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The purpose of this study was to replicate Fleming et al. (2010) by examining the use of eye gaze in identifying reinforcers for 3 individuals with severe multiple disabilities. Preference was measured in a paired‐choice stimulus preference assessment using duration of eye gaze to determine stimulus selection. A subsequent reinforcer assessment used a reversal design to test the reinforcing effects of the high‐ and low‐preference stimuli. The results replicated Fleming et al., indicating that using eye gaze as a selection method successfully identified reinforcing stimuli.

Multiple schedules with signaled periods of reinforcement and extinction have been used to thin reinforcement schedules during functional communication training (FCT) to make the intervention more practical for parents and teachers. We evaluated whether these signals would also facilitate rapid transfer of treatment effects across settings and therapists. With 2 children, we conducted FCT in the context of mixed (baseline) and multiple (treatment) schedules introduced across settings or therapists using a multiple baseline design. Results indicated that when the multiple schedules were introduced, the functional communication response came under rapid discriminative control, and problem behavior remained at near‐zero rates. We extended these findings with another individual by using a more traditional baseline in which problem behavior produced reinforcement. Results replicated those of the previous participants and showed rapid reductions in problem behavior when multiple schedules were implemented across settings.

Behavioral research to enhance sports performance has been conducted in numerous sports domains and often involves feedback from the coach to the student. One promising form of feedback is the use of an acoustical stimulus such as a clicker to provide more immediate feedback. Similar to clicker training with animals, acoustical stimuli are used with humans to reinforce desired behavior in a procedure called TAGteach, which involves using a clicker as a conditioned reinforcer in training. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of TAGteach, implemented by dance teachers, to increase the fluency of 3 dance movements in a multiple baseline design across behaviors with 4 students of dance. Target behaviors included a turn, kick, and leap. The targeted dance movements remained at relatively low levels of performance during baseline and improved for each participant after the introduction of the TAGteach intervention. Implications for future research are discussed.

Pigeons chose between an (optimal) alternative that sometimes provided food after a 10‐s delay and other times after a 40‐s delay and another (suboptimal) alternative that sometimes provided food after 10 s but other times no food after 40 s. When outcomes were not signaled during the delays, pigeons strongly preferred the optimal alternative. When outcomes were signaled, choices of the suboptimal alternative increased and most pigeons preferred the alternative that provided no food after the long delay despite the cost in terms of obtained food. The pattern of results was similar whether the short delays occurred on 25% or 50% of the trials. Shortening the 40‐s delay to food sharply reduced suboptimal choices, but shortening the delay to no food had little effect. The results suggest that a signaled delay to no food does not punish responding in probabilistic choice procedures. The findings are discussed in terms of conditioned reinforcement by signals for good news.

Abstract Delay discounting describes the devaluation of a reward as the delay to the receipt of the reward increases. Because steep delay discounting is robustly correlated with a number of behavioral problems (e.g., substance dependence, gambling) and some evidence suggests steep discounting precedes and predicts drug‐taking in humans and rats, this study sought to experimentally reduce rats' delay discounting. Human stimulant‐dependent participants given working‐memory training reportedly decreased their rates of discounting relative to a sham‐training group (Bickel, Yi, Landes, Hill, & Baxter, 2011). To evaluate the cross‐species generality of this effect, 38 male Long‐Evans rats, matched on pretraining delay‐discounting rates, were randomly assigned to receive 140 sessions of working‐memory training or sham training (which required no memory of the sample stimulus). Large between‐group differences in working memory were observed after training; however, posttraining delay‐discounting rates were undifferentiated across groups. Potential explanations for these findings are discussed.

Se analiza el artículo de Emilio Ribes-Iñesta "El desligamiento funcional y la causalidad aristotélica: un análisis teórico". Se hace énfasis en cuatro aspectos de este artículo: (a) el concepto de desligamiento y sus antecedentes en la literatura psicológica; (b) el concepto de comportamiento psicológico como cambio e interacción y su explicación; (c) las causas aristotélicas y su identificación con la mediación (causa material) , la estructura relacional (causa formal), el desligamiento (causa eficiente) y el grado de ajuste (causa final); (d) la propuesta de desarrollar medidas molares de estas cuatro "causas". Se reconocen los continuos aportes de Ribes al desarrollo de la Teoría de la Conducta, pero se toma distancia con respecto de la comprensión que ofrece Ribes de las causas aristotélicas y su identificación con los factores mencionados previamente.

Se destaca la dificultad de una interpretación fidedigna de los textos aristotélicos debido a la carencia de los originales, de la diversidad de las traducciones y de las diferencias lingüísticas y culturales que nos separan en tiempo. Se subraya que los tratados acerca del alma no son propiamente psicológicos, sino biológicos. A pesar de ello, han influido en el modelo lógico interconductual. Se expone como los conceptos aristotélicos sobre la causalidad tienen un valor heurístico importante para el análisis de proceso en la teoría de la conducta Palabras-clave: textos aristotélicos, hermenéutica, heurística, alma, causalidad

Increasing motorists' yielding of the right of way to pedestrians in crosswalks reduces the number of collisions between motorists and pedestrians. In this study we examined a gateway in‐street sign configuration (1 in‐street sign installed between the 2 travel lanes in each direction, and 1 on both edges of the roadway in each direction) on multilane roads. The first experiment compared the efficacy of adding multiple in‐street signs used in a gateway configuration with a single sign between the 2 travel lanes in each direction. The second experiment compared the gateway in‐street sign configuration with a more expensive pedestrian hybrid beacon. The third experiment compared the gateway in‐street sign configuration with the more expensive rectangular rapid flashing beacon. The results demonstrated that the gateway in‐street sign configuration produced very high levels of driver yielding, and that it was as effective as the 2 more expensive treatments.

Previous research has demonstrated that the conditional‐only method (starting with a multiple‐stimulus array) is more efficient than the simple‐conditional method (progressive incorporation of more stimuli into the array) for teaching receptive labeling to children with autism spectrum disorders (Grow, Carr, Kodak, Jostad, & Kisamore, 2011). The current study systematically replicated the earlier study by comparing the 2 approaches using progressive prompting with 2 boys with autism. The results showed that the conditional‐only method was a more efficient and reliable teaching procedure than the simple‐conditional method. The results further call into question the practice of teaching simple discriminations to facilitate acquisition of conditional discriminations.

We compared the effects of varying reinforcement schedules on independent responding with 3 individuals with intellectual disabilities. Independent responding was always reinforced, and responding after a vocal response was either (a) always reinforced, (b) never reinforced, or (c) reinforced on a fixed‐ratio 3 schedule. Results showed that for 2 of the 3 participants, independent responding was higher when responding after the vocal prompt was never reinforced. These data suggest that altering the reinforcement schedule to favor independent responding may lead to increased independent responding.