Four- and five-year-old children (n=24) were put into two groups and trained to discriminate between two displays which could only be differentiated by a single distinctive feature located on one of the displays. Subjects trained with the distinctive feature located on the positive display learned the simultaneous discrimination while feature…

Presents experiments with a straight line seen for a short stimulus time in which the subjects perceived the line to lengthen from the point of fixation and then to shorten to the point of fixation immediately thereafter. (MB)

Statistically, haloperidol was significantly superior to placebo in reducing behavioral symptoms. In a discrimination learning paradigm, autistic children receiving haloperidol learned the discrimination while those on placebo did not. Discrimination attained on haloperidol was retained when the children were switched to placebo. (Author)

In experiment one, the experimenter delivered frequent or infrequent social reinforcement that was either contingent or noncontingent. In experiment two, seating arrangements were varied so that information concerning the direction of reinforcement was made ambiguous. (RH)

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…

In Experiment 1, we trained four pigeons to concurrently discriminate displays of 16 same icons (16S) from displays of 16 different icons (16D) as well as between displays of same icons (16S) from displays that contained 15 same icons and one different icon (15S:1D). The birds rapidly learned to discriminate 16S vs. 16D displays, but they failed…

Using a context discrimination procedure and rats as the subjects, the formation of context-dependent aversions to novel and familiar fluids was investigated. Experiment 1 revealed that context dependency could be established to a novel fluid (saccharin) after three cycles of context discrimination training and that the acquired context dependency…

To date, only 1 study has evaluated the impact of a Pavlovian drug conditional stimulus (CS) on operant responding. A within-subject operant 1-lever go/no-go (across sessions) design was used to evaluate the impact of Pavlovian contingencies on the discriminative stimulus effects of nicotine (0.4 mg/kg) and ethanol (800 mg/kg) in male Sprague…

Viewing a threatening stimulus can bias visual attention toward that location. Such effects have typically been investigated only in the visual modality, despite the fact that many threatening stimuli are most dangerous when close to or in contact with the body. Recent multisensory research indicates that a neutral visual stimulus, such as a light…

The relative effectiveness of positive and negative adult preference statements in controlling children's behavior was studied. Results indicated that the adult's antecedent negative comments exerted greater control over the children than did the positive comments. (ST)