For over a century and a quarter, the science of learning has expanded at an increasing rate and has achieved the status of a mature science. It has developed powerful methodologies and applications. The rise of this science has been so swift that other learning texts often overlook the fact that, like other mature sciences, the science of…

Several recent studies have explored what Michael (e.g., 1982) termed the "value-altering" effect and the "behavior-altering" effect of motivating operations. One aspect of the behavior-altering effect that has garnered no recent attention involves changes in stimulus control produced by motivating operations. To call attention to this aspect of…

Extinction and recovery of the discriminative stimulus effects of nicotine (0.3 mg/kg) was investigated with a devalued food reinforcer (rats sated). Sixteen rats were trained in a counterbalanced one manipulandum (nose-poke) drug discrimination procedure with the roles of nicotine and saline counterbalanced as S[superscript D] and S[superscript…

A report on research which investigates the effectiveness of a reinforcement program which would require an increased amount of desirable behavior for each unit of reinforcement. (Author)

It was concluded from the date that satiation plays a determining role in the continued utilization of an acquired response while distraction is a primary determinant of acquisition rate. (Authors)

Acquisition of verbal behavior is a major goal of interventions for children with developmental disabilities. We evaluated the effectiveness of manipulation of an establishing operation for functional discriminated mands. Four individuals with developmental disabilities participated in a training procedure designed to teach two separate mands for…

To determine whether the distraction effect associated with material rewards in discrimination learning can account for the superior performance of reward groups in probability learning, the performance of 144 school children (preschool, second, and fifth grades) on a two-choice successive discrimination task was compared under three reinforcement…

Forty-four third graders were given a two-choice conceptual discrimination learning task. The two major factors were (1) four treatment groups varying at the extremes on two personality measures, approval motivation and locus of control and (2) sex. (MS)

Investigates third- and fourth-grade children's verbal evaluations of syllables paired with different reward schedules (full, partial, or none) for "pleasantness" and "curiosity." (Author/ED)