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Biomedical subjects

H H Emurian

Publications and source records attributed to H H Emurian.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1988

Programmed environment management of confined microsocieties.

A programmed environment is described that assists the implementation and management of schedules governing access to all resources and information potentially available to members of a confined microsociety. Living and work schedules are presented that were designed to build individual and group performance repertoires in support of study objectives and sustained adaptation by participants. A variety of measurement requirements can be programmed and standardized to assure continuous assessment of the status and health of a confined microsociety.

Behavior↗
PubMed1985

Situational suppression of cigarette smoking.

Cigarette smoking rate was observed during work and recreation while subjects participated in two long-term residential experiments. In both experiments, the smoking rate observed during work was markedly lower than the smoking rate observed during recreation. In Experiment 1, activities were performed in successive 1-hour blocks. Smoking suppression during work was not associated with an increase in smoking rate following work. Experiment 2 consisted of treatment days of alternating 30-, 60-, and 120-minute work periods and recreation and control days when no work periods were presented. Performance of work was again associated with a marked suppression of smoking. In addition, the smoking rate for days during which no work was performed was greater than the smoking rate for days during which intermittent work was performed. This effect was not related to the length of the work periods. This finding indicates that subjects failed to compensate totally for work-related decreases in smoking. All subjects exhibited partial compensation.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Positive and negative reinforcement effects on behavior in a three-person microsociety.

Three-person groups, either of males or of females, resided for 6 to 12 days in a continuously programmed environment. Subjects followed a behavioral program that determined the sequential and contingent relations within an inventory of activities. The program consisted of positive reinforcement days and avoidance days. During a positive reinforcement day, each work unit completed by a subject incremented a group account. The account was divided evenly among the three participants at the conclusion of the study. During a negative reinforcement day, no money was earned, and the group was assigned work unit criterion that, if completed, prevented a reduction in accumulated earnings. During negative reinforcement days, subjects made aggressive verbal responses, which differed in magnitude among the four groups. These differences were evident in several distinct behavioral measures. Performances on components of the work unit were not demonstrably affected by the reinforcement schedules in effect, although during the avoidance condition one subject stopped working and another subject's productivity declined.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Cardiovascular effects of noise during complex task performance.

Ten human subjects were stimulated with intermittent pink noise during the performance of a computerized task. Each subject received 3 consecutive sessions consisting of 10 min of baseline, 30 min of task performance, and 10 min of post-task baseline. Noise stimulation was presented during minutes 10-20 of task performance. Task performance was associated with significant increases in mean blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration rate and significant decreases in digital pulse amplitude. Noise stimulation was associated with a further decrease in digital pulse amplitude and a further increase in mean blood pressure. Noise- and task-elicited blood pressure and vasomotor responses did not habituate.

Blood Pressure↗
PubMed1982

Event time-series relationship between cigarette smoking and coffee drinking.

Eight subjects resided in a programmed laboratory environment for seven to twelve successive days during which time cigarettes and coffee were freely available. An event time-series analysis based upon instances in time of each substance's use revealed a relationship between cigarette smoking and coffee drinking: a coffee-drinking event tended to occur late in the inter-cigarette interval, and a cigarette-smoking event was most probable during the twenty minutes immediately following a coffee-drinking event.

Coffee↗
PubMed1982

On the regularity of smoking.

The purpose of this paper is to provide fundamental information about individual subject smoking behavior when the behavior is characterized as an event time-series. Each subject's smoking series revealed a characteristic inter-cigarette interval frequency distribution but there was little evidence of sequential dependencies in the series with respect to either successive intervals or successive events in time. Several subjects exhibited possible characteristic peaks or troughs during successive 2-hour periods, a finding which was in agreement with previous studies, but even in these subjects temporal patterning accounted for only a small proportion of the total variance. The implications of these findings are discussed and recommendations for the future treatment of smoking data and for possible experimental approaches to the determinants of smoking are presented.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Effects of a pairing contingency on behavior in a three-person programmed environment.

Four groups of three subjects resided for 10 days within a continuously programmed environment. Subjects followed a behavioral program of contingently scheduled activities that determined individual and social behaviors. A triadic condition was in effect when all three subjects were required to select simultaneous access to a group area before it became available for a social episode. A dyadic condition was in effect when access to a group area was permitted to any combination of two, and only two, subjects. The effects of these two conditions on individual and social behaviors were studied in reversal designs with several successive days devoted to each condition. Results showed that durations of social activities and synchronization of individual activities were greater during triadic conditions than during dyadic conditions. Under both conditions, wake-sleep cycles departed from a typical day-night rhythm for most subjects. Instances when subjects did not respond to each others' attempts to initiate conversations using the intercom were generally more frequent during dyadic than triadic conditions. Physical distance during triadic social episodes was found to be related to sociability levels during dyadic conditions.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1976

The effects of a cooperation contingency on behavior in a continuous three-person environment.

Five groups of three subjects resided for 10 or 15 days within a continuously programmed environment. Subjects followed a programmatic arrangement of required and optional private and social activities that determined the individual and group baseline behaviors into which experimental operations were introduced and withdrawn. A cooperation condition was in effect when all three subjects were required to select simultaneous access to a group area before it became available for use. A noncooperation condition was in effect when access to a group area could be selected by individual subjects, without regard to the other subjects' selections. For all groups, the effects of these two conditions on individual and group behaviors were investigated in reversal designs where several successive days occurred under each condition. Groups 1, 4, and 5 had the noncooperation condition interposed between cooperation conditions. Groups 2 and 3 had the cooperation condition interposed between noncooperation conditions. Durations of triadic activities, per cent of time in triadic activities, intercom use, and intersubject program synchronization were greater during cooperation conditions than during noncooperation conditions. These data show that a cooperation contingency within the behavioral program affected both social behavior and the collateral individual behavior necessary to execute the cooperation response.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1972

Compounding discriminative stimuli controlling free-operant avoidance.

The performances of three rats were stabilized on a multiple schedule that maintained responding by a free-operant avoidance schedule during independent presentations of tone and light. The simultaneous absence of these stimuli signalled shock-free periods and controlled response cessation. Subsequently, test sessions were administered consisting of independent presentations of each stimulus and these stimuli compounded (tone-plus-light). During an extinction test, additive summation was observed to the compounded stimuli, i.e., more responses were emitted to the compound than to either tone or light. During a series of 28 maintenance-test sessions in which the shock schedule remained operative, the compounded stimuli produced a generally enhanced response rate and fewer pauses terminating with shock than either single stimulus condition. These results extend the generality of free-operant additive summation to responding maintained by aversive control. In addition, a comparison of the present study with previous experiments reporting additive summation of positively reinforced responding indicates that similar variables-rate and aversive differences between training stimulus conditions-should be considered in accounting for response distributions during stimulus compounding when responding is controlled by either positive or negative contingencies.

Journal Article↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Behavior analysis of cigarette smoking.

Patterns of cigarette smoking, treated as series of discrete events in time, were investigated with a variety of quantitative techniques designed to characterize individual subject smoking series and to illuminate the relationship between cigarette smoking and environmental events. Data were collected from a total of 35 subjects who were either participants in residential laboratory studies or in a smoking cessation program. Cigarette smoking events were found to be fairly irregularly distributed with respect to time within individual subject series. However, strong dependencies were found between the occurrence in time of individual acts of cigarette smoking and coffee drinking. In addition, the distribution and frequency of smoking events throughout one-hour activity sequences were found to be dependent upon the nature of the activity, and the temporal scheduling of activities was found to affect several quantitative indices of smoking patterns.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Small groups in programmed environments. Behavioral and biological interactions.

This paper reviews a research program undertaken within a laboratory environment that was designed and constructed to support behavior analyses of individual and group performance effectiveness viewed conceptually within the context of a small-scale human microsociety. Summarized are previous research emphases and findings in relationship to (1) conditions that sustain group cohesion and productivity and that prevent social fragmentation and performance deterioration, (2) motivational effects resulting from the programmed consequences of individual and group performance requirements, and (3) behavioral and biological effects resulting from a change in group size. A more detailed description is presented of the results of a recent series of experiments that were conducted to assess performance and hormonal effects of replacing an established group participant with a novitiate member. The significance of these investigative undertakings is to be understood in terms of emergent environmental, motivational, and behavioral-biological principles having practical relevance for the establishment and maintenance of small-scale human social systems.

Environment, Controlled↗