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Biomedical subjects

A C Catania

Publications and source records attributed to A C Catania.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Pigeons' preference for free choice: number of keys versus key area.

In concurrent-chains schedules, pigeons prefer terminal links that provide two keys correlated with reinforcers (free choice) over those that provide only one key (forced choice), terminal-link reinforcement rates being equal. With same-size keys, free choice provides a larger area available for pecking. Preferences were examined using terminal links that differed in key number only (one or two) or key size only (small and medium or medium and large), or that equated the area of the two free-choice keys with that of the forced-choice key. Medium (standard) keys were typically preferred to small keys, but indifference was typically obtained between medium and large keys. The size preference usually overrode free-choice preference with one medium key pitted against two small keys, but free-choice preference was reliably observed with one large key pitted against two medium keys. In other words, preferences were a joint function of key number and key area, implying that free-choice preference is not reducible to preference for larger key areas. Free-choice preference requires separate keys rather than larger areas; the relevant behavioral units are the discriminated operants correlated with each terminal-link key rather than classes defined by topographical features such as area or perimeter.

Animals↗
PubMed1995

Higher-order behavior classes: contingencies, beliefs, and verbal behavior.

The concepts of reinforcement and of higher-order classes of behavior are reviewed and applied to analyses of self-reinforcement, self-efficacy, the causal status of private events, and the role of verbal behavior in human action. The analyses support the case that Bandura's criticisms of behavior analytic thought rest upon several misunderstandings, the most important of which are the distinctions between theories and phenomena and a neglect of the process of ontogenic selection. Bandura's persistence in promoting these misunderstandings is puzzling, because over a period of at least two decades he has repeated without substantial correction arguments that were refuted at the time he first made them. Bandura's views on these concepts can be interpreted as a contemporary variety of creationism in behavioral science.

Association Learning↗
PubMed1992

B. F. Skinner, organism.

B. F. Skinner illustrated the power of behavior analysis by turning it upon his own behavior. This article considers parallels in the life and work of Charles Darwin and places Skinner's views on life and death in the context of his selectionist paradigm for psychology. The term organism plays a special role, and the account shows why B. F. Skinner might have regarded it as an appropriate title.

Behaviorism↗
PubMed1988

Reinforcement schedules: Retroactive and proactive effects of reinforcers inserted into fixed-interval performances.

The responding maintained by a reinforcer depends on the relation of the reinforcer not merely to the response that produces it but also to other preceding responses. Early responses in a sequence that ends in a reinforcing consequence make smaller contributions to later response rates than more recent ones, by virtue of the longer delays that separate them from the reinforcer. This study shows that the relation between a response and a later reinforcer contributes to responding only if no other reinforcers intervene; in other words, each reinforcer blocks responses that precede it from the effects of later reinforcers. Pigeons' pecks were maintained by fixed-interval (FI) schedules of food reinforcement. When FI 60-s (short) and FI 75-s (long) schedules began simultaneously within constant 150-s cycles, long FIs did not affect short-FI performances, but short FIs eliminated the first 60 s of long-FI performances. Removing either short-FI reinforcers or short-FI stimuli showed that short-FI reinforcers and not short-FI stimuli blocked the first 60 s of the long-FI performance from the retroactive effects of the long-FI reinforcer. With FI 15-s and FI 75-s schedules, the short-FI reinforcer was followed by reduced long-FI responding, but a schedule that prevented discrimination based on time since a reinforcer eliminated this proactive effect of the short-FI reinforcer. In other words, the retroactive effects were reinforcer effects whereas the proactive effects were discriminative effects. Quantitative descriptions of variable-interval performances, in which reinforcer effects may operate in the absence of temporal discriminative effects, can be derived from these relations.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1987

Correspondence between definitions and procedures: A reply to Stokes, Osnes, and Guevremont.

Stokes, Osnes, and Guevremont's (1987) implicit definition of correspondence classes appears close to ours (Matthews, Shimoff, & Catania, 1987). Their definition, however, is fundamentally procedural and thus may have to be modified as experimental methodologies are refined. The advantage of our contingency-space analysis is that it is independent of specific procedures and focuses attention on problems inherent in some procedural definitions. Specifically, a contingency-space analysis addresses the issue of distinguishing specific instances from classes and reminds us that correspondence can be identified as a class only on the basis of observing a population of opportunities for say/do sequences in which the subject sometimes does not say.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1987

Saying and doing: A contingency-space analysis.

Correspondences between verbal responding (saying) and nonverbal responding (doing) may be organized in terms of the classes of verbal/nonverbal relations into which particular instances of verbal/nonverbal response sequences can enter. Contingency spaces, which display relations among events in terms of the probability of one event given or not given another, have been useful in analyses of nonverbal behavior. We derive a taxonomy of verbal/nonverbal behavior relations from a contingency space that takes into account two conditional probabilities: the probability of a nonverbal response given a verbal response and that probability given the absence of the verbal response. For example, positive correspondence may be said to exist as a response class when the probability of doing is high given saying but is otherwise low. Criteria for other generalized classes, including negative correspondence, follow from this analysis.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1986

Human operant performance: Sensitivity and pseudosensitivity to contingencies.

Undergraduates' button presses occasionally produced points exchangeable for money. Left and right buttons were initially correlated with multiple random-ratio (RR) and random-interval (RI) components, respectively. During interruptions of the multiple schedule, students filled out sentence-completion guess sheets describing the schedules, and points were contingent upon the accuracy of guesses. To test for sensitivity to schedule contingencies, schedule components were repeatedly reversed between the two buttons. Pressing rates were consistently higher in ratio than in interval components even when feedback for guesses was discontinued, demonstrating sensitivity to the difference between ratio and interval contingencies. The question was whether this sensitivity was based directly on the contingencies or whether it was rule-governed. For two students, when multiple RR RI schedules were changed to multiple RI RI schedules, rates became low in both components of the multiple RI RI schedule; however, subsequent prevention of point deliveries for the first few responses in any component produced high rates in that component. For a third student, response rates became higher in the RI component that provided the lower rate of reinforcement. In each case, performance was inconsistent with typical effects of the respective schedules with nonhuman organisms; it was therefore plausible to conclude that the apparently contingency-governed performances were instead rule-governed.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1986

Rapid determinations of preference in multiple concurrent-chain schedules.

With concurrent chains arranged for a pigeon's key pecks, pecks on two concurrently available initial-link keys (left and right) respectively produce separately operating terminal links (A and B). Preferences for terminal link A over terminal link B are usually calculated as deviations of relative initial-link response rates (left divided by total pecks) from those during baseline conditions, when A equals B. Baseline preferences, however, are often variable and typically are determined indirectly (e.g., with unequal A and B, reversing left-right assignments of A and B over sessions and estimating the baseline from differences between the relative rates generated). Multiple concurrent-chain schedules, with components each consisting of a pair of concurrent chains, speed the determination of preferences by arranging A and B and their reversal within sessions. In two experiments illustrating the feasibility of this procedure, one component operated with circles projected on initial-link keys and the other with pluses; when left and right initial-link pecks respectively produced terminal links A and B in one component, they produced B and A in the other. Even as the baselines fluctuated, preference was observable within sessions as the difference between relative initial-link response rates in the two components. The first experiment demonstrated the rapid development of preferences when terminal links A and B consisted of fixed-interval 15-s and 30-s schedules. The second demonstrated the sensitivity of the procedure to preference for a fixed-interval 30-s schedule operating for pecks on either of two keys (free choice) over its operating for pecks on only a single key (forced choice).

Animals↗
PubMed1985

Effects of uninstructed verbal behavior on nonverbal responding: Contingency descriptions versus performance descriptions.

Undergraduates' button presses occasionally made available points that were exchangeable for money. Lights over left and right buttons were respectively correlated with multiple random-ratio random-interval components. During interruptions of the multiple schedule, students filled out sentence-completion guess sheets. When shaping of these guesses produced performance descriptions (e.g., "press slowly" for the left button and "press fast" for the right), button-pressing rates typically were consistent with the verbal behavior even when rates were opposite to those ordinarily maintained by the respective schedules. When shaping instead produced contingency descriptions (e.g., the button works "after a random number of presses" or "a random time since it worked before"), pressing rates were inconsistently related to the descriptions; for some students descriptions of ratio contingencies generated higher corresponding pressing rates than were produced by descriptions of interval contingencies, but for others contingency descriptions and pressing rates were unrelated.

Journal Article↗