Background: The study reported here was an examination of the reliability of a method for determining acquiescent responding and the capacity to respond to items using a Likert scale response format by adults with an intellectual disability. Method: Reliability of the outcomes of these procedures was investigated using a test-retest design.…

The purpose of this study was to analyze fear extinction and reinstatement in humans using fear-potentiated startle. Participants were fear conditioned using a simple discrimination procedure with colored lights as the conditioned stimuli (CSs) and an airblast to the throat as the unconditioned stimulus (US). Participants were extinguished 24 h…

STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO ESTABLISH DISCRIMINATORY RESPONSES TO PAIRS OF STIMULI WITHOUT ERROR RESPONSES TO THE UNREINFORCED (S-) STIMULUS. THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY WAS TO DETERMINE THE EFFECTS OF 2 METHODS OF INTRODUCING S- (FADING AND CONSTANT) AND 2 RESPONSE CONTINGENCIES (DELAY AND NO DELAY) ON THE OCCURRENCE OF S- RESPONSES.…

Fifteen autistic and 15 normal Ss were trained to respond to a card containing two visual cues. The children were further tested on the single cues in order to assess whether one or both stimuli had acquired control over their responding. (Editor/RK)

A version of the paper was presented at the American Association on Mental Deficiency (Boston, May, 1968). (JM)

Two 4-year-old children were shown the use of an apparatus whereby they could obtain toys and candy by making certain responses. The apparatus was a matching-to-sample device on which were arranged five response buttons in a circle and one in the middle. Each response button had a display window for the stimulus. Four of the five windows on the…

Three studies involving groups of four- to five-year-old children examined whether the discriminative properties of prompts are critical for establishing a difficult (septagon, octagon) discrimination through time delay. Results confirm superiority of multiple-stimulus, distinctive-feature prompts, implying that stimulus dimensions of prompts are…

Preschoolers learned colors more rapidly than sizes and forms when cup stimuli were used. They learned sizes and forms more rapidly than colors when face stimuli were used. (RL)

Human recognition behavior is influenced by the phenomenon of shape constancy, which occurs when the shape of an object is correctly perceived regardless of the orientation of the object in space. The research reported here tests the validity of the shape-slant invariance hypothesis, a theoretical formulation of the phenomenon of shape constancy.…

This experiment examines extended learning over a 4-day period in infants exposed to responsive and unresponsive wooden mobiles. Frequency of kicks and attention to the mobile increased over the first three days and was found to vary with the introduction of a novel mobile on day four. (GO)

Results of two experiments show that only postinformative feedback intervals to be significant sources of variation; mean trends appeared to indicate that extended preresponse intervals interfere with performance, if anything. (Authors/MB)