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Autoshaping of abnormal children
Insights
Children rapidly learned signal-controlled responding with a novel operant procedure, replicating animal autoshaping studies. However, classical conditioning procedures suppressed this discriminative behavior, indicating potential negative behavioral contrast effects.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral psychology
- Child development
- Operant conditioning
Background:
- Investigating learning mechanisms in children with developmental abnormalities.
- Examining the efficacy of terminal operant contingencies in establishing discriminative responding.
Observation:
- Three children with developmental abnormalities were exposed to a terminal operant contingency without successive approximation or manual shaping.
- Children demonstrated rapid acquisition of discriminative responding (panel pressing) when reinforcement was contingent on signal presence.
Findings:
- The procedure successfully induced signal-controlled responding, consistent with autoshaping phenomena observed in animal research.
- Classical conditioning procedures, a form of autoshaping, significantly suppressed discriminative responding in one child.
- Intrasubject reversal and multiple baseline designs confirmed the reliability of these findings.
Implications:
- Rapid acquisition of signal-controlled responding suggests practical applications in educational or therapeutic settings for children.
- The suppressive effect of classical autoshaping highlights the importance of procedure selection in behavioral interventions.
- Findings contribute to understanding behavioral contrast and the nuances of autoshaping in human learning.
Abstract:
Three experimentally naive abnormal children were exposed to a terminal operant contingency, i.e., reinforcement was delivered only if the children pressed a panel during intervals when it was lighted. Despite the absence of both successive approximation and manual shaping, it was found that each child began to respond discriminatively within a small number of trials. These data replicated previous animal studies concerned with the phenomena of autoshaping and signal-controlled responding. It was also found, however, that one type of autoshaping, the classical conditioning procedure, had a powerful suppressive effect on the discriminative responding. An experimental analysis that consisted procedure, had a powerful suppressive effect on discriminative responding. An experimental analysis that consisted of intrasubject reversal an multiple baseline designs established the internal validity of the findings. The finding of rapid acquisition of signal-controlled responding obtained with the initial procedure is suggessted to have practical significance. The disruptive effects of the classical form of autoshaping are discussed in terms of negative behavioral contrast.