Reaction Times of Younger and Older Men and Temporal Contingencies of Reinforcement

Baron, Alan; Menich, Stephen R.; Perone, Michael

doi:10.1901/jeab.1983.40-275

Cited by 37 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Most notably, the imposition of temporal contingencies resulted in increased response speeds to about the same extent for men of both ages. This finding, together with the results of other studies using operant procedures (Baron & Menich, 1985;Baron et al, 1983), argues against the conclusion that response slowing is an inevitable consequence of the aging process. An open question is whether increased speeds when operant contingencies are applied should be viewed as reflecting the strengthening of otherwise unpracticed repertoires (Thorndike, Bregman, Tilton, & Woodyard, 1928) or the development of mechanisms that compensate for central nervous system inadequacies.…”

Section: Age-related Effectsmentioning

confidence: 68%

Reaction Times of Younger and Older Men: Effects of Compound Samples and a Prechoice Signal on Delayed Matching‐to‐sample Performances

Baron

Menich

1985

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Five younger (18 to 23 yrs) and five older (65 to 73 yrs) men were exposed to a series of immediate and delayed (0 to 15 seconds) matching-to-sample problems. Presentation of the pairs of delayed comparison stimuli was either signaled or unsignaled, and the sample contained either 1, 2, or 3 elements, one of which appeared as the positive stimulus. During initial sessions, unlimited time was available to respond. Subsequently, correct responses were reinforced only if they occurred within a specified time limit. A general finding was slower responding with increased delay and with increased number of sample elements. These effects were reduced when the comparison stimuli were signaled and when time limits were in effect. Errors increased as a function of the manipulations of sample complexity and time limits, but did not change systematically when the delay between sample and comparison stimuli was varied. Although the younger men generally responded more quickly than the older ones, men of both ages showed increased speeds when limits were placed on response time, and these changes were maintained when the temporal contingencies were removed.Key words: reaction time, temporal contingencies, stimulus complexity, signaled discrimination, delayed matching to sample, practice effects, young and old adult humans Reaction time frequently is interpreted as an indicator of the speed of unobserved inner events such as the time required for cognitive processing or the rate at which information is transmitted within the nervous system (Welford, 1980). But reaction time also is a property of behavior in its own right, and the speed of an operant response should be sensitive to environmental events contingent on the response. Support for this view comes mainly from experiments that found that response speeds of animal subjects (rats, monkeys) were influenced by the magnitude of the reinforcer and by contingencies based on fast versus slow responding (e.g

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Section: Age-related Effectsmentioning

confidence: 68%

Reaction Times of Younger and Older Men: Effects of Compound Samples and a Prechoice Signal on Delayed Matching‐to‐sample Performances

Baron

Menich

1985

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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“…Such a decrement in class indicative responding, however, is not always found with adult participants; rather, some have reported no decrement with increases in the DMTS delay interval (Baron, Menich, & Perone, 1983;DeFulio, 2002). The differences in outcomes may be driven by the use of different problem-solving strategies in the delay intervals on various experiments.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

The Expression of Equivalence Classes Influenced by Distractors During DMTS Test Trials

Arntzen

Vie

2013

European Journal of Behavior Analysis

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“…Although a number of basic operant studies have been conducted with cognitively intact older adults (e.g., Baron & Menich, 1985;Baron, Menich, & Perone, 1983;Perone & Baron, 1982;Plaud, Gillund, & Ferraro, 2000), to our knowledge, only two basic studies of the degree to which operant learning can occur in older adults with dementia have been published (Ankus & Quarrington, 1972;Burgess, Wearden, Cox, & Rae, 1992) and we know of none that have appeared since 1992. Although the results of prior investigations suggest that the responding of older adults with dementia may be sensitive to changes in contingencies of reinforcement, researchers in these studies evaluated operant learning in persons with dementia that arose from varied and, at times, poorly characterized causes.…”

Section: West Virginia Universitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Operant Conditioning in Older Adults with Alzheimer’s Disease

Spira

Edelstein

2007

Psychol Rec

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Behavioral interventions based on operant principles are commonly attempted to manage agitation in older adults with dementia. The extent to which operant conditioning can occur in persons with particular dementias, however, is unclear. The present study involved use of a button-pressing task to evaluate the sensitivity of the responding of older individuals with and without probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) to changes in schedules of reinforcement. It was expected that participants with AD would acquire the experimental task and that they would demonstrate less sensitivity to changes in schedules of reinforcement than participants without AD. Results indicated that operant conditioning can occur in older adults with AD and that they can respond to different schedules of reinforcement. The responding of 3 participants with AD was highly sensitive to a transition from a fixed interval schedule to an extinction schedule. Two participants with AD demonstrated responding that was sensitive to a more subtle transition. Participants with AD failed to show spontaneous recovery of responding after a delay. The performances of participants with and without AD are compared, and implications of findings for behavioral interventions in AD are discussed.Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia, affecting approximately 4 million Americans (Alzheimer's Association, 2002). Approximately 10% of adults older than 65 years and almost half of those over 85 years have the disease (Alzheimer's Association). The organic pathology that underlies AD can produce a variety of maladaptive behaviors, including aggression, screaming, and wandering, typically referred to as agitation (Cohen-Mansfield and Billig, 1986). Agitation

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Reaction Times of Younger and Older Men and Temporal Contingencies of Reinforcement

Cited by 37 publications

References 23 publications

Reaction Times of Younger and Older Men: Effects of Compound Samples and a Prechoice Signal on Delayed Matching‐to‐sample Performances

Reaction Times of Younger and Older Men: Effects of Compound Samples and a Prechoice Signal on Delayed Matching‐to‐sample Performances

The Expression of Equivalence Classes Influenced by Distractors During DMTS Test Trials

Operant Conditioning in Older Adults with Alzheimer’s Disease

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