Previous research has suggested that the availability of high-preference stimuli may override the reinforcing efficacy of concurrently available low-preference stimuli under relatively low schedule requirements (e.g., fixed-ratio 1 schedule). It is unknown if similar effects would be obtained under higher schedule requirements. Thus, the current…

This paper was presented by the senior author at the Merrill-Palmer Institute Conference on Research and Teaching of Infant Development, February 13-15, 1969. (MH)

Investigated simultaneous occurrence of emergent stimulus-response relations (functional equivalence) and stimulus-stimulus relations (stimulus equivalence). Trained 4- and 5-year olds to emit specified responses to pairs of stimuli in one setting (original training) and to emit other responses to one member of each pair in another setting…

INTERORD executes in the interactive mode by presenting pairs to be judged at a remote terminal. The respondent at the terminal judges which one of the objects dominates the other. INTERORD utilized the observed dominance relations to determine which additional relations are implied by the transitivity principle. (Author/RC)

The primary objective of the proposed research was to investigate the effects on learning of various stimulus-response (S-R) mapping schemes. It was hypothesized that S-R connections are not simply arbitrary, that the way stimulus and response classes are mapped together may have a profound effect on learning rate. To study this problem, two…

Pigeons were trained to respond to stimuli from a continuous stimulus dimension (tonal frequency) with response values from continuous response dimension. Both the number of points of correspondence and problem difficulty were varied. Following training, subjects were tested with stimulus values intermediate to those trained. During these test…

Article describes a study in stimulus-sampling that now makes it possible for the theory to account for the increased resistance to extinction following partial reinforcement. (Author/ML)

Describes the rationale underlying as well as the major features of a computer-interactive APL program IRIS, the objective of which is to obtain an individual's simple ordering of a set of stimuli in as few paired comparison preference judgments as possible. (Author/RC)

The relationship between neonatal visual information-processing and the burst-pause pattern of nonnutritive sucking was explored. (JMB)

TWO EXPERIMENTS WERE PERFORMED TO INVESTIGATE THE EFFECT OF RELATIVE NOVELTY ON CHOICE BEHAVIOR. IN THE FIRST, 48 CHILDREN OF MEAN AGE 4.4 YEARS WERE PREEXPOSED TO 1 OF 2 SETS OF TOYS FOR 0, 1, 3, OR 5 MINUTES. EACH WAS THEN GIVEN 10 OPPORTUNITIES TO PLAY WITH 1 SET FOR 30 SECONDS. THE MEAN NUMBER OF CHOICES OF THE NOVEL SET INCREASED WITH THE…

This study compared the help-eliciting capacity of 4 helping conditions. Within each condition a male confederate dropped in the path of an oncoming pedestrian either 5 books, 5 coins, a glove (unwittingly), or a book (while the confederate was on crutches). The percentage of subjects helping ranged from 3 to 100, depending on the condition. The…

Children and adults were trained and tested on formation of novel simple discriminations and conditional stimulus relations. Subjects who formed these sets were trained and tested on formation of stimulus equivalence classes. A modest majority of children matched directly paired stimuli; a few matched indirectly paired stimuli. All normal adults…

A STUDY WAS CONDUCTED TO DETERMINE WHETHER PEOPLE CAN CHANGE THEIR PERCEPTUAL PROCESSING STRATEGIES TO INCLUDE TESTS FOR THE PRESENCE OF ONLY THOSE STIMULUS FEATURES NECESSARY FOR THE TASK AT HAND. LEARNING DURING PRACTICE AND THE EFFECT OF AGE ON THE ABILITY TO USE OPTIMAL STRATEGIES WERE INVESTIGATED. A DISJUNCTIVE REACTION TIME PROCEDURE WAS…