Automaticity can be established by consistently reinforcing contingencies during practice. During reinforcement learning, however, new relations can also be derived, which were never directly reinforced. For instance, reinforcing the overlapping contingencies A [right arrow] B and A [right arrow] C, can lead to a new relation B-C, which was never…

THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY WAS TO DETERMINE THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF FIVE VARIABLES (INITIAL INSTRUCTIONS, REWARD, LETTER SIZE, TYPE OF WARM-UP, AND FEEDBACK) ON KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN'S PERFORMANCE OF A LETTER DISCRIMINATION TASK. IT HAS BEEN ARGUED THAT ATTENTION IS THE KEY FACTOR IN LETTER DISCRIMINATION. THE PRESENT STUDY PROPOSES THAT A…

Eighteen profoundly retarded men (mean age 41) were given repeated presentations of a two-choice visual discrimination using a modified Wisconsin General Test Apparatus and two probabilistic reinforcement schedules counterbalanced for order. (Author)

Three children with autism were taught to identify pictures of emotions in response to their spoken names. Their speed of acquisition was compared using a within-child alternating treatments design across three teaching conditions, each involving a 5 second delay to reinforcement. In the marked-before condition, an instruction encouraged the…

Eleven papers comprise the special issue on learning disabilities and deal with definition, prevalence, promising research strategies, and potentially effective educational treatments oriented toward the processes of thought and the "learning to learn" strategy. (DB)