Delivering alternative reinforcement in a distinct context reduces its counter-therapeutic effects on relapse.

Delivery of alternative reinforcers in the presence of stimuli previously associated with reinforcement for target behavior increases the susceptibility of target behavior to relapse. To explore contingencies that might mitigate this counter-therapeutic effect, we trained pigeons on a procedure that entailed extinction of previously reinforced target-key pecking, access to a distinct stimulus context contingently on refraining from target behavior (differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior; DRO), and reinforcement of alternative-key pecks (differential-reinforcement of alternative behavior; DRA) in that context. This DRO-DRA treatment was compared with standard DRA in successive conditions, counterbalanced across pigeons.

The basis of behavioral momentum in the nonlinearity of strength.

The persistence of operant responding in the context of distractors and opposing forces is of central importance to the success of behavioral interventions. It has been successfully analyzed with Behavioral Momentum Theory. Key data from the research inspired by that theory are reanalyzed in terms of more molecular behavioral mechanisms: the demotivational effects of disruptors, and their differential impacts on the target response and other responses that interact with them.

The Role of Contingencies and Stimuli in a Human Laboratory Model of Treatment of Problem Behavior.

Behavioral momentum theory posits a paradoxical implication for behavioral interventions in clinical situations using Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior (DRA): When alternative reinforcers are presented within the same context as the problem behavior, the added reinforcers may decrease the frequency of the behavior but also increase its persistence when the intervention ends. Providing alternative reinforcers in a setting that is distinctively different from that in which the target behavior occurs may avoid or reduce this increase in persistence. The present experiment compared behavioral persistence following standard DRA versus DRA in a different context that was available after refraining from target behavior (Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior, DRO).

Quantitative models of persistence and relapse from the perspective of behavioral momentum theory: Fits and misfits.

We review quantitative accounts of behavioral momentum theory (BMT), its application to clinical treatment, and its extension to post-intervention relapse of target behavior. We suggest that its extension can account for relapse using reinstatement and renewal models, but that its application to resurgence is flawed both conceptually and in its failure to account for recent data. We propose that the enhanced persistence of target behavior engendered by alternative reinforcers is limited to their concurrent availability within a distinctive stimulus context.

Comparing positive and negative reinforcement: A fantasy experiment.

We propose quantitative experimental approaches to the question of whether positive and negative reinforcement are functionally different, and discuss scientific and ethical concerns that would arise if these approaches were pursued.

Effects of signaled and unsignaled alternative reinforcement on persistence and relapse in children and pigeons.

Three experiments explored the impact of different reinforcer rates for alternative behavior (DRA) on the suppression and post-DRA relapse of target behavior, and the persistence of alternative behavior. All experiments arranged baseline, intervention with extinction of target behavior concurrently with DRA, and post-treatment tests of resurgence or reinstatement, in two- or three-component multiple schedules. Experiment 1, with pigeons, arranged high or low baseline reinforcer rates; both rich and lean DRA schedules reduced target behavior to low levels.

Modeling the effects of sensory reinforcers on behavioral persistence with alternative reinforcement.

Problem behavior often has sensory consequences that cannot be separated from the target response, even if external, social reinforcers are removed during treatment. Because sensory reinforcers that accompany socially mediated problem behavior may contribute to persistence and relapse, research must develop analog sensory reinforcers that can be experimentally manipulated. In this research, we devised analogs to sensory reinforcers in order to control for their presence and determine how sensory reinforcers may impact treatment efficacy.

Comment on Gallistel: behavior theory and information theory: some parallels.

In this article, Gallistel proposes information theory as an approach to some enduring problems in the study of operant and classical conditioning.

Resistance to extinction and behavioral momentum.

In the metaphor of behavioral momentum, reinforcement is assumed to strengthen discriminated operant behavior in the sense of increasing its resistance to disruption, and extinction is viewed as disruption by contingency termination and reinforcer omission. In multiple schedules of intermittent reinforcement, resistance to extinction is an increasing function of reinforcer rate, consistent with a model based on the momentum metaphor. The partial-reinforcement extinction effect, which opposes the effects of reinforcer rate, can be explained by the large disruptive effect of terminating continuous reinforcement despite its strengthening effect during training.

Response strength in extreme multiple schedules.

Four pigeons were trained in a series of two-component multiple schedules. Reinforcers were scheduled with random-interval schedules. The ratio of arranged reinforcer rates in the two components was varied over 4 log units, a much wider range than previously studied.

Behavioral momentum theory: equations and applications.

Behavioral momentum theory provides a quantitative account of how reinforcers experienced within a discriminative stimulus context govern the persistence of behavior that occurs in that context. The theory suggests that all reinforcers obtained in the presence of a discriminative stimulus increase resistance to change, regardless of whether those reinforcers are contingent on the target behavior, are noncontingent, or are even contingent on an alternative behavior. In this paper, we describe the equations that constitute the theory and address their application to issues of particular importance in applied settings.

Delayed matching to sample: reinforcement has opposite effects on resistance to change in two related procedures.

The effects of reinforcement on delayed matching to sample (DMTS) have been studied in two within-subjects procedures. In one, reinforcer magnitudes or probabilities vary from trial to trial and are signaled within trials (designated signaled DMTS trials). In the other, reinforcer probabilities are consistent for a series of trials produced by responding on variable-interval (VI) schedules within multiple-schedule components (designated multiple VI DMTS).

An evaluation of persistence of treatment effects during long-term treatment of destructive behavior.

Eight young children who displayed destructive behavior maintained, at least in part, by negative reinforcement received long-term functional communication training (FCT). During FCT, the children completed a portion of a task and then touched a communication card attached to a microswitch to obtain brief breaks. Prior to and intermittently throughout FCT, extinction probes were conducted within a withdrawal design in which task completion, manding, and destructive behavior were placed on extinction to evaluate the relative persistence of appropriate and destructive behavior over the course of treatment.

The effects of constant versus varied reinforcers on preference and resistance to change.

Previous research has demonstrated that factors such as reinforcer frequency, amount, and delay have similar effects on resistance to change and preference. In the present study, 4 boys with autism made choices between a constant reinforcer (one that was the same food item every trial) and a varied food reinforcer (one that varied randomly between three possible food items). For all 4 boys, varied reinforcers were preferred over constant reinforcers, and they maintained higher response rates than constant reinforcers.

Differential outcomes enhance accuracy of delayed matching to sample but not resistance to change.

Three experiments assessed the relation between the differential outcomes effect and resistance to change of delayed matching-to-sample performance. Pigeons produced delayed matching-to-sample trials by responding on variable interval schedules in two components of a multiple schedule. In the same-outcome component, the probability of reinforcement was the same for both samples (.

Stimuli, reinforcers, and the persistence of behavior.

This article reviews evidence from basic and translational research with pigeons and humans suggesting that the persistence of operant behavior depends on the contingency between stimuli and reinforcers, and considers some implications for clinical interventions.

Contrast effects in response rate and accuracy of delayed matching to sample.

Behavioural contrast is an inverse relation between the response rate in one component of a multiple schedule and the reinforcer rate in an alternated component. To explore possible contrast effects in accuracy as well as response rate, four pigeons were trained in multiple schedules where key pecking produced delayed matching-to-sample trials on a variable-interval schedule. Reinforcer probability for correct matches was constant at .

Stimuli, reinforcers, and private events.

Radical behaviorism considers private events to be a part of ongoing observable behavior and to share the properties of public events. Although private events cannot be measured directly, their roles in overt action can be inferred from mathematical models that relate private responses to external stimuli and reinforcers according to the same quantitative relations that characterize public operant behavior. This approach is illustrated by a model of attending to stimuli and to anticipated reinforcers in delayed matching to sample, in which the probabilities of attending are related to reinforcer rates by an expression derived from research on behavioral momentum.

Control, prediction, order, and the joys of research.

JEAB's first decade featured control of individual behavior by operant contingencies, where the experimenter could interact with a subject in real time and obtain fairly immediate evidence of control, with the possibility of direct extension to applied settings. In subsequent decades, emphasis shifted toward long-term parametric studies with quantitative analyses of individual and group data. As a result, the reinforcers for the experimenter shifted from controlling behavior to uncovering and describing order, often using mathematical expressions.

A theory of attending, remembering, and reinforcement in delayed matching to sample.

A theory of attending and reinforcement in conditional discriminations is extended to working memory in delayed matching to sample by adding terms for disruption of attending during the retention interval. Like its predecessor, the theory assumes that reinforcers and disruptors affect the independent probabilities of attending to sample and comparison stimuli in the same way as the rate of overt free-operant responding as suggested by Nevin and Grace, and that attending is translated into discriminative performance by the model of Davison and Nevin. The theory accounts for the effects of sample-stimulus discriminability and retention-interval disruption on the levels and slopes of forgetting functions, and for the diverse relations between accuracy and sensitivity to reinforcement reported in the literature.

A theory of attending and reinforcement in conditional discriminations.

A model of conditional discrimination performance (Davison & Nevin, 1999) is combined with the notion that unmeasured attending to the sample and comparison stimuli, in the steady state and during disruption, depends on reinforcement in the same way as predicted for overt free-operant responding by behavioral momentum theory (Nevin & Grace, 2000). The rate of observing behavior, a measurable accompaniment of attending, is well described by an equation for steady-state responding derived from momentum theory, and the resistance to change of observing conforms to predictions of momentum theory, supporting a key assumption of the model. When probabilities of attending are less than 1.

Resistance to change of forgetting functions and response rates.

This experiment examined the effects of reinforcement probability on resistance to change of remembering and response rate. Pigeons responded on a two-component multiple schedule in which completion of a variable-interval 20-s schedule produced delayed matching-to-sample trials in both components. Each session included four delays (0.

Resistance to extinction in the steady state and in transition.

Three experiments with pigeons explored the constancy of reinforcer omission during extinction conjectured by rate estimation theory. Experiment 1 arranged 3-component multiple variable-interval (VI) schedules with a mixture of food and extinction trials within each session. Reinforcers omitted to an extinction criterion increased with food-trial reinforcer rate.

On science and the discriminative law of effect.

This article considers the process of the dissemination of scientific findings from the point of view of the discriminative law of effect. We assume that the purpose of science is to describe the state of the world in an unbiased and accurate manner. We then consider a number of challenges to the unbiased consensual development of science that arise from differences between science that is done, submitted for publication, and published.