DISCUSSIONIt is apparent from the results that a patient's performance on the PCM is related to those characteristics which the ward staff consider important in the granting of privileges. It should also be noted that the mean standard score for the maze in both samples was approximately 40, or one standard deviation below that of normals, a finding consistent with that of Peters('). These results suggest that the use of mazes as a measure of social-psychological functioning may have general applicability. Traditional intelligence tests are not likely to be as sensitive measures of this functioning, as demonstrated by our finding that vocabulary performance was not consistently related to progress.It was noted that the psychotics who earned scores over 60 ( Table 3) failed to progress at the expected rate. Examination of the records of these seven individuals revealed that three of them were transferred to a privileged ward several days after the thirty-day cutting criterion. The remaining cases had records of aggressive behavior. As shown in Table 1 there was a lack of significant differences on the data for patients on privileged wards and those discharged. One possible reason for this is that given a certain degree of emotional stability, environmental factors such as family acceptance or the availability of employment may become more important with respect to discharge than the individual's psychiatric condition. SUMMARYThis study investigated the relationship between a patient's ability to make adequate choices between alternatives as measured by a maze test and the granting of privileges by the hospital staff. Data were collected for two groups of NP patients totaling 227 cases on: Peters' Circular Pencil Maze Scores, vocabulary test score, diagnosis, and place of residence a t the end of thirty days. Maze perform. a : i ce was found to be related to progress at the .001 level. The mazes appear to be a useful technique for screening patients for early discharge from an institution. REFERENCES 1. PETERS, H. N. Circular maze performance in chronic schizophrenics. J . din. Psychol. PROBLEMNumerous verbal conditioning studies have been reported in the literature and excellent reviews of the area are available(2. 3 ) . The writers have been unable to locate, however, a single study reporting verbal conditioning in an actual therapeutic treatment case. This paper reports the manipulation of verbal behavior in a 60 year old male who has been hospitalized continuously for over twenty years. The patient was verbose, expressing freely delusions of grandeur and persecution. It was decided that rational speech would be designated as the dependent variable to be 1Appreciation is extended to Dr. M. Dinoff and Dr. E. 0. Timmons for critical readings of the "ow at Florida State Hospital, Hollywood, Florida. manuscript.
367rational responding to E 2 was disrupted by the radical "cue change" of a new experimenter.A high level of rational speech was obtained in this patient through elicitation and reinforcement techniques. It is apparent, however, that the newly established behavior showed little resistance to extinction in either experiment. This is not too surprising since the incompatible habit, verbalization of delusional material, had been reinforced over a long period of time and under a wide range of stimulus conditions. Various other attempts could be made t o build in the desired verbal behavior. For example, a series of experimenters could repeat the procedure followed by E 2 and E 3 in the expectation that generalization of the rational verbalizations to the stimulus class "other people" would eventually be enhanced. SUMMARYRational verbalizations in a neuropsychiatric patient were chosen at the class of behavior to reinforce while an effort was made not to reinforce the incompatible class, delusional material. E 1 conditioned the dependent variable, rational speech, to a high level of occurrence under a high frequency of reinforcement, but the conditioned response dropped sharply when an attempt was made t o lower the frequency of reinforcement. E 2 exposed the same S to alternating ten minute periods of "minimal" and "maximal" reinforcement and demonstrated condit>ioning of the same dependent variable. E 3 replicated the procedure which E 2 had followed and obtained similar results. REFERENCES 1. JENKINS, W. 0. and STANLEY, J. C. Partial reinforcement: a review and critique. Psychol. 2. KRASNER, L. Studies of the conditioning of verbal behavior. Psychol. Bull., 1958,66,148-170. 3. SALZINOER, K. Experimental manipulation of verbal behavior: a review.
Social reinforcement of self-wheeling by a psychotic effectively increased rate of self-wheeling more than 100% over the baseline of the operant.
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