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A day of great illumination: B. F. Skinner's discovery of shaping.

Despite the seminal studies of response differentiation by the method of successive approximation detailed in chapter 8 of The Behavior of Organisms (1938), B. F. Skinner never actually shaped an operant response by hand until a memorable incident of startling serendipity on the top floor of a flour mill in Minneapolis in 1943. That occasion appears to have been a genuine eureka experience for Skinner, causing him to appreciate as never before the significance of reinforcement mediated by biological connections with the animate social environment, as opposed to purely mechanical connections with the inanimate physical environment. This insight stimulated him to coin a new term (shaping), and also led directly to a shift in his perspective on verbal behavior from an emphasis on antecedents and molecular topographical details to an emphasis on consequences and more molar, functional properties in which the social dyad inherent to the shaping process became the definitive property of verbal behavior. Moreover, the insight seems to have emboldened Skinner to explore the greater implications of his behaviorism for human behavior writ large, an enterprise that characterized the bulk of his post-World War II scholarship.

Awareness↗

Equivalence relations, contextual control, and naming.

This paper reports two experiments that investigated the role of verbal behavior in the emergence and generalization of contextually controlled equivalence classes. During both experiments, participants were trained with two different combinations of the same easily nameable, yet formally unrelated, pictorial stimuli. Match-to-sample baselines for eight four-member classes were established under the contextual control of two colors. In the presence of one color, conditional relations were established between stimuli whose normative names rhymed. In the presence of the other color, conditional relations were established between stimuli whose normative names did not rhyme. Although, during Experiment 1, all participants demonstrated equivalence classes involving rhyming stimuli, none demonstrated the formation of nonrhyme equivalence classes. To investigate this finding, Experiment 2 evaluated whether participants would demonstrate both rhyme and nonrhyme equivalence classes given more extensive exposure to the experimental contingencies. All participants demonstrated contextually controlled rhyme and nonrhyme equivalence classes, although rhyme classes were demonstrated with greater facility than nonrhyme classes. Results indicate that visual stimuli are named, that verbal bases for stimulus classification can affect the emergence of contextually controlled equivalence classes, and that untrained contextually controlled conditional discriminations involving novel stimuli can emerge on the basis of participants' verbal behavior.

Adolescent↗

The role of social and material reinforcers in increasing talking of a disadvantaged preschool child.

Adult social reinforcement and access to materials in the preschool were made contingent on the verbalizations of a 4-yr-old Negro girl with an extremely low frequency of talking. Though the teachers' social attention was always given immediately for all spontaneous speech, if the child's spontaneous verbalizations were requests for materials, those materials were withheld until she had responded to the teachers' questions about those materials. When she was silent, the teachers withheld their attention and the materials. A high frequency of verbal behavior was quickly established. When both teacher attention and materials were provided only when the child was not verbalizing, the child's frequency of talking immediately decreased. When social attention and materials were again made contingent upon spontaneous speech and answering questions, the child's frequency of talking quickly increased to its previous high level. The content of the child's verbal behavior which increased was primarily a repetition of requests to the teachers with little change noted in the non-request verbalizations, or verbalizations to other children. A further experimental analysis demonstrated that social interaction per se was not the reinforcer which maintained the increased verbalization; rather, for this child, the material reinforcers which accompanied the social interaction appeared to be the effective components of teacher attention.

Journal Article↗

Effect of temporomandibular disorder pain duration on facial expressions and verbal report of pain.

This study investigated how specific expressive behaviors (verbal report of pain level and the frequency of emitting specific non-verbal facial expressions of pain) may change over the course of a chronic pain condition. Based on the concept of chronic pain behaviors, we hypothesized that both verbal and non-verbal behavior would increase with duration of pain. Thirty-six women with chronic temporomandibular disorder (TMD) pain (duration over 6 months) were compared with 35 recent onset cases (first episode, duration < or = 2 months). Subjects completed questionnaires assessing depression, anxiety, somatization, daily hassles and pain coping strategies. They were videotaped during a resting baseline and 2 painful conditions: experimental cold pressor pain and the clinically relevant pain of palpation of the masticatory muscles and temporomandibular joint; tapes were coded for facial expression using the Facial Action Coding System. Visual analog scale (VAS) ratings of the aversiveness and intensity of ongoing TMD pain were collected at baseline, and similar ratings of cold pressor and clinical examination pain were gathered after the painful stimulus. Recent onset and chronic cases did not differ on self-report measures of anxiety, depression, somatization or daily stress. Coping strategies were also similar, although chronic cases showed a greater tendency to catastrophize. Self-report measures of ambient facial pain, as well as the pain of clinical examination and cold pressor stimulation, revealed no significant differences between the 2 groups. In contrast, rates of pain facial expression were significantly higher for chronic cases under all conditions of the experiment, including baseline.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adaptation, Psychological↗

An analysis of music therapy student practicum behaviors and their relationship to clinical effectiveness: an exploratory investigation.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate specific clinical behaviors exhibited by music therapy students in their 1st through 4th semesters of practicum. A secondary purpose of the study was to determine if a relationship exists between therapy students' behaviors and their assessed clinical success. Participants were instructed to submit 20-minutes of videotape from one practicum session, chosen at random from the current practicum semester. Two trained observers then viewed the videotapes and simultaneously recorded the occurrence and duration of practicum student behaviors using SCRIBE, a data collection computer program. The SCRIBE program was configured to include 5 broad categories of therapist behaviors: musical behaviors (singing, playing, listening), physical behaviors (such as hand-over-hand assistance, cueing, or clapping), verbal behaviors (therapy-related verbal interactions or other), a combination of two of the above, and other nonspecified behaviors. The percentage of time practicum students exhibited behaviors within in each category was calculated for all session segments. These same videotapes were also evaluated by 2 professional board certified music therapists who were unfamiliar with the practicum students. Students were assigned an overall rating for clinical effectiveness. Evaluators were also asked to provide comments related to their ratings. A descriptive analysis of clinical behaviors indicate that students spend nearly 40% of their practicum time engaged in musical behaviors and over 50% of their time engaged in verbal behaviors. No significant differences were found in the behaviors exhibited by students in the various practicum levels; however, behavioral differences were found for individual student therapists. Additionally, no relationship was found between students' behaviors and their clinical effectiveness. An analysis of comments by the evaluators indicates that the quantity of musical behaviors does not affect clinical effectiveness as much as the quality of the musical behaviors. Evaluator comments also indicate that students identified as personable or as having rapport with their clients were also more effective in the practicum setting.

Adult↗

Extent to which guided-discovery teaching strategies were used by 20 preceptors in family medicine.

BACKGROUND: Learners learn more and are able to categorize problems at higher levels when their teachers use guided-discovery strategies (e.g., questions and advice to investigate relationships between concepts), as opposed to directly telling learners the answers. This study examines the extent to which clinician preceptors of residents use guided-discovery strategies when faced with a diagnostic problem-solving situation. METHOD: Twenty family medicine preceptors from four residencies volunteered in 1991-92 to role-play with a simulated first-year resident on a single standardized case. Judges coded the preceptors' verbal behaviors by type (question, statement, or advice) and by category. The categories were teacher, i.e., behaviors relating to more than the present case (hence exemplifying guided-discovery strategies), and consultant, i.e., behaviors relating to the successful disposition of the case (without overt concern for the education of the resident). RESULTS: Of the preceptors' 846 verbal behaviors, 602 (71%) were coded as teacher behaviors, but only 329 (39%) were teacher behaviors that were of the specific types (high-level advice or questions promoting reflectivity, i.e., mindfulness) described in the literature as being most likely to promote learners' reflectivity and transfer of knowledge and skills from a lower level of abstraction to a higher level. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that the 20 perceptors were aware of the importance of "getting residents to think" and did use teaching strategies known to promote transfer. However, their repertoire of strategies was limited.

Family Practice↗

Correspondence training: an example of rule-governed behavior?

Two groups of six mentally retarded adults were exposed to either a "say/do" correspondence training program or a "do only" reinforcement procedure to evaluate the suggestion of Rogers-Warren and Baer (1976) that reinforcement of the nonverbal target behavior in the absence of the relevant verbal behavior may account for the behavior changes seen in correspondence training. The participants worked in an experimental setting on a variety of manipulatory responses leading to various auditory and visual consequences. Analysis of individual patterns of responding indicated no apparent differences between the groups during training; four individuals in each group appeared to develop generalized correspondence skills. We conclude that the outcome of correspondence training may not necessarily be verbal regulation of behavior as is assumed. Rather, we suggest that the notion of rule-governed behavior can best account for the type of behavior changes seen in correspondence studies.

Adult↗

The relationship between social alienation and disorganized thinking in normal subjects and localized cerebral glucose metabolic rates assessed by positron emission tomography.

This study investigated the relationships between the relatively mild manifestations in verbal behavior of social alienation and disorganized thinking in normal subjects and cerebral glucose metabolic rates measured by positron emission tomography (PET). Three groups of 10 young normal male subjects were injected with D-[18F]deoxyglucose (FDG) during either wakefulness, rapid eye movement (REM), or non-REM (NONREM) sleep, and 32 to 45 minutes later they were asked to report their thoughts, emotions, or dreams and free-associations to these mental events. Nonparametric correlations were obtained between measures of interpersonal social alienation, intrapsychic conflicts, and thought disorder derived from the typescripts of these reports by content analysis--using the Gottschalk-Gleser Social Alienation-Personal Disorganization Scale--and regional cerebral glucose metabolic rates obtained from PET scans. Total social alienation-personal disorganization scores obtained from the reports of wakeful, silent mentations showed significant positive correlations with glucose metabolic rates in the left temporal lobe. The patterns of significant correlations involving these verbal behavior measures derived from the content analysis of verbal reports of dreams or other mental events occurring during REM and non-REM sleep were in different cerebral locations from those found with these variables during silent, waking mentation. Previous observations suggesting that increased left temporal lobe glucose may typify chronic schizophrenia may instead be indicative of a wide range of thought disorder and/or social alienation manifestations occurring, at times transiently and minimally, in normal people.

Adult↗

[The lived experience of secondipara in childbirth].

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore-the lived experience of secondipara and to understand the coping behavior dealing with these situations during the childbirth period. The researcher selected ten subjects by purposive sampling. During the course of labor, delivery and postpartum, the researcher served as a care-giver and nurse-participant observer. Data were collected by conducting one-hour in-depth interview, 8-24 hours after delivery. The verbal and non-verbal behavior expressed by the secondipara during interview were then recorded in a narrative process-recording. By means of content analysis, the verbal behavior of subjects was systematically analyzed and categorized. The results show that the lived experience of the secondipara can be categorized as follows: (1) sense of uncertainty about childbirth conditions; (2) threat to the sense of body boundary intactness; (3) trapped within bodily gird due to labor pain; (4) on the brink of losing control of body functions; (5) sense of mis-match about childbirth process; (6) achieving life satisfaction; (7) sense of becoming a new self. The coping behaviors expressed by these women can be categorized as follows: (1) trying to confirm and manage their own childbirth conditions; (2) striving to improve the process of labor and delivery; (3) engaging in equipping and maintaining self; (4) sticking it out by self-empowerment; (5) endeavoring to keep a sense of control; (6) establishing knowledge about the health condition of the newborn; (7) reviewing and integrating childbirth experience into self as a secondipara mother. The result of this study can be used as new knowledge and references for nurses in their actual care of women who are becoming mothers a second time.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Effects of mand-tact versus tact-only training on the acquisition of tacts.

UNLABELLED: We sought to replicate and extend Carroll and Hesse's (1987) study of the acquisition of tacts by including participants with and without developmental disabilities. As in Carroll and Hesse, the present results showed that mand-tact training, rather than tact-only training, led to more rapid acquisition of tacts. Tacting on follow-up tests did not differ. In addition, our results show that mand-tact training established both verbal operants involved about as rapidly as tact-only training established only one verbal operant. DESCRIPTORS: verbal behavior, tact acquisition, mand-tact training, tact-only training, follow-up

Adolescent↗

Supervisor-supervisee role differences and consistency of behavior in supervisory conferences.

This study investigated (a) differences in verbal interaction between supervisors and supervisees during the supervisory conference, (b) differences in verbal interaction between early and later conferences, and (c) patterns of verbal interaction displayed by supervisors and supervisees during the supervisory conference. Subjects were 15 supervisor-supervisee pairs who represented a range of supervisory experience and clinical experience. Three consecutive supervisory conferences were coded using critical ratios derived from a multidimensional interaction analysis system. Results indicated that supervisors' verbal behavior during conferences significantly differs from that of supervisees, with the largest contribution to this difference being the proportion of dialogue coded as initiation, participation, and diagnosis. Over time the group of supervisors and the group of supervisees remained consistent in their behavior. Conference interactions were more analytic than evaluative, more diagnostic than prescriptive, and more simple than complex. The data suggest that supervisors set the content and the interaction pattern of the dialogue, whereas supervisees follow their lead.

Adult↗

[Analysis of pragmatic aspects of communication behavior of verbal and nonverbal autistic children].

The analysis and intervention of communication is an important focus of autism research. The present study is a microanalysis of the communicative behaviour of 10 autistic children with their parents and a therapist. Protests, appropriate initiation and responses of the children were analysed in relation to demands and the specific feedback of the adults. After 20 months of structured therapy changes in the communicative behaviour of the participants were demonstrated. Autistic children showed different communicative pattern with their parents compared to a therapist. The non-verbal group exhibited significantly more protests and decreased responsivity with their parents compared to the therapist. The verbal group interacted with their parents predominantly by echolalia. After 20 months a significant reduction in protests, increased compliance and responsivity were obvious in the non-verbal group. The verbal group showed a reduction in echolalia as well as increased responsive and spontaneous communication. The results demonstrate that even non-verbal autistic children are sensitive towards different interaction partners. Over the observation period participants showed a reduction in behaviour problems and positive developments of communicative behaviour.

Adult↗

Childhood asthma: mothers' affective attitude, mother-child interaction and children's compliance with medical requirements.

Maternal critical attitude (CA) and negative mother-child verbal interaction in families with an asthmatic child and in controls were investigated in the present study. Twenty-eight children with bronchial asthma (6-13 yr) and 23 healthy children with their mothers participated in the project. Mothers were asked to describe their child (Five Minute Speech Sample; FMSS). Mother and child were then asked to discuss a mutual problem (Problem Discussion; PD). Tape recordings were taken. The mothers' responses during the FMSS were used to assess CA. Negative verbal behavior during PD was coded by means of a reliable coding system for dyadic interaction. Significantly more mothers of the asthmatic children than of the controls showed CA during the FMSS. Mothers of the asthmatic children made significantly more critical remarks and offered more negative solutions during the PD. Within the asthma group mothers who made more critical remarks had to make more effort to have their child comply with the medical requirements. Additionally, mothers showing a higher total amount of negative verbal behavior had children with rather high IgE levels. There was no systematic difference between children having CA mothers with high vs low face-to-face contact.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Verbal interactions in the families of schizophrenic and bipolar affective patients.

Do verbal interactions between psychiatric patients and family members covary with the diagnosis of the patient? This study compared relatives (usually parents) of schizophrenic (n = 42) and bipolar (n = 22) patients on affective style (AS) or emotional-verbal behavior toward patients in family interaction. Patients were compared on coping style or verbal interactional behavior toward relatives. Relatives of schizophrenic patients made more negative AS (particularly intrusive) statements to patients than relatives of bipolar patients. Schizophrenic patients made fewer supportive statements and more self-denigrating statements to relatives than bipolar patients. Among families of bipolar patients, negative AS in relatives was associated with oppositional, "refusing" styles in patients. Implications for psychosocial interventions with these disorders are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Gender comparisons of preschoolers' behavior and resource utilization in group problem solving.

We tested the hypothesis that 4 - 5-year-old girls and boys in same-sex problem-solving groups would perform equally well when the group task required various cooperative and self-serving behaviors to obtain a resource. The hypothesis that girls and boys would employ different behaviors to obtain the resource was also tested. 20 same-sex, same-age groups of 4 children each (10 groups of girls and 10 groups of boys) were videotaped while solving a problem involving a cartoon movie as a resource. 1 child could view the movie provided 2 other children helped, 1 to turn a crank and 1 to push a light button; the fourth child was relegated to a bystander position. Results revealed that girls and boys were equally effective in achieving viewing time; gender variance in viewing time was significantly greater for girls than for boys; girls and boys did not differ in total behavioral output, but girls tended to use more verbal behavior than boys and boys engaged in significantly more physical behavior than girls; affect in boy groups was more positive than in girl groups; girls who achieved the most viewing time within their group differed behaviorally from girls who achieved the least viewing time, but did not differ behaviorally from boys; boys who achieved the most viewing time did not differ behaviorally from boys who achieved the least viewing time.

Affect↗