To benefit from the exploration of their bodies and their physical and social environments, infants need to detect sensorimotor contingencies linking their actions to sensory feedback. This ability, which seems to be present in babies from birth and even in utero, has been widely used by researchers in their study of early development. However, a…

The trial-unique, delayed nonmatching-to-location (TUNL) task is a recently developed behavioral task that measures spatial working memory and a form of pattern separation in touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers. Limited information exists regarding the neurotransmitters and neural substrates involved in the task. The present…

Before implementing the Competency-Based Approach (CBA) in 2003, the Algerian educational system was based on traditional teaching methods that focused mainly on acquiring the knowledge about language delivered by the teacher and the amount of information the learner could accumulate to pass the exams. Although CBA has shifted the teacher's role…

Response interruption and redirection (RIRD) is an intervention that involves presenting demands or other types of distracters to interrupt an interfering behavior and redirect it to a more appropriate response. It targets the decrease of repetitive, stereotypic, and self-injurious behaviors. Research indicates that stereotypy is commonly…

Aversive outcomes punish behaviors that cause their occurrence. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) has been implicated in punishment learning and behavior, although the exact roles for different PFC regions in instrumental aversive learning and decision-making remain poorly understood. Here, we assessed the role of the orbitofrontal (OFC), rostral…

Traumatic experiences early in life can contribute to the development of mood and anxiety disorders that manifest during adolescence and young adulthood. In young rats exposed to acute fear or stress, alterations in neural development can lead to enduring behavioral abnormalities. Here, we used a modified extinction intervention…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have qualitative impairments in social interaction and often prefer food or tangible reinforcement to social reinforcement. Thus, therapists who work with children with ASD often use food or tangible items as reinforcers to increase appropriate behaviors or decrease problem behaviors. The goal of the…

Reciprocal conversations, instructional activities, and other social interactions are replete with multiply controlled intraverbals, examples of which have been conceptualized in terms of conditional discriminations. Although the acquisition of conditional discriminations has been examined extensively in the behavior-analytic literature, little…

Participants first became familiar with an image showing moderate symptoms of the skin cancer melanoma. In a generalization test, they indicated whether images showing more and less pronounced symptoms were "like the original." Some groups (cancer context) were told that the images depicted melanoma and that the disease is deadly unless…

This study aimed at investigating the similarities and differences between Vygotsky's perspectives on child language development with nativism and behaviorism. Proposing the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development, Vygotsky emphasized the role of collaborative interaction, scaffolding, and guided participation in language learning. Nativists, on…

In resurgence, an operant behavior that has undergone extinction can return ("resurge") when a second operant that has replaced it itself undergoes extinction. The phenomenon may provide insight into relapse that may occur after incentive or contingency management therapies in humans. Three experiments with rats examined the impact of several…

Safety signals provide "relief" through predicting the absence of an aversive event. At issue is whether these signals also act as instrumental reinforcers. Four experiments were conducted using a free-operant lever-press avoidance paradigm in which each press avoided shock and was followed by the presentation of a 5-sec auditory safety…

Findings from a randomized controlled design study of an ability-based versus needs-based approach to response-contingent learning among children with significant developmental delays and disabilities who did not use instrumental behavior to produce reinforcing consequences are reported. The ability-based intervention and needs-based intervention…

Over the past few years an increasing number of schools and community organizations have developed transformative learning spaces referred to as "MakerSpaces" for research and training purposes. MakerSpaces are organizations in which members sharing similar interests in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) gather to work on…

Three experiments investigated the effects of immediate and delayed postsession feeding on progressive-ratio and variable-interval schedule performance in rats. During Experiments 1 and 2, immediate postsession feeding decreased the breakpoint, or largest completed ratio, under progressive-ratio schedules. Experiment 3 was conducted to extend the…