Animal models of psychopathology: the establishment, maintenance, attenuation, and persistence of head-banging by pigeons.

Investigators of animal models of psychopathology have typically introduced experimental conditions so that an animal's behavior progressively deviates from a baseline of routine laboratory behavior toward a pattern which resembles human psychopathological behavior in some form of S, then R relation. The present experiments report consequential contingency procedures for bringing head-to-wall head-banging by an animal under experimental control and analysis. The first two experiments examined the establishment and maintenance by reinforcement of head-banging by pigeons.

Contingency adduction of "symbolic aggression" by pigeons.

THIS STUDY ADDRESSED THE QUESTION: Can novel social behavior arise even though the organism has had no explicit training in that particular social pattern? Seven pigeons were trained individually to peck keys for brief access to food. Four of these birds were also trained to peck two "switching keys" which, at first, raised or lowered the requirements on their own food keys. Later, these switching keys no longer affected an animal's own requirements, but raised or lowered the requirements imposed on a second pigeon working concurrently for food in an adjacent chamber.

Schedule-induced defecation.

Excessive defecation, typically considered to be a concomitant of stress, was experimentally induced or eliminated under specific schedules of positive reinforcement of lever pressing by rats. The schedules were, by and large, those under which polydipsia is typically induced. In the first of three experiments, rats under fixed-interval 32-second schedules and variable interval 32-second schedules for food and water reinforcers defecated profusely, but not under fixed-interval one-second schedules or other small interval schedules.

Self-reinforcement.

Self-reinforcement in operant situations generally refers to those arrangements in which the subject delivers to himself a consequence, contingent on his behavior. However, it is noted that the definition of all other types of reinforcement make its delivery contingent on the subject's behavior. What is actually at issue is the agent who defines whether or not the response required for reinforcement has been met.

Modification of human gastric acid secretion with operant-conditioning procedures.

In an attempt to control gastric acid secretion with operant-conditioning techniques, four normal women were given visual feedback on gastric pH plus money reinforcers. When money was made dependent on increased secretion in a differential-reinforcement-of-high-rates schedule, the rate of secretion of three of the four subjects increased to three times baseline. When money was then made dependent on decreased secretion in a differential-reinforcement-of-other-behaviors schedule, the rate of secretion of these three subjects returned to baseline levels.

Some discriminative properties of fixed ratio performance in the pigeon.

The discriminative control over a spatial choice response exercised by prior behavior was studied using a procedure involving discrete exposures to a two-member chained schedule. The initial member (red key) was either a smaller or larger fixed ratio (Mix FR:FR), the completion of which produced, after a 1-sec delay, two white response keys. If the larger FR had been completed as the initial chain member, a single peck on the right white key was reinforced; after the smaller FR, a peck on the left white key was reinforced.

ERRORLESS ESTABLISHMENT OF VISUAL DISCRIMINATION USING FADING PROCEDURES.

A visual discrimination task involved presenting a triangle briefly as a sample. When it was withdrawn, this triangle and two others differing slightly in degree of rotation were presented in different positions, with S required to locate the sample that had been presented. Discrimination proved difficult for preschool children.

Machine definition of ongoing silent and oral reading rate.

A procedure is described by which a machine defines the ongoing silent and oral reading rates, and thus subjects them to environmental control and experimental analysis. Reading is considered as a form of monitoring in which response sequences are linear and successive. Applications for other types of monitoring are considered.

Stabilization of behavior and prolonged exposure to delayed auditory feedback.

The disruption of fluent verbal behavior found under delayed feedback is replaced by stable patterns when presentation is prolonged. Experimental analysis suggests that the later patterns involve the reinstatement of control by stimuli in whose presence the behavior was originally established.