release point after hearing a signal to do so. During test sessions, each rat located human targets more often than it located similar‐sized inanimate targets on which it had not previously been trained and spent more time within 1 m of the human target than within 1 m of the other targets. Overall, the rats found humans, plastic bags containing clothes, and plastic bags without clothes on 83%, 37%, and 11% of trials, respectively. These findings suggest that using pouched rats to search for survivors in collapsed structures merits further attention.

A behavioral skills training procedure that consisted of video instructions, video rehearsal, and video testing was used to teach 4 recreational gamblers a specific skill in playing blackjack (sometimes called card counting ). A multiple baseline design was used to evaluate intervention effects on card‐counting accuracy and chips won or lost across participants. Before training, no participant counted cards accurately. Each participant completed all phases of the training protocol, counting cards fluently with 100% accuracy during changing speed criterion training exercises. Generalization probes were conducted while participants played blackjack in a mock casino following each training phase. Afterwards, all 4 participants were able to count cards while they played blackjack. In conjunction with count accuracy, total winnings were tracked to determine the monetary advantages associated with counting cards. After losing money during baseline, 3 of 4 participants won a substantial amount of money playing blackjack after the intervention.

The effects of class‐specific compound consequences embedded in an identity‐matching task to establish arbitrary emergent relations were evaluated. A 3‐year‐old child with autism was taught identity relations between lowercase letters (Set 1) and uppercase letters (Set 2). A compound stimulus that consisted of an auditory component (dictated letter name) and a visual component (an uppercase letter for Set 1 or lowercase letter for Set 2) followed correct responses. All targeted arbitrary relations emerged (uppercase–lowercase, lowercase–uppercase, dictated name/uppercase, and dictated name/lowercase), suggesting that this procedure may be useful for teaching.