Studies of the conditioning of verbal behavior.

The effects of locus of control instructions and reinforcement contingency on performance in a two-choice situation

“…The finding that this stimulus exerted a significant effect upon performance under the contingency of reinforcement for non-dominant responses is of particular interest in this regard, and suggests that being correct in a situation such as the one employed in the present study is a potent reinforcement for human Ss. The results of other experiments have indicated that 122 diverse stimuli such as verbal praise (e.g., Krasner, 1958), successful prediction of an uncertain event (e.g., Kanareff & Lanzetta, 1960) and the presentation of attitude statements which agree or disagree with Ss' responses to an attitude scale (Byrne, Young, & Griffit, 1966) may produce similar effects. These results suggest the need for systematic investigation of the stimuli which may serve as reinforcers for human Ss.…”

Operant control of vocal responding in rats

“…The present study was an attempt to determine if vocalization in the rat can be brought under stimulus control through operant conditioning. Operant vocalization has previously been demonstrated in the parakeet (Ginsberg, 1960), the crow (Kranser, 1958), the dog (Konorski, 1948) and the chicken (Lane, 1960). Rats, however, failed to vocalize to avoid shock in experiments reported by Mowrer, Palmer, & Sanger (1948).…”

Current Status and Future Directions of Operant Research on Verbal Behavior: Baselines

“…In certain respects, this is precisely what happened. Operant psychologists (behavior analysts) began in a number of different ways to study verbal behavior as they had studied nonverbal behavior (there had always been a scattered research program; e.g., see Holtz & Azrin, 1966;Krasner, 1958;McLeish & Martin, 1975), although the efforts lacked the systematic development that characterized the rise of the experimental analysis of nonverbal behavior. The usual measures, rate of response or distribution of responses, did not seem to be especially relevant.…”