Verbal Reinforcement Combinations, Task Complexity, Age and Sex in Children's Discrimination Learning

Miller, Frank D.; Moffat, Gene H.; Cotter, Patrick D.; Ochocki, Thomas E.

doi:10.2466/pms.1973.37.2.531

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Programmed instruction has been conceptualized as an elaborate form of discrimination training (Skinner, 1968), and punishment of incorrect responses is one of the most effective ways to improve discrimination performance (Getsie, Langer, & Glass, 1985). This has been shown consistently with laboratory animals (Fowler, Hochhauser, & Wischner, 1981), intellectually disabled children (Harris & Tramontana, 1973), intellectually normal children (Miller, Moffat, Cotter, & Ochocki, 1973), impulsive children (Hemry, 1973), hyperactive children (Cunningham & Knights, 1978), and adults (Matthews & Shimoff, 1974). The functions of punishment most useful in learning are its ability to decrease error rates, slow an organism's rate of responding (Borresen, 1973;Donahue & Ratliff, 1976;Tindall & Ratliff, 1974), and get the organism to attend carefully to stimulus features in the environment (Balaban, Rhodes, & Neuringer, 1990;Muenzinger, 1934;Ratliff & Root, 1974).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Response Cost in Computerized Programmed Instruction

Munson

Crosbie

1998

Psychol Rec

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Punishment improves discrimination learning, and programmed instruction is an elaborate form of discrimination training, so the present experiment assessed whether punishment also improves performance on programmed instruction. The cost of such improvement in terms of increased training time and dissatisfaction of subjects also was assessed. Three college students completed a computerized version of Holland and Skinner's (1961) programmed text. One subject received a two-component multiple schedule within a reversal design, and two subjects received the same twocomponent multiple-schedule without a return-io-baseline phase. During baseline, subjects received 5¢ for each frame completed, regardless of whether responses were correct or incorrect. Multipleschedule conditions were either baseline conditions or a loss of 5¢ for each incorrect response (punishment). Punishment improved performance by 10%, increased training time by 15%, and did not affect reported satisfaction. The most likely mechanisms for this improved performance are that punishment increased study time or the salience of stimuli. This experiment showed that punishment can improve performance by one letter grade without subject dissatisfaction or significantly increasing training time.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Response Cost in Computerized Programmed Instruction

Munson

Crosbie

1998

Psychol Rec

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“…Delays may also have been aversive. When punishment is employed in discrimination training, subjects respond more slowly and attend more carefully to stimulus features (Barlow, 1933;Muenzinger, 1934aMuenzinger, , 1934b, and discriminated performance improves (Getsie, Langer, & Glass, 1985;Harris & Tramontana, 1973;F. Miller, Moffat, Cotter, & Ochocki, 1973).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Imposed Postfeedback Delays in Programmed Instruction

Crosbie

Kelly

1994

J of App Behav Analysis

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Imposed postfeedback delays promote discrimination training; the present experiments determined whether they also improve performance in programmed instruction. In two experiments, college students completed 45 sets of Holland and Skinner's (1961) programmed text on behavior analysis in a computerized format in a three-component multiple schedule. In Experiment 1, the conditions were (a) no delay between questions, (b) a 10-s delay after each question (noncontingent delay), and (c) a 10-s delay after each question answered incorrectly (contingent delay). Noncontingent delay produced better performance than no delay and contingent delay. To determine whether performance increased in the noncontingent delay condition because subjects studied the material during delay periods, Experiment 2 tested three conditions: (a) no delay between questions, (b) a 10-s delay after each question (noncontingent delay), and (c) a 10-s delay after each question with the screen blank during the delay period. Noncontingent delay produced better performance than no delay, but there was no difference in performance between no delay and noncontingent delay with blank screen. Hence, noncontingent delay improved performance because students used delay periods to study. Furthermore, subjects preferred noncontingent delay to the other conditions, and session time increased only slightly.DESCRIPTORS: computer-based instruction, programmed instruction, multiple schedule, delay, college students Programmed instruction is discrimination training: Learners examine a stimulus, emit a response, receive feedback, and consequently make appropriate responses in the presence of novel stimuli (Skinner, 1954(Skinner, , 1968. Several researchers have obtained superior discriminated performance with college students when delays were imposed after feedback on concept-identification tasks (e.g., Bourne, 1957;Bourne & Bunderson, 1963;Bourne, Guy, Dodd, & Justesen, 1965;White & Schmidt, 1972). In a typical study (Bourne, 1957), subjects were presented with geometric patterns that had seven dimensions, but only two were necessary for correct dassification. Subjects reported which combination of dimensions was correct (e.g., largeThe present experiments were supported by grants from Deakin University's Internal and Science Research Budgets. We are grateful to Linda Blackman, Suzanne Brown, Sezen Ildiri, and Jo Taraborrelli for collecting the data in Experiment 1; Andrew Eltringham for helping to prepare test items;and Phil Chase and Mike Perone for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.Reprint requests should be sent to John Crosbie, who is now at the Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506-6040. square, large triangle, small square, or small triangle). After all stimulus patterns had been presented, subjects pressed one of four unlabeled keys that corresponded to the four possible combinations of relevant dimensions. Following a delay between o s and 8 s, a light was illuminated above the corre...

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“…A similar problem exists for studies examining reinforcement and punishment during children's learning where verbal praise and/or reprimands were provided as a consequence for response accuracy (Firestone & Douglas, 1977;Foxx, 1984;Hemry, 1973;Moses et al, 1979;Miller et al, 1973;Mueller & Gumina, 1972). The functional value of a consequence such as praise or reprimands may vary widely among individuals, as was demonstrated by Costello and Ferrer (1976).…”

Section: Assessment Of Functional Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…During learning tasks, complex stimuli were often used that varied across a number of possibly relevant dimensions, including color, shape, position, and size. Establishing discriminative control of a subject's selection by isolated properties of the stimuli was invariably most difficult to accomplish using reinforcement alone; punishment in isolation or in combination with reinforcement was the most effective consequence for bringing the choice behavior of human subjects under the control of the relevant properties of the learning task (Brackbill & O'Hara, 1958;Donahue & Ratliff, 1976;Harris & Tramontana, 1973;Hemry, 1973;Miller, Moffat, Cotter, & Ochocki, 1973;Mueller & Gumina, 1972;Ochocki, Cotter, & Miller, 1974;Penney, 1967;Ratliff & Root, 1974;Stevenson, Weir, & Zigler, 1959;Tindall & Ratliff, 1974;Trent, 1983;Witte & Johnson, 1973). These results were replicated across special populations of children, including hyperactive boys (Cunningham & Knights, 1978), impulsive children (Firestone & Douglas, 1977), and delinquent boys (Moses, Ratliff, & Ratliff, 1979).…”

Section: Simple Discrimination Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Researchers examining the effects of punishment and reinforcement on learning typically used a two-choice discrimination procedure (cf. Penney & Lupton, 1961) to examine the effects of reinforcement and punishment on children and adult learning (Brackbill & O'Hara, 1958;Cunningham & Knights, 1978;Donohue & Ratliff, 1976;Erickson, 1970;Harris & Tramontana, 1973;Miller et al, 1973;Moses et al, 1979;Mueller & Gumina, 1972;Penney, 1961;Penney & Lupton, 1967;Ratliff & Root, 1974;Tindall & Ratliff, 1974;Witte & Johnson, 1973). The conclusion that punishment produces increases in correct responding during a two-alternative discrimination procedure could be an artifact of the experimental procedure: the punishment of one of two available responses necessitates an increase in the probability of the only alternative response (cf.…”

Section: Two-choice Discrimination Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reinforcement and punishment during programmed instruction

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Verbal Reinforcement Combinations, Task Complexity, Age and Sex in Children's Discrimination Learning

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

Effects of Response Cost in Computerized Programmed Instruction

Effects of Response Cost in Computerized Programmed Instruction

Effects of Imposed Postfeedback Delays in Programmed Instruction

Reinforcement and punishment during programmed instruction

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