Behavior Analysis

Behavior Analysis

Foundations and Applications to Psychology

Julian C. Leslie
University of Ulster, Northern Ireland
and
Mark F. O’Reilly
University College Dublin, Ireland
First published 1999 by Harwood Academic Publishers
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Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1 A scientific approach to behavior
1.1 Early attempts to explain human behavior
1.2 Reflex action
1.3 Acquired or conditioned reflexes
1.4 Classical conditioning
1.5 Evolutionary theory and adaptive behavior
1.6 Scientific analysis of "voluntary" behavior
1.7 The rise of behaviorism
1.8 The experimental analysis of behavior
1.9 The development of applied behavioral analysis
1.10 Applied and basic behavior analysis
1.11 Functional analysis
1.12 Summary
CHAPTER 2 Operant behavior and operant conditioning
2.1 The analysis of purposive behavior
2.2 A prototype experiment: A rat in the Skinner box
The changes in behavior that characterize operant
2.3
conditioning
2.4 Outcomes of operant conditioning
2.5 Operants and reinforcing stimuli
2.6 The simple operant conditioning paradigm
 2.7 Changing the subject matter: Vocal operants
Simple operant conditioning of complex or
2.8
"unobserved" human behavior
2.9 Conditioned reinforcement
2.10 The definition of response classes
2.11 Response differentiation and response shaping
2.12 Summary
CHAPTER 3 Extinction and intermittent reinforcement
3.1 Changes in response rate during operant extinction
Topographical and structural changes of responding in
3.2
extinction
3.3 Extinction-induced aggression
3.4 Resistance to extinction
3.5 Spontaneous recovery
3.6 Successive conditioning and extinction
3.7 The operant extinction paradigm
3.8 Extinction outside the laboratory
3.9 Extinction of classically conditioned responses
3.10 Intermittent reinforcement
3.11 Differential reinforcement schedules
3.12 Extinction following intermittent reinforcement
3.13 Human behavior under schedules of reinforcement
3.14 Summary
CHAPTER 4 Stimulus control
4.1 Perceptual stimulus classes
4.2 Stimulus control in classical conditioning
4.3 The three-term relationship of operant conditioning
4.4 Stimulus generalization
4.5 Stimulus salience
 4.6 The stimulus discrimination paradigm
4.7 Multiple and concurrent schedules of reinforcement
4.8 The effects of discrimination training
4.9 Inhibitory stimulus control
4.10 Stimulus equivalence
4.11 Summary
CHAPTER 5 Aversive contingencies
5.1 Escape from aversive stimuli
5.2 Avoidance behavior
5.3 Punishment
5.4 Aversive classical conditioning
5.5 The ethics of aversive contingencies
5.6 Summary
CHAPTER 6 Complex behavior: Concept acquisition, modeling,
and verbal behavior
6.1 Concept acquisition: The example of learning sets
6.2 Conceptual behavior and discriminations
Arbitrary stimulus classes: Disjunctive concepts and
6.3
equivalence classes
6.4 Polymorphous concepts and natural concepts
6.5 Rules as solutions to problems
6.6 Modeling
6.7 Reinforcement of modeling
6.8 Verbal behavior
6.9 Summary
CHAPTER 7 Assessing behavior in applied settings
A model for understanding and guiding behavioral
7.1
assessment in applied settings
7.2 Selecting target behaviors
 7.3 Defining the target behavior
7.4 Measuring and recording behaviors
7.5 Conducting observations
7.6 Reliability of assessment
Functional assessment and analysis of aberrant
7.7
behavior
7.8 Functional assessment
7.9 Functional analysis
7.10 Summary
CHAPTER 8 Single-case experimental designs
8.1 Internal and external validity
8.2 Graphic display
8.3 Withdrawal or ABAB designs
8.4 Multiple baseline designs
8.5 Changing criterion designs
8.6 Alternating treatment designs
8.7 Summary
CHAPTER 9 Increasing Adaptive Behavior in Applied Settings
Increasing adaptive behavior using positive
9.1
reinforcement
9.2 Selecting reinforcers
9.3 Optimizing reinforcer effectiveness
9.4 Token economies
Interim summary: Selecting reinforcers and
9.5
implementing a reinforcement program
9.6 Using reinforcement to decrease maladaptive behavior
9.7 Establishing new behavioral repertoires
9.8 Fading response and stimulus prompts
9.9 Shaping
 9.10 Chaining
9.11 Topographical changes in responding during extinction
9.12 Programming generalization of newly acquired skills
9.13 Negative reinforcement
9.14 Overall summary
CHAPTER 10 Decreasing maladaptive behavior in applied settings
10.1 Decreasing behavior using extinction
Matching extinction protocol to maintaining
10.2
contingencies
10.3 Interim summary: Using extinction in applied settings
10.4 Punishment
10.5 Punishment techniques
10.6 Contingent removal of positive events
10.7 Contingent activity
10.8 Advantages and disadvantages of using punishment
10.9 Overall summary
CHAPTER 11 Behavior analysis: Current status and future
directions
Applications of behavior analysis to issues in health
11.1
and medicine
11.2 Community behavior analysis
11.3 Applications of further principles of behavior analysis
11.4 Ethical guidelines for the use of behavioral treatment
The relationship between basic and applied behavior
11.5
analysis
11.6 Summary
References
Index
List of Figures
Descartes' model of how an external event might
Figure 1.1
cause bodily movement.
Figure 1.2 A simple reflex and its connections to the spinal cord.
A typical arrangement for studying salivation in a
Figure 1.3 conditioning experiment in Pavlov's 19th century
laboratory.
Figure 1.4 Thorndike's puzzle box.
Figure 1.5 A Skinner box.
Essential features of a Skinner box for a rat, or other
Figure 2.1
small rodent.
Event records, or "time lines", illustrating a
Figure 2.2 contingency between, or independence of, Event A
and Event B.
A cumulative recorder of a type that was used
Figure 2.3 extensively until replaced by computer software
systems.
Cumulative records obtained frofn four rats on their first
Figure 2.4
session of operant conditioning.
Relative frequencies of several behaviors occurring
Figure 2.5 in a Skinner box before and after operant conditioning
of lever pressing.
Distribution of response forces when (A, upper graph)
all responses with a force of more than 21 g were
Figure 2.6
reinforced, and (B, lower graph) when all responses
with a force of more than 36 g were reinforced.
Cumulative record of responding in extinction of lever
Figure 3.1
press response previously reinforced with food.
 Cumulative records of lever pressing for two rats
Figure 3.2 reinforced with food 100 times and then transferred
to a response independent food presentation schedule.
Apparatus used by Antonitis (1951) to reinforce nose
Figure 3.3
poking.
Apparatus used for measuring aggression induced by
Figure 3.4
extinction in a Skinner box.
Resistance to extinction of lever pressing as a
Figure 3.5
function of the weight of the lever (or bar).
Spontaneous recovery from extinction of a rat's
Figure 3.6
lever-press response.
Averaged cumulative response curves for the first (1),
Figure 3.7
fifth (5), and tenth (10) sessions of extinction.
Average data for classical conditioning followed by
Figure 3.8
extinction of rabbits' nictitating membrane response.
Typical cumulative records of performances
Figure 3.9 maintained by four schedules of intermittent
reinforcement.
Data of Pavlov (1927) on the development of
Figure 4.1 differentiation, or discrimination, by two individual
dogs in salivary conditioning experiments.
A pigeon Skinner box fitted with an optical system to
Figure 4.2
project pure light on to the pecking key.
Numbers of key pecking responses emitted by pigeons
Figure 4.3 in the presence of 11 different wavelengths of light,
projected one at a time on to the pecking key.
Van Houten and Rudolph's data showing generaliza-
tion gradients for pigeons that had been trained in the
Figure 4.4
presence of 1000 Hz auditory frequency, either in
the dark (no key light) or with an illuminated key.
 Cumulative records of lever pressing by a rat on a
multiple FI 5-minute FR20 schedule (upper panel),
Figure 4.5
and on a multiple FI 5-minute FR40 schedule (lower
panel).
Figure 4.6 A two-key pigeon Skinner box.
Cumulative records of key pecking by a pigeon a
Figure 4.7 concurrent FR100 FI 5-minute schedule of
reinforcement.
Inhibitory generalization gradients for groups of
Figure 4.8 pigeons on successive test days with VI reinforcement
at all line-tilt stimulus values.
Schematic diagram of a typical layout of stimuli
presented simultaneously (or with onset of A1 slightly
Figure 4.9
before the other stimuli) on a computer screen for
matching-to sample training of the A-B relationship.
Figure 4.10 Outcome of stimulus equivalence class training.
A shuttle box designed to study aversive contingencies
Figure 5.1
with rats.
Escape response rates as a function of the intensity
Figure 5.2
of three different aversive stimuli.
Event records or timelines illustrating the procedures
Figure 5.3 of (A) free operant avoidance; (b) discriminated
avoidance; and (c) escape.
Three measures of behavior during acquisition of a
Figure 5.4
discriminated lever-press avoidance response.
Cumulative records of lever press avoidance during
Figure 5.5
training of a rat on free operant avoidance.
Cumulative records of the punished responding
Figure 5.6 of human participants on a VI schedule of reinforce-
ment under three conditions.
 Response rate, with and without a punishment
contingency for three human experimental participants
Figure 5.7
as a function of reinforcement rate in the components
of a multiple VI schedule.
Cumulative records showing developments of
Figure 5.8 conditional suppression in a rat lever pressing for water
reinforcement on a variable-interval schedule.
Figure 6.1 The Wisconsin general test apparatus.
Changes in rate of acquisition of discrimination
Figure 6.2
processes.
Figure 6.3 Development of a learning set.
Performance of five species on a series of visual
Figure 6.4
discrimination problems.
Patterns of geometric symbols grouped according to a
Figure 6.5
two-out-of-three polymorphous rule.
Figure 6.6 A set of cards used to study concept identification.
Average number of aggressive acts modeled by
children as a function of consequences for the model,
Figure 6.7
sex of child, and whether the child was reinforced for
modeling.
Reinforced imitative and nonreinforced imitative
Figure 6.8 responding by a single child during a sequence of
different reinforcement conditions.
The behavior analytic account of dialog is like a tennis
Figure 6.9 match with each person taking turns as speaker
and listener.
Figure 6.10 An example of rule following.
A model of the behavior and environmental conditions
Figure 7.1
to be assessed.
Figure 7.2 Example of interval recording.
 Example of interval recording using multiple
Figure 7.3
behaviors.
Figure 7.4 Example of interval recording with multiple persons.
Figure 7.5 Example of a scatterplot grid over a five-day period.
Functional analysis results of self-injury for two
Figure 7.6
individuals.
hypothetical example of a single-case design graph
Figure 8.1
depicting the major features of graphic display.
Hypothetical example of a stable data path (Graph A)
Figure 8.2
and variable data points (Graph B).
Stable baseline data (Graph A) allow for a clear
Figure 8.3 interpretation of the effectiveness of treatment in the
intervention phase.
There is a clear change in level between the last data
Figure 8.4 point of the baseline phase and the first data point of
the intervention phase in Graph A.
An increasing or decreasing trend in baseline data
paths can be problematic if the subsequent interven-
Figure 8.5
tion is designed to increase (Graph A) or decrease
(Graph B) the target behavior respectively.
Percentage of intervals of stereotypy during transition
Figure 8.6
between work activities for a man with autism.
Number of accident days per week for an adolescent
Figure 8.7
girl with diurnal enuresis.
The number of self-identified designated drivers per
Figure 8.8 evening during weekend evenings in a college campus
bar.
Figure 8.9 An example of an ABABCBC design.
Figure 8.10 Percentage of correctly asking the question "What's
that?" when pointing to a novel stimulus across
 baseline and instruction phases of a multiple baseline
design for three students with autism.
Figure 8.11 The effects of a public posting intervention.
Percentage of intervals in which appropriate and
inappropriate turn waiting, initiating interactions, and
Figure 8.12
interacting with others was observed for a class of
students with severe/profound hearing loss.
Use of a changing criterion design to systematically
Figure 8.13 increase work units per minute for workers with
developmental disabilities.
Total seconds of eye poking during four assessment
Figure 8.14 conditions presented in an alternating treatments
design.
The effects of experimenter-selected versus subject-
Figure 8.15 selected reinforcers on responses per minute for four
individuals with developmental disabilities.
Percentage of time that four participants engaged or
manipulated items that were identified as preferred in
Figure 9.1 the forced-choice assessment and preference
assessment versus stimuli that were identified as highly
preferred in the preference assessment only.
Percentage of intervals of problem and desirable
classroom behavior for three students with emotional
Figure 9.2
and behavioral problems under preferred and non-
preferred curricular activities.
Daily mean percentage (N=10) of participation in
Figure 9.3 exercises and games and the exercise session length
during baseline and group contingency phases.
Figure 9.4 Responses per minute for three participants when no
food (reinforcement) was presented (baseline
conditions in the graph) and when food was presented
 contingent on responding under satiation and
deprivation conditions.
Total number of hours each day a group of 44 clients
participated in rehabilitative activities under
conditions of reinforcement with tokens (first phase),
Figure 9.5
independent or non-contingent presentations of tokens
(second phase), and reinstatement of reinforcement
with tokens (third phase).
Episodes of sleeping in class under baseline and DRI
Figure 9.6 (differential reinforcement of academic performance)
contingencies.
Figure 9.7 Hypothetical example of a brief functional analysis.
Figure 9.8 The rate of self-injury for Brenda.
Rate of eating across four participants under baseline
Figure 9.9 and treatment conditions. Open data points represent
data for one meal.
A comparison of a lean (FT 5 min) versus dense (FT 10
Figure 9.10 s) schedule of noncontingent reinforcement on
destructive responses per minute with quadruplets.
Figure 9.11 Delayed prompting.
Daily percentages of opportunities used by teachers to
delay and by children to initiate, before (baseline) and
Figure 9. 12
after (intervention) teachers programmed delays with
each of the six children.
An example of stimulus fading in which the stimulus
Figure 9.13
prompt is gradually faded out.
An example of stimulus fading in which additional
stimulus prompts are superimposed on the natural
Figure 9.14
discriminative stimuli and gradually faded during
instruction.
 An example of stimulus shaping to teach word
Figure 9.15
identification.
Percentage of independent mealtime skills for four
Figure 9.16
individuals with profound developmental disabilities.
Cumulative number of untrained play topographies
Figure 9.17
across toys for two children.
Conversational initiations per minute by participants to
Figure 9.18 partners with and without disabilities across school
settings.
Duration of asthmatic responding at bedtime during
Figure 10. 1
baseline and extinction phases.
Responses per minute of self-injurious behavior during
baseline when attention is delivered contingent on SIB
Figure 10. 2
and during NCR intervention (phase 2 in the graph)
when attention is delivered noncontingently.
Frequency of night wakings for seven children under an
Figure 10.3 extinction intervention. The large solid dots
represent nights in which the infant was ill.
Rate of self-injurious behavior (upper panel) and aggressive
Figure 10.4 responses (lower panel) for an individual
under baseline and extinction intervention.
The number of face slaps per minute when wrist
Figure 10.5
weights were on and when they were off.
Percentage of intervals containing SIB and object
Figure 10.6 manipulation during baseline (BL) and across effort
(string-length) conditions for three participants.
Percentage of intervals of SIB maintained by sensory
Figure 10.7
consequences.
Rates of self-choking by a deaf-blind man with mental
Figure 10.8 retardation before and during water mist treatment and
its generalization and follow-up.
 Frequency of aggressive behavior of a young girl
Figure 10.9 towards her younger sibling under baseline, DRO, and
DRO plus verbal reprimand conditions.
Number of disruptions and aggressive behaviors per
Figure 10.10 child per hour for 50 days in a day care center with
follow-up at 1 and 2 months.
Number of arm bites (top panel) and mouthing
Figure 10.11 incidents (bottom panel) under baseline, DRO alone,
and movement suppression time-out.
Percentage of intervals with stereotypy across baseline,
Figure 10.12 DRO, and time-out conditions in task (top panel) and
leisure (bottom panel) contexts.
Number of stealing episodes each day for a group of 34
Figure 10.13 persons with developmental disabilities in an
institutional setting.
Figure 10.14 Number of hits per day during school period.
Daily corrected percentage of sales for all salads during
Figure 11.1
baseline and intervention (posters etc.) in a restaurant.
Mean revolutions pedaled per minute during baseline,
VR 1 (VR range, 70 to 85), VR 2 (VR range, 90 to 115),
Figure 11.2 VR 3 (VR range, 100 to 130), return to baseline,
and return to VR 3 phases for obese and nonobese
boys.
Percentage of contact situations in which gloves were
Figure 11.3
worn by 4 nurses for consecutive 10-hr shifts.
Percentage of correct responses on simulation and self-
Figure 11.4 administration probes for four children who were
taught self-care of tracheotomies.
Figure 11.5 The yearly number of days lost from work (top graph)
and work-related injuries (bottom graph), per million
 person hours worked under baseline and token
economy conditions in both mines.
The percentage of R1 responses as a function of the
Figure 11.6 percentage of reinforcements for that response
alternative.
Amount of eye contact as a function of rate of social
Figure 11.7
reinforcement.
Percentage of time that one experimental participant,
Figure 11.8 Matt, allocated to performing arithmetic problems on
the richer reinforcement schedule.
Pigeons trained to match A1 to B1 and A2 to B2, and
to match B1 to C1 and B2 to C2, were tested for
Figure 11.9
transitivity by presenting A1 or A2 as sample stimuli
and C1 and C2 as comparison stimuli.
List of Tables
Table 7.1 Steps of the supermarket shopping task analysis.
Table 7.2 Task analysis for testicular self-examination.
Examples of questions used in the motivation
Table 7.3
assessment scale.
Table 9.1 Task analysis for changing underwear.
Classroom activities in which language was increased
Table 9.2
and teaching strategies used.
Table 9.3 Task analysis for completing deposit slips.
Some values guiding community research and action
Table
contributions from research and community
11.1
perspectives.
Table Stimulus classes (1 through 4) and stimuli (A through
11.2 D) used.
Preface
Behavior analysis is the natural science approach to the study of the
behavior of organisms. It is an active and productive discipline within the
general field of psychology. As a scientific discipline, behavior analysis is
concerned with three general issues: the examination and elucidation of the
theoretical underpinnings of the science; the experimental analysis of the
basic principles that govern behavior; and the application of the basic
principles of behavior to issues of personal and social importance. As the
discipline developed, many behavioral psychologists began to focus their
studies on one aspect of the discipline (e.g., applied behavior analysis) to the
exclusion of other aspects (e.g., experimental analysis of basic principles).
While such specialization is a healthy sign of growth within a discipline, it
can lead to fragmentation, with, for example, developments in basic research
going unnoticed by applied psychologists. For a scientific discipline to
continue to develop, new findings from basic research must inform and fuel
the development and evaluation of new applied technologies. Additionally,
problems with the application of basic principles to applied settings, and the
general findings of applied research, should inform and spur the
development of some basic research programs. Specialization is important
for a discipline but it must occur within the context of collaborative research
links across subspecializations.

This book is a collaborative venture between two behavioral scientists, one

who specializes in basic research (JCL) while the other focuses on applied
research (MFO'R). Both of us teach behavior analysis to university students
at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. For several years we lamented
that while there were many excellent textbooks available for students of this
discipline there was a need for a textbook that introduced students to the
experimental methods, classic research findings, recent research findings,
and current research questions in both the basic and applied dimensions of
the discipline. We reasoned that such a textbook might foster the perception
among students of the essential inherent link between basic and applied
science in behavior analysis. This textbook is the culmination of our efforts
to achieve this goal. We hope that it will be useful not only to psychology
students, but also to all professionals, and those in training, that come to
applied behavior analysis from a variety of backgrounds.
Acknowledgments
My contribution to this book was made possible by a University College
Dublin Presidents Research Fellowship. Special thanks are due to Al Healy of
the University of Iowa, and Terry Dolan of the University of Wisconsin, who
gave me the space and facilities to complete my contribution. I want to
thank Dave Wacker for his feedback while I was at the University of Iowa. I
also want to thank those who taught me about behavior analysis and those
who continue to contribute to my learning, including: Julian Leslie, Chris
Simms, Tony Cuvo, Gina Green, Janis Chadsey-Rusch, Frank Rusch, Adelle
Renzaglia, Jim Halle, Giulio Lancioni, and Jeff Sigafoos. A special thanks to
my mother-in-law Eva Bernard for those hot dishes on cold Minnesota
nights. Last but not least, to my wife and kids, Bonnie, Aoife, Cian, and
Aisling, thanks for your patience.

Mark F. O'Reilly

My contribution to this book developed out of my earlier volume, Principles

of Behavioral Analysis (published by Harwood Academic Publishers, in
1996), which in turn was a product of many interactions with teachers,
colleagues and students since Jock Millenson first taught me about behavior
analysis. I am indebted to Mark O'Reilly for his vision as to how this book
should be constructed, and for teaching me a lot about applied issues as we
put it together. Incidental interactions with Derek Blackman over the same
period helped me focus on central issues in the experimental analysis of
behavior. I am indebted to my family, Rosanne, Edward and Rowan, for
their love and support.

Julian C. Leslie

We would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce

copyrighted material.
American Psychological Association: Figure 6.7 from Bandura, A. (1965).
Influence of model's reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of
imitative responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1, 589-595.

Academic Press: Figure 6.4 from Warren, J.M. (1965). Primate learning in
comparative perspective. In A.M. Schrier, H.F. Harlow, and F. Stollnitz (Eds.)
Behavior of nonhuman primates. New York: Academic Press, pp. 249-281.

American Association for the Advancement of Science: Figure 3.8 from

Gormezano, I., Schneiderman, N., Deaux, E.B., and Fuentes, I. (1962).
Nictitating membrane: Classical conditioning and extinction in the albino
rabbit. Science, 138, 33-34. Figure 10.1 from Neisworth, J. T. and Moore, F.
(1972). Operant treatment of asthmatic responding with the parent as
therapist. Behavior Therapy, 3, 95-99.

J.S Brurier: Figure 6.6 from Bruner, J.S., Goodnovv, J.J., and Austin, G. (1956).
A study of thinking. New York: Wiley.

Macmillan Journals Limited (London): Figure 6.5 from Dennis, I., Hampton,
J.A., and Lea, S.E.G. (1973). New problem in concept formation. Nature
(London), 243, 101-102.

Elsevier Science: Figure 10.8 from Peine, H. A., et al. (1991). The use of
contingent water misting in the treatment of self-choking. Journal of
Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 22, 225-231.

B.F. Skinner Foundation: Figures 2.4, 3.1, and 3.10 from Skinner, B.F. (1938).
The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Figure 4.5
from Ferster, C.B. and Skinner, B.F, (1957). Schedules of reinforcement. New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior: From the Journal of the
Experimental Analysis of Behavior: Figure 3.4 from Azrin, N.H., Hutchinson,
R.R., and Hake, D.F. (1966). Extinction-induced aggression. 9, 191-204. Figure
4.8 from Hearst, E., Besley, S., and Farthing, G.W. (1970). Inhibition and the
stimulus control of operant behavior. 14, 373-409, Figure 5.2 from Dinsmoor,
J.A. and Winograd, E. (1958). Shock intensity in variable interval escape
schedules. 1, 145-148. Figure 5.5 from Verhave, T. (1959). Avoidance
responding as a function of simultaneous and equal changes in two temporal
parameters. 2, 185-190. Figure 5.7 from Bradshaw, C.M., Szabadi, E., and
Bevan, P. (1977). Effects of punishment on human variable-interval
performance. 27, 275-280. Figure 6.8 from Baer, D.M., Peterson, R., and
Sherman, J. (1967). The development of imitation by reinforcing behavioral
similarity to a model. 10, 405-416. Figure 9.5 from Ayllon, T. and Azrin, N.H.
(1965). The measurement and reinforcement of behavior of psychotics. 8,
357-383. Figure 11.9 from Kuno, H., Kitadate, T., and Iwamoto, T. (1994).
Formation of transitivity in conditional matching to sample by pigeons. 62,
399-408. Figure 11.7 from Beardsley, S.D. and McDowell, J.J. (1992).
Application of Herrnstein hyperbola to time allocation of naturalistic
human-behavior maintained by naturalistic social-reinforcement. 52, 177-
185.

From the journal of Applied Behavior Analysis: Table 7.1 from Taylor, I. and
O'Reilly, M.F. (1997). Toward a functional analysis of private verbal self-
regulation. 30, 43-58. Table 7.2 from Friman, P.C., et al. (1986). Testicular self-
examination: Validation of a training strategy for early cancer detection. 19,
87-92. Figure 8.6 from Tustin, D. (1995). The effects of advance notice of
activity transitions on stereotypic behavior. 28, 91-92. Figure 8.7 from
Friman, P.C. and Vollmer, D. (1995). Successful use of a nocturnal urine
alarm for diurnal enuresis. 28, 89-90. Figure 8.8 from Brigham, T.A., Meier,
S.M. and Goodner, V. (1995). Increasing designated driving with a program
of prompts and incentives. 28, 83-84. Figure 8.9 from Jason, L.A. and Liotta,
R.F. (1982). Reduction of cigarette smoking in a university cafeteria. 15, 573-
577. Figure 8.10 from Taylor, B.A. and Harris, S.L. (1995). Teaching children
with autism to seek information: Acquisition of novel information and
generalization of responding. 28, 3-14. Figure 8.11 from Jackson, N.C. and
Mathews, M.R. (1995). Using public feedback to increase contributions to a
multipurpose senior center. 28, 449-455. Figure 8.12 from Rasing, E.J. and
Duker, P.C. (1992). Effects of a multifaceted training procedure on the
acquisition and generalization of social behaviors in language-disabled deaf
children. 25, 723-734. Figure 8.14 from Kennedy, C.H. and Souza, G. (1995).
Functional analysis and treatment of eye poking. 28, 27-37. Figure 8.15 from
Smith, R.G., Iwata, B.A. and Shore, B.A. (1995). Effects of subject-versus
experimenter-selected reinforcers on the behavior of individuals with
profound developmental disabilities. 28, 61-71. Figure 9.1 from Fisher, W., et
al. (1992). A comparison of two approaches for identifying reinforcers for
persons with severe and profound disabilities. 25, 491-498. Figure 9.2 from
Foster-Johnson, L., Ferro, J. and Dunlap, G. (1994). Preferred curricular
activities and reduced problem behaviors in students with intellectual
disabilities. 27, 493-504. Figure 9.4 from Vollmer, T.R. and lwata, B.A. (1991).
Establishing operations and reinforcement effects. 24, 279-291. Figure 9.7
from Derby, K.M., Wacker, D.P., Sasso, G., Steege, M., Northup, J., Cigrand,
K. and Asmus, J. (1992). Brief functional assessment techniques to evaluate
aberrant behavior in an outpatient setting: A summary of 79 cases. 25, 713-
721. Figure 9.8 from Mazaleski, J. L. et al. (1993). Analysis of the
reinforcement and extinction components in DRO contingencies with self-
injury. 26, 143-156. Figure 9.10 from Hagopian, L.P., Fisher, W., and Legacy,
S.M. (1994). Schedule effects of noncontingent reinforcement on attention-
maintained destructive behavior in identical quadruplets. 27, 317-325. Figure
9.12 from Halle, J.W., Baer, D.M., and Spradlin, J.E. (1981). Teachers'
generalized use of delay as a stimulus control procedure to increase
language use in handicapped children. 14, 389-409. Figure 9.16 from Wilson,
P.G., Reid, D.H., Phillips, J.F., and Burgio, L.D. (1984). Normalization of
institutional mealtimes for profoundly retarded persons: Effects and
noneffects of teaching family-style dining. 17, 189-201. Figure 9.17 from Lalli,
J.S., Zanolli, K., and Wohn, T. (1994). Using extinction to promote response
variability in toy play. 27, 735-736. Figure 9.18 from Hughes, C. ef al. (1995).
The effects of multiple-exemplar self-instructional training on high school
students' generalized conversational interactions. 28, 201-218. Table 9.1 from
Richman, G.S. et al. (1984). Teaching menstrual care to mentally retarded
women: Acquisition, generalization, and maintenance. 17, 441-451. Table 9.2
from Halle, J.W., Baer, D.M. and Spradlin, J.E. (1981). Teachers' generalized
use of delay as a stimulus control procedure to increase language use in
handicapped children. 14, 389-409. Table 9.3 from Zencius, A.H., Davis, P.K.,
and Cuvo, A.J. (1990). A personalized system of instruction for teaching
checking account skills to adults with mild disabilities. 23, 245-252. Figure
10.2 from Vollmer, T. R. et at. (1993). The role of attention in the treatment of
attention-maintained self-injurious behavior: Noncontingent reinforcement
(NCR) and differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO). 26, 9-26.
Figure 10.3 from France, K.G. and Hudson, S.M. (1990). Behavior
management of infant sleep disturbance. 23, 91-98. Figure 10.4 from Goh, H.
and Iwata, B.A. (1994). Behavioral persistence and variability during
extinction of self-injury maintained by escape. 27, 173-174. Figure 10.5 from
Van Houten, R. (1993). The use of wrist weights to reduce self-injury
maintained by sensory reinforcement. 26, 197-203. Figure 10.6 from Shore,
B.A. et al, (1997). An analysis of reinforcer substitutability using object
manipulation and self-injury as competing responses. 30, 21-41. Figure 10.7
from Iwata, B.A. et al.(1994). What makes extinction work: An analysis of
procedural form and function. 27, 131-144. Figure 10.10 from Porterfield, J.K.,
Herbert-Jackson, E., and Risley, T.R. (1976). Contingent observation: An
effective and acceptable procedure for reducing disruptive behavior of
young children in a group setting. 9, 55-64. Figure 10.11 from Rolider, A. and
Van Houten, R. (1985). Movement suppression time-out for undesirable
behavior in psychotic and severely developmentally delayed children. 18,
275-288. Figure 10.,12 from Haring, T.G. and Kennedy, C,H. (1990).
Contextual control of problem behavior in students with severe disabilities.
23, 235-243. Figure 10.13 from Azrin, N.H. and Wesolowski, M.D. (1974).
Theft reversal: An overcorrection procedure for eliminating stealing by
retarded persons. 7, 577-581. Figure 10.14 from Luce, S.C., Delquadri, J., and
Hail, R.V. (1980). Contingent exercise: A mild but powerful procedure for
suppressing inappropriate verbal and aggressive behavior. 13, 583-594.
Figure 11.1 from Wagner, J.L. and Winett, R.A. (1988). Promoting one lowfat,
high-fiber selection in a fast-food restaurant. 21, 179-185. Figure 11.2 from
DeLuca, R.V. and Holborn, S.W. (1992). Effects of a variable-ratio
reinforcement schedule with changing criteria on exercise in obese and
nonobese boys. 25, 671-679. Figure 11.3 from DeVries, J.E., Burnette, M.M.,
and Redmon, W.K. (1991). Aids prevention: Improving nurses' compliance
with glove wearing through performance feedback. 24, 705-711. Figure 11.4
from Derrickson, J.G., Neef, N., and Parrish, J.M. (1991). Teaching self-
administration of suctioning to children with tracheotomies. 24, 563-570.
Figure 11.5 from Fox, D.K., Hopkins, B. L., and Anger, W.K. (1987). The long-
term effects of a token economy on safety performance in open-pit mining.
20, 215-224. Figure 11.8 from Mace, C. F. et al. (1994). Limited matching on
concurrent-schedule reinforcement of academic behavior. 27, 585-596. Table
11.1 from Fawcett, S. B. (1991). Some values guiding community research
and action. 24, 621-636. Table 11.2 from Kennedy, C.H., Itkonen, T., and
Lindquist, K. (1994). Nodality effects during equivalence class formation: An
extension to sight-word reading and concept development. 27, 673-683.

Southern Universities Press: Figure 5.2B from Barry, J.j. and Harrison, J.M.
(1957). Relations between stimulus intensity and strength of escape
responding. Psychological Reports, 3, 3-8.

Prentice-Hall Inc: Figure 4.4 from Mackintosh, N.J. (1977). Stimulus control:
Attention factors. In W.K. Honig and J.E.R. Staddon (Eds.), Handbook of
operant behavior. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Figure 4.7 from
Catania. A.C. (1966). Concurrent operants. In W.K. Honig (Ed.), Operant
behavior: Areas of research and application. New York: Appleton-Century-
Crofts. Figure 5.6 from Azrin, N.H. and Holz, W.C. (1966). Punishment. In W.
K. Honig (Ed.), Operant behavior: Areas of research and application. New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

R.M. Hull: Figure 2.6 from Hull, C.L. (1943). Principles of behavior. New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Council for Exceptional Children: Figure 8.13 from Bates, P., Renzaglia, A.,
and Clees, T. (1980). Improving the work performance of
severely/profoundly retarded young adults: The use of a changing criterion
procedural design. Education and Training of the Mentally Retarded, 15, 95-
104.

Sage Publications: Figure 9.3 from Allen, L.D. and Iwata, B.A. (1980).
Reinforcing exercise maintenance: Using existing high-rate activities.
Behavior Modification, 4, 337-354. Figure 9.9 from Favell, J.E., McGimsey, J.
F., and Jones, M.L. (1980). Rapid eating in the retarded: Reduction by
nonaversive procedures. Behavior Modification, 4, 481-492.

Journal of Mental Deficiency Research: Figure 9.6 from Deitz, S.M., Repp, A.
C., and Deitz, D.E.D. (1976). Reducing inappropriate classroom behavior of
retarded students through three procedures of differential reinforcement. 20,
155-170.

HarperCollins Inc.: Figure 9.11 from Grant, L. and Evans, A. (1994).

Principles of behavior analysis. New York: HarperCollins.

Education and Treatment of Children: Figure 10.9 from Rolider, A. and Van
Houten, R. (1984). The effects of DRO alone and DRO plus reprimands on the
undesirable behavior of three children in home settings. 7, 17-31.
Chapter 1
A Scientific Approach to Behavior
We are all very interested in what other people do, and we also want to
know why people act as they do. While "common-sense explanations" about
these issues are plentiful, we shall be concerned here with scientific answers
to the questions raised. In the last hundred years or so, many areas of
human life have been transformed by scientific and technological
developments. In this first chapter, we will briefly review historical progress
towards a scientific account of human behavior and a possible technology
for changing human behavior.

1.1 Early Attempts to Explain Human Behavior

It is never possible to identify precisely the moment at which interest in a

particular subject began, but we do know that by 325 B.C., in ancient
Greece, Aristotle had combined observation and interpretation into a
naturalistic, if primitive, account of behavior. Aristotle sought to understand
the causes of body movements, and of the discriminations made by humans
and other animals. He described many categories of behavior, such as sense
perception, sight, smell, hearing, common sense, simple and complex
thinking, appetite, memory, sleep, and dreaming. His topics sound familiar
to us today, as they are still to be found in some form or other in nearly
every comprehensive text of psychology. Aristotle was less interested in the
prediction of events than we are today, and consequently his explanations of
behavior have a less modern flavor. Aristotle was concerned with explaining
the various activities of an individual by showing them to be specific
instances of general "qualities", such as appetite, passion, reason, will, and
sense-ability (Toulmin and Goodfield, 1962).
The observations and classifications of Aristotle and the Greek
investigators who followed him represented a substantial beginning in a
naturalistic attempt to understand the causes of human and animal behavior.
However, the new science declined with the demise of Hellenic civilization.
In the western world, the early Christian era and the Middle Ages produced
an intellectual climate poorly suited to observation and investigation:
attention was turned to metaphysical matters. The Church Fathers began,
and the mediaeval theologians completed, a conceptual transformation of
Aristotle's purely abstract "quality" of mind into a supernatural entity named
the soul. In their conceptual framework the causation of human behavior
was entirely attributed to the soul, but the soul was regarded as non-
material, in-substantial and super-natural.
This dualistic (or two-system) doctrine stated that there was no direct
connection between soul and body, and that each inhabited a separate realm.
By locating the causes of behavior in the unobservable realm of the spirit or
soul, dualism inhibited a naturalistic study of behavior, and for a very long
time no interest was taken in an empirical or observational approach to
behavior. We have to jump forward to the seventeenth century, the time of
Galileo and the rise of modern physics, to pick up the threads that were
eventually to be rewoven into a scientific fabric.
The work of René Descartes (1596–1650), the French philosopher and
mathematician, represents a critical point in the development of a science of
behavior. Although Descartes produced one of the clearest statements of the
dualistic position, he also advanced behavioral science by suggesting that
bodily movement might be the result of mechanical, rather than
supernatural, causes.
Descartes was familiar with the mechanical figures in the French royal
gardens at Versailles that could move and produce sounds, and observations
of these probably prompted him to put forward a mechanical account of
behavior. The machines in the royal gardens worked on mechanical
principles. Water was pumped through concealed tubes to inflate the limbs
of the figures, producing movement, or was conducted through devices that
emitted words or music as the water flowed by. Descartes imagined that
animals and human beings might be a kind of complex machine, perhaps
constructed in a similar way. He substituted animal spirits, a sort of
intangible, invisible, elastic substance, for the water of the Royal Figures and
supposed the spirits to flow in the nerves in such a way as to enter the
muscles, thereby causing them to expand and contract, and in turn make the
limbs move.
Some of the Royal Figures were so arranged that if passers-by happened
to tread on hidden tiles, hydraulic mechanisms caused the figures to
approach or withdraw. Descartes took this mechanical responsiveness as a
model for explaining how an external environmental stimulus might cause a
bodily movement. An illustration in one of his works (see Figure 1.1) shows
a withdrawal of a human limb from a flame. According to Descartes, the
"machine of our body is so formed that the heat of the flame excites a nerve
which conducts that excitation to the brain. From the brain, animal spirits
are then passed out, or reflected back via that nerve to the limb, enlarging
the muscle, and so causing a contraction and withdrawal" (Fearing, 1930).

Figure 1.1 Descartes' model of how an external event might cause bodily movement.
 Descartes' willingness to view human behavior as determined by natural
forces was only partial. He confined his mechanical hypotheses to certain
"involuntary" activities and supposed the rest to be governed by the soul,
located in the brain. The soul guided even the mechanisms of the
"involuntary" activities, much in the way an engineer might have directed
the workings of the Royal Figures.
In spite of this dualism, and in spite of his choice of a hydraulic principle,
Descartes' formulation represented an advance over earlier thinking about
behavior. The theory of the body as a specific kind of machine was one that
was testable by observation and experiment. This property of "testability"
was conspicuously lacking in the mediaeval explanations that preceded
Descartes, in re-establishing the idea that at least some of the causes of
animal and human behavior might be found in the observable environment,
Descartes laid the philosophical foundations that would eventually lead to
an experimental approach to behavior.

1.2 Reflex Action

Descartes' views symbolize the new interest in mechanism that was to lead
to experimentation on "reflected" animal action. However, a century elapsed
before a Scottish physiologist, Robert Whytt, experimentally rediscovered
and extended Descartes' principle of the stimulus in 1750. By observing
systematic contraction of the pupil of the eye to light, salivation to irritants,
and various other reflexes, Whytt was able to state a necessary relationship
between two separate events: an external stimulus (for example, a light) and
a bodily response (for example, a pupil contraction). Moreover, Whytt's
demonstration that a number of reflexes could be elicited in the frog, even
when the brain had been disconnected from the spinal cord, weakened the
attractiveness of the soul as an explanation of all behavior. Yet an
eighteenth-century thinker was not quite able to regard the stimulus alone
as a sufficient cause of behavior in an intact, living organism. The soul,
thought Whytt, probably diffused itself throughout the spinal cord and the
brain thereby retaining master control of reflexes.

Figure 1.2 A simple reflex and its connections to the spinal cord.

In the following 150 years, more and more reflex relationships were
discovered and elaborated, and the concept of the stimulus grew more useful
in explaining animal behavior. At the same time, nerve action became
understood as an electrical system and the older hydraulic or mechanical
models were discarded. By the end of the nineteenth century, spiritual
direction had become superfluous for "involuntary action", and Sir Charles
Sherrington, the celebrated English physiologist, could summarize the
principles of reflex behavior in quantitative stimulus-response laws. These
laws relate the speed, magnitude, and probability of the reflex response to
the intensity, frequency, and other measurable properties of the stimulus.
The anatomy of an example of the simplest type of reflex, consisting of two
nerve cells or neurons, is shown in Figure 1.2, One neuron (the afferent
neuron) transmits neural impulses resulting from the stimulus to the spinal
cord and the other (the efferent neuron) runs from the spinal cord back to
the muscle. Firing of the efferent neuron results in a motor response of the
muscle.
By 1900, there could be no doubt that reflexive behavior was a suitable
subject for scientific analysis and that analysis was well advanced. However,
reflexes clearly accounted for only a small proportion of the behavior of
human beings and so-cailed "higher animals", and it had yet to be
established that the remainder of behavior could be subjected to the same
sort of analysis.

1.3 Acquired or Conditioned Reflexes

Just before the beginning of the twentieth century, Ivan Pavlov, the Russian
physiologist, was carrying out experiments on the digestive secretions of
dogs. He noticed that while the introduction of food or acid into the mouth
resulted in a flow of saliva, the mere appearance of the experimenter
bringing food would also elicit a similar flow. Pavlov was by no means the
first person to make observations of this sort; but he seems to have been the
first to suspect that their detailed study might provide a clue to the
understanding of how animal behavior is able to adapt to circumstances. It
was this insight that led him to a systematic study of these reflexes, which
he called conditional reflexes, because they depended, or were conditional,
upon some previous events in the life of the animal. The appearance of the
experimenter had not originally elicited saliva. It was only after his
appearance had frequently occurred along with food or acid that it had this
effect. Pavlov's unique contribution was to show experimentally how
conditioned reflexes (an early translation from the Russian rendered
"conditional" as "conditioned", and this has become the normal expression)
came to be acquired, how they could be removed (extinguished), and what
range of stimuli was effective in their production. In time, Pavlov was to lay
down a general law of conditioning: after repeated presentation of two
stimuli at overlapping times, the one that occurs first comes eventually to
elicit (that is, produce automatically) the response that is normally elicited
by the second stimulus. A modified version of this law, or principle, is with
us today.
Pavlov stated how the explanation of behavior should proceed:
The naturalist must consider only one thing: what is the relation of this or that external reaction of
the animal to the phenomena of the external world? This response may be extremely complicated
in comparison with the reaction of any inanimate object, but the principle involved remains the
same. Strictly speaking, natural science is under obligation to determine only the precise
connection which exists between a given natural phenomenon and the response of the living
organism to that phenomenon... (Pavlov, 1928, p. 82).

Very often major advances in a field are the result of, or are accompanied
by, methodological innovations. This is certainly true in the case of Pavlov
and conditioned reflexes. Pavlov discovered that controlled environmental
conditions were essential for successful behavioral experimentation. His
dogs had to be kept in steady temperatures and in sound-proof chambers for
the experiments, during which stimuli were presented in a controlled
fashion and responses recorded in ways which did not interfere too much
with the experimental participant. He also realized that only dogs in good
general health made satisfactory participants in experiments. An illustration
of the typical experimental arrangements, as used at the end of the
nineteenth century, by Pavlov and his colleagues at the Institute of
Experimental Medicine in Saint Petersburg appears in Figure 1.3.
The apparatus used is well described in the following passage:
Figure 1.3 A typical arrangement for studying salivation in a conditioning experiment in Pavlov's
19th century laboratory.

First, a normal dog is familiarized with the experimental situation until he shows no disturbance
when placed in harness and left alone in a room especially designed to cut off unwanted outside
stimuli. A small opening or fistula is made in the dog's cheek near the duct of one of the salivary
glands. When the fistula is healed, a glass funnel is carefully cemented to the outside of the cheek
so that it will draw off the saliva whenever the gland is activated. From the funnel, the saliva then
flows into a glass container or fails, drop by drop, upon a lightly balanced recording platform. The
magnitude of responses to various stimuli can be measured by the total volume or the number of
drops secreted in a given unit of time. The experimenter, who sits in an adjoining room, can make
his measurements, apply what stimuli he desires (including food), and observe the dog's behavior
through a window. (Keller and Schoenfeld, 1950, pp. 16–17)

The experimenter is thus in a position to measure the salivary reflex

precisely. He or she is also able to control carefully the presentations of
various stimulus events to the organism.
We will examine in detail an experiment by one of Pavlov's students
(Anrep, 1920), as an example of the Pavlovian method and results. In this
experiment by Anrep (1920), a tone was sounded in the animal's room for 5
seconds. Then, 2 or 3 seconds later, a piece of food was given to the dog. This
pairing of tone with food presentation was repeated after intervals ranging
from 5 to 35 minutes. In order to observe the effect of the tone alone, the
experimenter occasionally presented it for 30 seconds, unpaired with food.
Over the course of 16 days, 50 tone-food presentations and 6 tone-alone tests
were made. The principal data of Anrep's experiment were obtained during
the 6 tone-alone tests. During these tests, he carefully measured both the
total number of drops of saliva and the time (or latency) between the onset
of the 30-second test tone and the first drop of saliva. He found that, after
one tone-food pairing, presentation of the tone alone produced no salivation
at all. After 10 such pairings, however, 6 drops appeared in the tone-alone
test, and the first of these 6 drops came 18 seconds after the onset of the test
tone. After 20 such pairings, 20 drops were produced, the first drop coming
now at only 9 seconds. From 30 pairings onward, approximately 60 drops of
saliva were obtained during each test, and they began to appear in the first
second or two after the onset of the test tone. The results of the experiment
are clear-cut: salivation occurs reliably to an arbitrarily-selected stimulus, an
auditory tone, after the tone is paired with food 30 times.

1.4 Classical Conditioning

Pavlov's realization that he was investigating phenomena that might be of

general significance, his development of sound experimental techniques,
and, above all, his careful collection of a body of systematically related
experimental findings over a period of more than thirty years, mean that he
was a great scientist. We now call the conditioning process he investigated
classical conditioning, because it was the type of conditioning that was
investigated earliest, and research has continued over the one hundred years
since his original studies.
In the terminology we shall use here, if a conditioned stimulus (CS) –such
as the ringing of a bell in one of Pavlov's experiments – is reliably followed
by an unconditioned stimulus (US) – such as food in the mouth –on a
number of occasions, then the CS comes to elicit (or automatically produce)
a conditioned response. Pavlov demonstrated this process many times, and
gradually varied features of his experiments to establish the generality of the
effect. He also showed that there were a number of related phenomena
concerned with extinction and discrimination, and we will discuss some of
these in later chapters.
Pavlov, believed, and later investigators demonstrated, that he was
investigating a process that enabled many species – not just dogs – to adapt
to many aspects of their environments. He is thus credited with discovering
the first "general learning process". It is general because it can affect many
response systems, can involve many types of stimuli, and is seen in many
animal species. We will see later that it is importantly involved in human
behavior and the alleviation of human behavioral problems.

1.5 Evolutionary Theory and Adaptive Behavior

Pavlov's work showed how "new" reflexes could be acquired to supplement

those "built-in" reflexes that the organism possesses prior to any appreciable
experience of the world. As such, it represents the culmination of Descartes'
mechanistic view of reflex behavior. However, it appeared that only those
responses that form part of an existing reflex (such as the salivation
produced by the stimulus, dry-food-in-the-mouth) can become conditioned
reflexes, and thus much non-reflexive behavior still remained to be
scientifically analyzed. This behavior comes into the category traditionally
described as voluntary, or under the control of the will, and it is just this
category that Descartes assigned to the control of an unobservable soul.
Descartes' maneuver only postponed a scientific inquiry, however, because
we are now faced with the difficult problem of describing the relations
between the soul which we cannot observe, and the patterns of behavior,
which we do observe.
The view that voluntary human behavior was not a suitable subject for a
scientific study came under attack in 1859. In that year, Charles Darwin
proposed his theory of evolution, holding that human beings are members of
the animal kingdom, and that differences between humans and other
animals are quantitative and matters of degree. As a distinguished historian
of psychology put it:
The theory of evolution raised the problem of animal psychology because it demands continuity
between different animal forms and between man and the animals. In a vague way the Cartesian
[Descartes'] notion still prevailed. Man possessed a soul and the animals were believed to be
soulless; and there was, moreover, little distinction then made between a soul and a mind.
Opposition to the theory of evolution was based primarily upon its assumption of continuity
between man and the brutes, and the obvious reply to criticism was to demonstrate the continuity.
The exhibition of mind in animals and of the continuity between the animal and the human mind
thus became crucial to the life of the new theory (Boring, 1929, pp. 462–463).

Darwin's theory derived support from the many careful observations that
he had made of fossils and the structure of flora and fauna living in isolated
areas of the earth. In addition, he had investigated the behavior by which
animals adapted to their environments. Darwin's behavioral observations
were so comprehensive and detailed as to mark the first systematic attempt
at a comparative animal psychology (see Darwin, 1873).
Darwin's interest in behavior was, as Boring noted, based on what it
could reveal about mind. Thus, the demonstration of complexity and variety
in adaptive behavior of animals in relation to their changing environments
seemed to prove that they, like human beings, must also think, have ideas,
and feel desires. Eventually, Darwin was to be criticized for his
anthropomorphism; that is, for trying to explain animal behavior in terms of
mentalistic concepts generally used to account for human behavior. But few
thought at the time to raise the far more radical methodological question:
Do traditional mentalistic concepts (thoughts, ideas, desires) have
explanatory value even for human behavior?
Darwin's friend, George John Romanes, an English writer and popularizer
of science, wrote a book on animal intelligence (Romanes, 1886) in which he
compared the behavior of various species of animals. Romanes gathered
material from careful observation of animals, but he also took evidence from
popular accounts of pets and circus animals. For this reason, his method has
come to be called anecdotal. The anthropomorphic and anecdotal methods of
Darwin and Romanes, respectively, marked the renewal of interest in
adaptive animal behavior and its relationship to human behavior, and
therefore represent important historical precursors of a truly scientific and
experimental analysis of behavior. The crucial conceptual change had
occurred: animal and human behavior was now approached from a scientific
point of view and in a biological context.

1.6 Scientific Analysis of “Voluntary” Behavior

In 1898, Edward L. Thorndike, of Columbia University in the USA, published

the results of a number of laboratory studies of "problem solving behavior"
in kittens, dogs, and chicks. His methods departed radically from those of the
casual observers who had preceded him. The behavior studied was escape
from a confining enclosure, and the acts, such as pulling a string, moving a
latch, pressing a lever, or prying open a lock, were chosen for their
convenience and reliability of observation. A sketch of his apparatus is
shown in Figure 1.4. Since any of these responses could be arranged to be
instrumental in producing escape from the box, Thorndike classed them as
instrumental behavior. A common feature of all his experiments was that, as
a result of experience in the experiment, the behavior of each animal
participant was systematically changed.
Four aspects of Thorndike's work on instrumental behavior gave it a
modern quality not seen in earlier investigations:
Figure 1.4 Thorndike's puzzle box for studying instrumental or operant behavior in animals. Escape
from the box could be made contingent upon one of a number of responses.

1. He recognized the importance of making observations of animals

whose past histories were known and were more or less uniform.
Thus he raised his animals in the laboratory, where they would
experience similar environmental conditions prior to
experimentation.
2. Thorndike understood the necessity for making repeated
observations on individual animals, and making observations on
more than one animal in more than one species. In these ways, he
could make it more likely that the results he obtained were
applicable to animals in general.
3. Thorndike saw that unless he considered more than one particular
response, his conclusions might only hold for the single piece of
behavior he chose. Thus he examined diverse responses in several
different pieces of apparatus.
4. Still another quality of Thorndike's work, and one which we
recognize as a fundamental characteristic of science, was his
attempt to make a quantitative presentation of his findings.
 From his work with animals in puzzle boxes, Thorndike derived a number
of principles or general laws of behavior which he believed held for many
species and for many kinds of behavior. One of these, in a somewhat
modified form, has come down to us today. Thorndike noticed that when
animals were first put into the puzzle box, they made many diffuse
struggling responses. Eventually, one of these responses would happen to
operate the escape mechanism and the door would open, permitting the
animal to escape from the box and to obtain a small quantity of food.
Thorndike observed that the behavior which first let the animal out was only
one of many that the animal made in the situation. Yet, as the animal was
repeatedly exposed to the situation, it came to make fewer and fewer
superfluous responses. Eventually, it made practically none apart from the
successful responses.
Thorndike concluded from his experimental findings that the successful
past results or effects of behavior must be an important influence in
determining the animal's present behavioral tendencies. Consequently,
Thorndike called this ability of the past effects of behavior to modify the
behavior patterns of the animal the law of effect. It survives today as a
fundamental principle in the analysis of adaptive behavior. In brief modern
form, the law of effect states that if a response is reliably followed by an
important consequence (such as food for a hungry organism), that response
will become more frequent.
The importance of Thorndike's formulation of the law of effect for the
development of behavioral analysis lies in its generality. Unlike Pavlov's
laws of the conditioned reflex, the law of effect was readily applied to those
responses usually regarded as voluntary. Indeed, it is more applicable to that
type of behavior than to reflexive behavior, which is relatively insensitive to
its consequences or effects.

1.7 The Rise of Behaviorism

Thorndike initiated the laboratory study of behavior which is adaptive; that
is, behavior which enables an organism to adapt or adjust rapidly to the
prevailing environmental conditions, and comes into the category often
described as "voluntary". In so doing, he discovered the law of effect and this
discovery has had a profound influence on the subsequent development of
behavioral analysis. However, Thorndike's own interest in behavior arose
from his concern as a psychologist with mental processes, which, at the end
of the nineteenth century, were seen as the key to understanding
psychology.
Although psychology at that time was seen as a science of mental
contents, mental processes, and mental acts, it actually involved
investigations of behavior. From the results of these investigations,
inferences were made about the mental processes that were presumed to be
crucially involved. In some of the studies that were carried out at that time,
associations of ideas were inferred from the learning of nonsense syllables,
or identical sensations were inferred from observations of behavior when a
human experimental participant matched two different environmental
objects in different contexts (for example, two samples of gray paper under
different conditions of illumination), or speed of the mental process was
inferred from an individual's reaction time. Given these uses of behavioral
procedures, and the influence of Darwin discussed earlier, it was perhaps not
surprising that when Thorndike designed his study of problem solving he
chose animals to participate in the experiments. If the behavior of human
organisms could lead to inferences about mental processes, why not the
behavior of animals? Furthermore, as Pavlov's and Thorndike's work
revealed, the study of animal behavior may allow specific research questions
to be addressed more precisely through the use of carefully controlled
experiments.
Despite Thomdike's innovations, the man who did the most to clarify the
relationship between behavior and psychology was John B, Watson. The
earliest work of this American psychologist was concerned with the sense-
modalities that the rat uses in learning to find its way through a maze. As
Watson carried on his animal studies, he came to be more and more
disturbed by the prevailing view that behavior possessed significance only as
it shed light on mental or conscious processes. It occurred to Watson that the
data of behavior were valuable in their own right and that the traditional
problems of psychology, such as imagery, sensation, feeling, and association
of ideas, could all be studied by strictly behavioral methods.
In 1913, Watson published a now classic paper defining psychology as the
science of behavior and naming this new psychology "behaviorism". Watson
argued in this paper that the study of behavior could achieve an independent
status within science. The goal of such a science could be the prediction and
control of the behavior of all animals, and no special preference need be
given human beings. The behaviorist, claimed Watson, need relate his
studies of rats and cats to human behavior no more (nor less) than the
zoologist need relate his dissections on frogs and earthworms to human
anatomy. By his doctrine, Watson was destroying the "homocentric"
(human-centered) theory of human importance in the behavioral world just
as much as Copernicus had destroyed the geocentric (earth-centered) theory
of the universe, four hundred years earlier. Watson's main theme was that
psychology must be objective: that is, it must have a subject matter which,
like that of the other sciences, remains independent of the observer. Up until
that time, psychology had attempted to take as its subject matter self-
observation of mental processes, but this strategy lacks an independent
observer located outside of the system being considered. Watson realized
that this meant that conflicts about the contents of consciousness could not
be resolved, even in principle. There were no grounds for preferring one
person's report over another's. This, he argued, made that approach
inherently unscientific, but the problem could be resolved if behavior itself
was treated as the primary subject matter of psychology. If we take
"behavior" to include only those human or animal activities that are, in
principle, observable, then any statement about behavior made by one
observer or experimenter can be verified by another person repeating the
observations.
Watson's program for the new science of behavior was far-reaching and,
for its time, remarkably sophisticated. In its insistence on behavior as an
independent subject matter of a science aimed at the prediction and control
of behavior, and in its stress on a detailed analysis of the environment and
behavior into stimuli and responses as the way to eventual understanding of
complex patterns of behavior, Watson's program laid the basis for modern
viewpoints.

1.8 The Experimental Analysis of Behavior

Thorndike's early experiments on animal behavior and Watson's definition of

a science of behavior established the potential value of experimental
research with animals. However, relatively little had been discovered at that
early stage. In Pavlov's principle of conditioned reflexes, Watson thought he
saw an explanatory mechanism for the many complex and subtle
adjustments that adult organisms, including humans, make to their
environments. But the attempt to force all behavior into the reflex mold was
to prove a failure, and Watson failed to appreciate the significance of
Thorndike's law of effect. Further progress was slow until another American,
B.F. Skinner, made a number of innovations.
In a series of papers beginning in 1930, Skinner proposed a formulation of
behavior which arose out of observations made on single organisms
responding in a carefully controlled and highly standardized artificial
experimental situation. Skinner's organism was the white rat, which had also
been studied by Watson and others, but his apparatus consisted of an
enclosure or box containing a small metal bar, or lever, which, if depressed
by the rat, resulted in the delivery of a small pellet of food to a cup located
directly under the lever. Atypical version of the apparatus is shown in Figure
1.5. Under these experimental conditions, a hungry rat left alone in the box
would soon come to press the lever at a sustained moderate rate until the
number of food pellets delivered had begun to satiate the animal. Skinner's
experimental situation and his approach to the problems of behavior were
unique in many respects. Skinner saw the necessity for making available a
sensitive and reliable dependent variable; that is, some quantitative aspect of
behavior which could vary over a wide range and enter into consistent and
orderly relationships with past and present environmental, or independent,
variables. His discovery that the frequency of occurrence of the lever-press
response during a given interval of time, the response rate, satisfied these
conditions was a major step towards an analysis of how behavior is
modified by many aspects of the environment.
Skinner's approach to the study of behavior differed in certain ways from
those of both his predecessors and his contemporaries. As a fundamental
proposition, he held that a science of behavior could be what he called
descriptive or functional; that is, it could limit itself to the discovery of
relationships or correlations between measurable variables. He maintained
that the identification of such functional relationships between aspects of
behavior (the dependent variables) and parameters of the environment (the
independent variables) should be the goal of a science of behavior. Skinner
also argued that the investigations must be systematic, in that the
relationships obtained should be linked by a common thread. By confining
his observations to the ways that a single dependent variable (the rate, or
frequency in time, of an arbitrary piece of behavior) changed with varied
environmental conditions, Skinner kept his own work highly systematic
(Skinner, 1938).
Figure 1.5 An experimental chamber, usually called a Skinner box, based on the one originally
devised by B.F. Skinner for the study of operant conditioning.

Skinner's methodological contributions to the development of the

experimental analysis of behavior were numerous, and we will mention only
some of the more important ones here. He recognized a methodological
analogy between particle emission in physics and the emitted character of
spontaneous voluntary action. Many categories of behavior are emitted in
the simple sense that they will occur from time to time. Skinner adopted the
unique strategy of scientifically studying these emitted behaviors – which he
called operants, because they generally operate upon the environment to
change it – and he explored their systematic and quantitative relationship to
motivational variables, and to a host of reward and punishment (or
reinforcement) parameters. He formulated a precise vocabulary whose terms
were defined by reference to the observable properties of the stimuli used
and the behavior recorded, and coined the phrase, "the experimental analysis
of behavior", to describe this type of research.
From the outset, Skinner emphasized the importance of detailed
prediction and control of individual behavior. His own researches were
invariably characterized by a great many measurements on very few
organisms, with the reproducibility of the process under study as the test for
reliability. Skinner's focus on the rate of a representative operant response
has avoided many of the problems associated with more indirect measures
of behavior. Thorndike had observed the number of errors made and the
time taken to achieve success in his puzzle box, but neither of these was a
property of the instrumental (that is, operant) behavior that was being
acquired, if we wish to train a dog to jump through a hoop, for instance, we
are less interested in the errors he makes, than in the hoop jumping itself.
Errors are a measure of responses other than those we are in the process of
investigating. Interesting questions about whether or not a given act will
occur, or how often it will occur, can, however, be answered by Skinner's
basic measure, rate of response.
 The empirical basis of the experimental analysis of behavior has been
gradually, but steadily, broadened. Starting from the lever-pressing of rats
for food, many other responses, reinforcers and species have been examined
and it has been possible to thereby show that principles derived from the
original situation can be generalized to many other superficially dissimilar
situations and, most importantly, to ourselves. Clearly the scope of the
experimental analysis of behavior would be limited and its progress very
slow if it had turned out that principles coming from one experimental
situation did not apply to substantially different situations, or had no
relevance to human behavior.

1.9 The Development of Applied Behavioral

Analysis

In the last forty years of the twentieth century, the successes of the
experimental analysis of behavior have led to many applications of the
principles that have emerged in the laboratory in dealing with serious real-
world human problems. These applications have led in turn to the
development of further principles that arise primarily in real-world
applications, rather than in the laboratory. In this text we seek to introduce
principles of both "pure" and applied behavioral analysis.
The move to applications was initially promoted by Skinner (1953), but
was taken up by a vast number of investigators. Many of these were clinical
psychologists who saw in applied behavioral analysis the possibility of
introducing techniques to their work that would be effective in bringing
about behavior change. Some early studies involved engaging human
participants in procedures that closely resembled Skinner's experimental
studies with animals. For example, Lindsley (1960) examined the rate of
lever press responding in psychiatric patients when this behavior was
followed by presentation of money as a reinforcer. He found that the
amount of lever pressing was a sensitive index of the current level of
psychotic behavior, with lever pressing increasing as the frequency of
psychotic behavior declined. More typically, many early studies showed that
if an appropriate reinforcing stimulus was arranged to occur following
socially-acceptable or personally-useful behavior, then that behavior
increased in frequency while other destructive or socially unacceptable
behavior declined. In making these applications to the behavior of human
adults, it was often necessary to select reinforcers that were effective for
particular individuals. These might include events as diverse as attendance
at church services (Ayllon & Azrin, 1968) or feeding a kitten (Lindsiey, 1956).
The behavioral orientation of applied behavioral analysis distinguishes it
from all other approaches to ameliorating human psychological problems,
most notably from those that derive from either a medical or a
psychodynamic model. This behavioral orientation involves an initial
behavioral assessment of the problem, the specification of behavioral
objectives (that is, the changes in behavior that would be desirable), the use
of an intervention strategy derived from the experimental analysis of
behavior, and an assessment of whether the behavioral objectives have been
achieved. As applied behavioral analysis developed, most attention was
directed to the use of effective intervention strategies and demonstrations
that behavioral objectives had been achieved following intervention. By
1968, there was a sufficient level of activity to support the publication of a
specialist academic journal, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, and
the amount and range of work conducted has grown tremendously since
then.
Some of the pioneers in this field (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968) proposed
some defining features of applied behavior analysis that are still useful
today. It is applied in that the problems studied are those that are important
to society rather than those crucial to theory development; it is behavioral in
that it asks how it is possible to get an individual to do something
effectively; and it involves analysis, and thus requires a demonstration of the
events that can be responsible for the occurrence of the behavior in question.
Other features are that it must be effective, in that substantial behavior
change must be produced, and the behavior change should show generality.
That is, it endures over time, and is also seen in a range of situations.
As noted earlier, this approach is not confined to clinical psychology and
applications continue to be developed in an increasing number of areas. It
can now be argued that applied behavioral analysis is capable of embracing
the whole field of applied psychology (Goldstein and Krasner, 1987).

1.10 Applied and Basic Behavior Analysis

The experimental analysis of behavior, on the one hand, and applied

behavior analysis, on the other hand, can be seen as the science and
technology of behavior, as the former is concerned with the elucidation of
basic scientific principles while the latter is concerned with their real-world
applications. However, we are describing a new science and an even newer
technology, and, not surprisingly the relationship between this science and
technology is still under development and a matter for continuing debate
among researchers.
By 1980, there were many areas in which applied behavioral analysis had
been shown to be useful in dealing with serious human behavioral problems.
It had often been "the treatment of last resort" in the sense that a "case" (for
example, of a child with moderate intellectual disability who showed a
severe level of self-injurious behavior through gouging at his face with his
hand) had been approached using applied behavioral analysis only after
more conventional medical and psychological treatments had failed to be
effective. When applied behavioral analysis succeeded in producing
behavioral improvements in such cases, great impetus was given to its use in
similar cases, and it became more likely that it would become the preferred
initial approach to this type of behavioral problem.
These early successes were important for the development of applied
behavior analysis, but also led to an approach which some recent
commentators have seen as excessively technological (for example, Hayes,
1991), in that it is concerned solely with the meticulous implementation of
well-established procedures directed at significant human problems and not
at all directed at basic research questions. If this trend continues, Hayes
argued, there would not be an adequate basic science to generate useful
applications, These issues have resulted in calls (for example by Mace, 1994a,
Wacker, 1999) for research that bridges between experimental analysis and
applied analysis of behavior, The bridge should be a two-way connection,
with developments in each field informing the other. Mace suggested three
important strategies: (a) the development in the laboratory (with other
species) of models of human behavioral problems using operations that
resemble those thought to be important in human life, (b) replication
(repetition) of the same experimental design with humans in a laboratory
setting, and (c) tests of the generality of the model with real-world problems
in natural settings. Through such strategies, applied behavior analysis is
moving away from being concerned almost exclusively with the application
of a simple model of operant conditioning to human problems, and towards
embracing the implementation of an ever-increasing range of behavioral
principles.

1.11 Functional Analysis

In the early days of applied behavioral analysis, when practitioners were

mostly concerned with the simple strategy of implementing an operant
conditioning procedure, there were successes, but also a considerable
"unevenness" in treatment outcomes. That is, not every person showing a
particular problem, such as self-injurious behavior, was helped by the
behavioral intervention methods typically used. A major breakthrough on
this issue began with the work of Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, and
Richman (1982) on self-injury. They noted that earlier work had focused on
specifying behavioral objectives and implementing treatment, but had paid
little attention to establishing the environmental determinants of self-injury
prior to any intervention. That is, the question as to why the behavior was
occurring was not being properly addressed. They remedied this by devising
operant methods for assessing functional relationships between self-injury
and the physical and social environment. In that study, and subsequent ones,
they found that self-injury occurs for different reasons in different people.
Persons that engage in self-injury may do it because it results in attention
from others, because it allows them to escape from other demands (such as
doing school work), because it raises the level of sensory stimulation, or for
a combination of these reasons, importantly, behavioral interventions
become much more effective when the treatment strategy for each
individual is directly based on a prior functional analysis of their behavior.
Methods of functional analysis have now been developed for many types
of behavioral problem, and functional analysis is now seen as the key
element in the behavioral assessment which should precede any behavioral
intervention. We noted in Section 1.7 that Skinner (1938) stated that
functional relationships between aspects of behavior and parameters of the
environment should be the goal of a science of behavior. With the increasing
prominence of functional analysis in behavioral assessment, along with the
use of functionally-defined behavioral intervention, functional relationships
can now be seen as the central feature of applied behavioral analysis as they
are in the experimental analysis of behavior.

1.12 Summary

Progress towards a scientific account of human behavior has been erratic.

Although interest in it is very long standing, and dates back at least as far as
Aristotle in the fourth century BC, the centuries-long domination in the
Western world of religious explanations of human action made scientific
progress slow. In the seventeenth century AD, Descartes provided a new
dualistic framework which facilitated scientific accounts of animal behavior
and even human physiology, but still impeded a scientific account of human
behavior.
From the eighteenth century, developing knowledge of reflexes indicated
that parts at least of the nervous system could be analyzed scientifically. I.P.
Pavlov took a giant step beyond this in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century by demonstrating conditioned reflexes, or classical
conditioning, in the dog. Pavlov realized that he was investigating how
interaction with the environment modifies subsequent behavior in
individual organisms, and he suggested that his conditioning paradigm
could account for much learning and adaptation in animal behavior.
Conceptions of the relationship between human behavior and that of
other animals changed radically in the late nineteenth century, following
publication of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection
which implied that similar behavioral processes should be seen in humans as
in other species. Also in the late 19th century, E.L. Thorndike's work on the
law of effect and problem solving behavior illustrated such a behavioral
process. If kittens, dogs, and chicks can "learn through experience" of the
effects of their behavior, it seemed likely that this process affects humans as
well as many other species.
Major shifts in the intellectual landscape usually come about through the
promotional zeal of individuals, and in the early twentieth century
behaviorism was fervently and brilliantly promoted as an alternative to the
prevailing mentalism by J.B. Watson. Although few scientific data were
available, Watson saw the potential of a science of behavior, which would be
applicable to humans and to other species. Beginning in 1930, B.F. Skinner
began to provide those scientific data by building on Thorndike's findings
and establishing the branch of science known as the experimental analysis of
behavior. Not only did he improve experimental techniques and thus show
powerful control of animal behavior in laboratory experiments, but he also
spent much of his long career suggesting how the findings of the
experimental analysis of behavior could be extrapolated to explain much
human behavior in real world settings.
 Since 1960, those speculations about human behavior have been replaced
by applied scientific data. In the developing field of applied behavior
analysis, principles of behavioral analysis derived from laboratory studies
are deployed in the explanation and amelioration of human behavioral
problems. This applied science has progressed more rapidly in recent years,
because the importance of functional analysis has been recognized. A
successful functional analysis reveals the functions that a class of behavior
currently has for an individual, and thus provides a sound basis for an
intervention intended to change the frequency of that class of behavior.
Chapter 2
Operant Behavior and Operant
Conditioning

2.1 The Analysis of Purposive Behavior

As we saw in the previous chapter, the notion that much of animal behavior
consists of reflexes was well-known to the scientific community by the latter
part of the nineteenth century, and Pavlov's ideas about conditioned reflexes
as a model for much of learnt behavior were also rapidly and widely
disseminated. However, there is much behavior that apparently occurs at the
instigation of the individual, rather than being elicited by the onset of an
external stimulus. This includes those actions of human beings traditionally
described as voluntary, purposeful, spontaneous, or willful, and this class of
behavior was thought to be beyond the scope of a scientific or experimental
analysis until the turn of the twentieth century. The relationship between
this sort of behavior and reflexive behavior is well illustrated by the
following passage:
... when a cat hears a mouse, turns towards the source of the sound, sees the mouse, runs toward
it, and pounces, its posture at every stage, even to the selection of the foot which is to take the first
step, is determined by reflexes which can be demonstrated one by one under experimental
conditions. All the cat has to do is to decide whether or not to pursue the mouse; everything else is
prepared for it by its postural and locomotor reflexes (Skinner, 1957, p. 343; italics added).

The cat's behavior in this situation has an essential non-reflexive

ingredient, although reflexes are vital for the success of its attempt to catch
the mouse. Hidden in the simple statement, "all the cat has to do is to
decide," lies the point of departure for an analysis of purposive behavior,
whose occurrence is not related to the presence of an eliciting (that is,
immediately-producing) stimulus, either as a result of the history of the
species (as in a reflex) or as a result of the history of the individual (as in a
conditioned reflex).
The experimental analysis of so-called purposive behavior has proceeded
in a fashion typical of the development of scientific explanation and
understanding in many other disciplines. Typically, a small number of
systematic relationships are established first and repeatedly investigated. As
new relationships are added to those previously established, the group of
principles or "laws" begins to give a partial understanding of the area.
Starting with Thorndike's extensive pioneer work on learning in cats and
chicks, psychologists have searched for relationships between purposive
behavior and other events. Consider the problems in beginning such an
analysis: how do we go about finding variables or events to which purposive
behavior might be significantly related? Initially, we must proceed by
intuition and crude observation. Very often, forward-looking philosophical
speculation precedes scientific investigation of a problem, and in this case
the British philosopher, Herbert Spencer, wrote:
Suppose, now, that in putting out its head to seize prey scarcely within reach, a creature has
repeatedly failed. Suppose that along with the group of motor actions approximately adapted to
seize prey at this distance ... a slight forward movement of the body [occurs]. Success will occur
instead of failure ... On recurrence of the circumstances, these muscular movements that were
followed by success are likely to be repeated: what was at first an accidental combination of
motions will now be a combination having considerable probability (Spencer, 1878).

Here, a quarter of a century before Thorndike, Spencer suggests that the

effect of an action is all important in determining its subsequent occurrence:
"those muscular movements that were followed by success are likely to be
repeated". This is the key idea that led Thorndike to the law of effect and
Skinner to a thorough-going experimental analysis of behavior.
If a piece of behavior has a purpose, then that purpose can be described
by the usual consequences or effect of that behavior. Indeed, we could
almost say that purposive behavior is that behavior which is defined by its
consequences. For example, we say that we tie a shoelace to keep our shoe
on, but an equivalent statement is that we tie a shoelace, and on previous
occasions when we tied it, it did stay on. Furthermore, we identify instances
of shoelace tying by their effects: if the shoe stays on, then this counts as an
example of "shoelace tying"; otherwise, it does not. Many other everyday
behaviors can be subjected to a similar analysis; going to school, making a
cup of coffee, playing a musical instrument, and so on.
Apparently, we have two ways in our language to account for the same
behavior. These are: (1) the purposive, in which we use the term to (or, in
order to) and imply the future tense; or (2) the descriptive, in which we state
the present behavior and conjoin it with what happened in the past. Which
is more appropriate for use in a scientific analysis of behavior? Consider the
following example:
During the war the Russians used dogs to blow up tanks. A dog was trained to hide behind a tree
or wall in low brush or other cover. As a tank approached and passed, the dog ran swiftly
alongside it, and a small magnetic mine attached to the dog's back was sufficient to cripple the
tank or set it afire. The dog, of course, had to be replaced (Skinner, 1956, p. 228).

In this example, the dog's behavior can be explained by reference to past

events, as it presumably had been rewarded for running to tanks by food,
petting, and the like, but not by reference to its purpose. We can
immediately reject the idea that the dog ran to the tank in order to be blown
up. This extreme case illustrates the general principle that the future does not
determine behavior. When we use "purposive language", we are drawing on
our knowledge of the effects of our behavior on earlier occasions; it is that
"history" which determines behavior.
In brief, a very real and important class of behavior, arising out of
situations that seem to involve choice or decision, is called purposive
behavior. Such behavior, it should be apparent at once, falls into Descartes'
category of "voluntary" and constitutes action that is often called "willful", or
said to be done by "free choice". Our present analysis indicates that this
behavior is in some way related to, and thus governed by, its consequences
on previous occasions. For that reason we shall henceforth replace the older
term, purposive, with Thorndike's term, "instrumental", or Skinner's term,
"operant". Calling behavior "instrumental" or "operant" suggests that, by
operating on the environment, the behavior is instrumental in obtaining
consequences. Neither of these terms implies the confusing conceptual
scheme that "purposive" does, yet both attempt to capture the fundamental
notion that the past consequences of such behavior are one of its important
determinants.

2.2 A Prototype Experiment: A Rat in the Skinner

Box

If a hungry laboratory rat is put into a small enclosure, such as the one
shown in Figure 2.1, and certain procedures are carried out, a number of
interesting changes in the behavior of the rat may be observed. For present
purposes, the significant features of the enclosure, or Skinner box, are: (1) a
tray for delivery of a small pellet of food to the rat; and (2) a lever or bar,
protruding from the front wall that, when depressed downward with a force
of about 10 grams, closes a switch, permitting the automatic recording of
this behavior. The significant features of the rat are as follows: (1) it is
healthy and has been accustomed to eating one meal each day at about the
same hour as it now finds itself in the box; (2) it has previously been
acclimatized to this box during which time food was occasionally delivered
into the tray, and it now readily approaches the food tray and eats food
whenever it is available.
Figure 2.1 Essential features of a Skinner box for a rat, or other small rodent. The box is situated
inside a sound-attenuating housing to exclude extraneous noises and other stimuli.

Consider the following simple experiment. The rat is left in the box for an
observation period of 15 minutes. During this time, no food is delivered, but
the rat engages in a lot of exploratory behavior. It noses the corners, noses
the food tray, occasionally depresses the lever, rears up against the walls,
and so forth. Other activities observed include sniffing and grooming. None
of these responses is reflexive. That is, no specific eliciting stimulus can be
identified for any of them. Thus, we call them emitted responses. Clearly,
there are stimuli present that are related to the occurrence of these responses
– the general construction of the box obviously determines which responses
can occur, for example – but none of the stimuli elicits specific responses at
specific times.
The rate and pattern of the emitted responses of an animal in an
environment in which no special consequences are being provided for any
response defines the operant-level of those responses. Operant-level
recordings will provide an important baseline against which we shall later
compare the effects of providing special consequences for one or a number
of the emitted responses.
 After the observation period, the following procedure is initiated. Each
time the rat presses the lever, a pellet of food is delivered into the tray. As
the rat has previously learned to retrieve food pellets and eat them as soon
as they are delivered, each lever-pressing response is now immediately
followed by the rat eating a food pellet. We have introduced a contingency
between the lever-pressing response and the delivery of food pellets.
Provided the operant-level of lever-pressing is above zero (that is, lever
presses already occur from time to time), this new contingency will produce
a number of behavioral changes. Soon the rat is busily engaged in lever
pressing and eating pellets. These marked changes in its behavior have
occurred in a relatively short period of time. In common parlance, the rat is
said to have learned to press the lever to get food. Such a description adds
little (except brevity) to the statement that the rat is pressing the lever
frequently now and getting food, and this follows a number of occasions on
which lever pressing has occurred and been followed by food.

Figure 2.2 Event records, or "time lines", illustrating a contingency between, or independence of,
Event A and Event B. An event occurs when the recording line shifts from the lower ("off") position to
the upper ("on") position. In an operant conditioning experiment, Event A might be a lever press and
Event B might be food delivery.

The experiment we have described is an instance of the prototype

experiments on operant behavior carried out by B. F. Skinner in the 1930s.
The most striking change in behavior that occurs when food is presented to a
hungry rat as a consequence of lever pressing is that lever pressing
dramatically increases in rate. This is an example of operant conditioning,
because the increase in rate is a result of the contingency between the lever-
pressing response and the food. If there is a contingency between two
events, A and B, this means that B will occur if, and only if, A occurs. We
say that B is dependent upon A, or that A predicts B, because when A
occurs, B occurs; but if A does not occur, B will not occur. Sequences of
events in which B is contingent upon A and when B is independent of A are
illustrated in Figure 2.2. In our present example, food (B) is contingent upon
lever pressing (A). Another way of saying this is that food (B) is a
consequence of lever pressing (A). This is a simple example of a
reinforcement contingency, a term which we will use later for more complex
examples.
What we wish to do is to describe in detail, and as quantitatively as
possible, the changes in behavior that result from the simple operation of
providing a special consequence for only one of an individual's normal
ongoing activities in a situation. To do that, we shall consider four
complementary ways of viewing the changes in the rat's behavior when, as
here, one of its behaviors is selected out and given a favorable consequence:

1. The increase in response frequency;

2. Changes in other behavior;
3. Sequential changes in responding;
4. Changes in response variability.

2.3 The Changes in Behavior That Characterize

Operant Conditioning

The increase in response frequency can clearly be seen on the ink recorder
developed by Skinner: the cumulative recorder illustrated in Figure 2.3. The
pen moves continuously across the paper in one direction at fixed speed, and
this axis thus records elapsed time. Whenever a response occurs, the pen
moves in a perpendicular direction by a small step of fixed size. The
resulting cumulative record shows the number of responses and the time
during which they occurred, and so illustrates the pattern of behavior.
Examples of actual records from experimental participants exposed to a
procedure like the one outlined are shown in Figure 2.4. When a contingency
between lever pressing and food was established for these experimental
participants, there was a relatively abrupt transition to a high rate of
response. It should be noted that the time spent in the experiment before this
transition varied and, in the examples in Figure 2.4, could be up to 30
minutes. Once the transition had occurred, the rate of responding was fairly
constant; this is shown by the steady slopes of the graphs. The transition,
because of its suddenness, resembles "one-trial" learning, rather than a
gradual change. Ink recorders of the type used by Skinner in the 1930's have
now been replaced by computer systems which can be programmed to draw
graphs of the progress of an experiment using exactly the same dimensions
as those shown in Figure 2.4.

Figure 2.3 A cumulative recorder of a type that was used extensively until replaced by computer
software systems. When operational, the paper moved continuously through the machine. Other
details are given in the text. (Courtesy of Ralph Gerbrands Co. Inc.).
Figure 2.4 Cumulative records obtained from four hungry rats on their first session of operant
conditioning. Lever presses were reinforced with food. Each lever press produced an incremental step
of the recorder pen (Skinner, 1938).

In any case of operant conditioning, there will always be concomitant

changes in other behavior as the operant response increases in frequency. If
the experimental participant is a laboratory rat, and it begins to spend a
large part of its time lever pressing, retrieving and eating food pellets, there
must necessarily be a reduction in the frequency of some of the other
responses (R's) that were previously occurring in the Skinner box. For
example, in an undergraduate classroom demonstration of lever-press
operant conditioning at Carnegie-Mellon University, the following behaviors
of a hungry rat were recorded over 15 minutes of operant level, and then
over a subsequent 15 minutes of conditioning the lever pressing:
RL = lever pressing
RS = sniffing
Rp = pulling of a small chain that dangled into the box from overhead
RT = nosing the food tray
RB = extending a paw to a lead block that rested in one of the far corners
Rl = remaining approximately immobile for 10 consecutive seconds.

It was found that while lever pressing and tray nosing increased, the other
responses that were not associated with eating declined. Indeed, the operant
conditioning process can be seen as one of selection. Those responses that
are selected increase in relative frequency, while most of the remainder
decline. Figure 2.5 illustrates with a histogram how the pattern of behavior
had changed.
Sequential changes in responding also occur. When food is made
contingent upon a response, other activities involved in food getting increase
in frequency, but this is not the only change that takes place. A sequence of
responses is rapidly established and maintained. In the lever pressing
example, the sequence might be:
lever press>tray approach>tray entry>eat food> lever approach>lever press...and so on.

This continuous loop of behavior is quite different from that seen in

operant level. Two members of the established loop will serve to illustrate
the point. Let us ignore, for the moment, all the other possible behavior in
the situation and confine our attention to (1) pressing the lever, and (2)
approaching the food tray. Prior to conditioning of the lever press, these two
responses occur in such a way that, when the animal performs one of them,
it is likely to repeat that one again rather than perform the other (Frick and
Miller, 1951). Thus, a fairly typical operant-level sequence of lever press (RL)
and tray-approach responses (RT) might be
Figure 2.5 Relative frequencies of several behaviors occurring in a Skinner box before and after
operant conditioning of lever pressing. Details are given in the text.

RL RL RT RL RL RL RT RT RT ...

During conditioning, this sequence quickly changes to the alternation

RL RT RL RT RL RT ...

with hardly any other pattern to be seen (Millenson and Hurwitz, 1961). This
re-organization of behavior probably takes place as soon as rapid responding
begins.
Changes in response variability always occur in operant conditioning.
"The rat presses the lever" describes an effect the rat has on the environment,
not a particular pattern of movements by the rat. There is a wide range of
movements that could have the specified effect. Presses can be made with
the right paw, with the left, with nose, shoulder, or even tail. We group all of
these instances together and say that the class of responses that we call lever
pressing is made up of all the possible ways of pressing a lever. However, not
all members of the class are equally likely to occur in an experiment nor, on
the other hand, does the same member occur repeatedly. Several processes
interact to determine exactly which forms of the response are observed.
First, there is a tendency for the topography of the response to become
stereotyped under certain conditions. By "topography" we mean the pattern
of muscular movements that make up the response; when this becomes
stereotyped, the response looks exactly the same on each occasion that it
occurs. One situation in which stereotyped behavior develops is when very
little effort is required to make the response. Guthrie and Horton (1946) took
photographs of cats and dogs who were required to make a pole-tilting
response to get out of a box, and found that successive instances of the
response made by particular individuals were strikingly similar. Relatedly,
photographs of sportsman engaged in skilled performances on different
occasions (for example, a tennis player serving) often look identical. A
second process involved is described by Skinner's (1938) "law of least effort".
This states that the form of the response made will tend to be that which
requires the least effort. In the experiment described above, it is typically
found that, while different participants start out by pressing the lever in
various ways, as the experiment progresses, they show an increasing
tendency to use an economical paw movement to press the lever. Thirdly,
the biology of the species influences what can be learnt. Thorndike was the
first to realize that not all behaviors can be equally easily changed by certain
effects or consequences. Seligman (1970) called this the preparedness of
certain behaviors to be modified by certain consequences, and related this
phenomenon to the evolutionary history of the species.

2.4 Outcomes of Operant Conditioning

In summary, when operant conditioning is implemented in a simple
laboratory situation such as a Skinner Box, behavior changes in four ways:

1. The rate of the operant response increases relative to its operant- or

base-level;
2. The rate of the operant response increases relative to the rate of
other responses occurring in the situation;
3. The pattern or sequence of behavior changes to a loop involving the
operant response and this loop is repeated again and again;
4. The form or topography of that response becomes stereotyped,
while requiring a minimum effort and being influenced by the
participant's preparedness to make the response for the
consequence arranged for it.

Lever pressing, string pulling, and pole tilting, represent convenient acts
chosen by experimenters to study the effects of environmental consequences
on behavior. The suitability of these responses for studying operant
conditioning depends critically upon their ability to be modified as
described. Formally, responses are defined as operants if they can be
increased in frequency and strengthened in the four stated ways by making
certain consequences contingent upon them. The selection of the operant
response for experiments is often said to be "arbitrary", in that the
experimenter is generally not interested in lever pressing per se, but only as
an example of a response that can be modified by its consequences. In
general, lever pressing and other simple pieces of animal behavior are
chosen for experiments because they are easily observed and measured by
the experimenter, and can be executed at various rates and in various
patterns by the organism. Throughout this book, we will continuously
extend the applicability of the principles of operant conditioning and the
term "operant" well beyond lever presses and rats.

2.5 Operants and Reinforcing Stimuli

Which are the consequences of behavior that will produce operant
conditioning? This is a central issue that we have carefully avoided this far.
In his version of the law of effect, Thorndike stressed the importance of
"satisfiers". He stated that if a satisfier, or satisfying state of affairs, was the
consequence of a response, then that response would be "stamped in", or
increased in frequency. At first sight, Thorndike seems to have provided an
answer to the question we posed, but he merely leaves us with another:
which events will act as satisfiers? It seems obvious that food may be
satisfying to a hungry organism, and "armchair reflection" might produce a
list of events likely to prove satisfying in general, such as warmth, activity,
play, contact, power, novelty, and sex. We might also notice that there are
some events that become very satisfying once the organism has been
appropriately deprived. Food comes into this category, along with water
when thirsty, air when suffocating, and rest when fatigued. Interestingly, it
is also evident that when we are satiated, these reinforcing effects are clearly
removed and may even be reversed. Consider how disagreeable it is to be
obliged to eat a meal immediately after completing a previous one, or to stay
in bed when completely rested.
So far, we are only guessing; how can we firmly establish whether certain
events are reinforcing or satisfying? One way is to see whether they have
the consequence specified by the law of effect, or, more specifically, produce
the four outcomes listed in the previous section. However, according to
Thorndike's definition, they must have these properties, or these events are
not satisfiers! A plausible alternative suggestion was made by Hull (1943).
He claimed that all such events reduce a basic need or drive of the organism
and that this drive reduction is crucial to their response-strengthening effect.
Subsequent research has failed, however, to support Hull's suggestion, for
there are many satisfiers whose ability to reduce a basic need seems
questionable. These include "artificial sweeteners" that have no nutritional
value but make soft drinks just as attractive as the sugar they replace.
Thorndike's term, "satisfier", carries the implication that such events will
be pleasurable, or "things that we like", but this does not help us to identify
them in practice. It simply changes the form of the problem again: how do I
know what you like? The things we like are, in the final analysis, the things
that we will work for, but this again takes us back to the law of effect,
because to say that we will work for them is just another way of saying that
we will do for them what our rat will do "for" food. At this point, we shall
exchange Thorndike's term, "satisfier", for Skinner's less introspective term,
reinforcing stimulus, or simply, reinforcer. The operation of presenting a
reinforcer contingent upon a response we will denote as reinforcement.
A reinforcing stimulus can be defined as an event that, in conjunction
with at least some behavior of an individual, produces the changes in
behavior specified by the law of effect and listed in the previous section. So
far, we lack an independent method of identifying reinforcers other than by
their effects on behavior. Moreover, the work of Premack (1965) suggests that
this represents an inherent limitation. In a series of ingenious experiments,
Premack established that the property of being a reinforcer can be a relative
one, and that for any pair of responses a situation can be devised in which
the less probable response can be reinforced by the opportunity to carry out
the more probable response, and that this relationship is reversible. He made
these surprising findings by breaking some of the unwritten "rules of the
game" in conditioning experiments.
In one experiment, Premack (1962) studied rats making the operant
response of turning an activity wheel and being reinforced with water. To
ensure that water acted as a reinforcer, the rats were made thirsty at the
time of the experiment and this made water a reinforcer for wheel turning.
In this very conventional part of the experiment, wheel turning duly
increased in frequency. In another part of the experiment, however, Premack
reversed the relationship: he allowed the rats continuous access to water, but
prevented access to the activity wheel except for 1 hour/day. In this unusual
situation, he found that if the opportunity to run in the wheel was made
contingent upon licking water from a tube, the rats spent between three and
five times as long drinking during that hour than they did when this
contingency was not in effect. He thus established that it is not a "law of
nature" that wheel turning by rats can be reinforced with water. Instead, this
result depends on the usual practice of depriving rats of water, but not
activity, prior to the experiment. If the conditions are reversed, then running
in the wheel can be shown to reinforce drinking. In an earlier study
(Premack, 1959) the same strategy was adopted with children and the two
activities of eating candy or playing a pinball machine. When the children
were hungry they would operate the machine (an operant response) in order
to obtain candy (a reinforcer), but when they were not hungry they would
eat candy (an operant response) in order to obtain access to the pinball
machine (now a reinforcer)!
The concept of "a reinforcer" is evidently a relative one; a fact that we
should especially bear in mind before uncritically calling any particular
stimulus in the everyday world a reinforcer. Following the line of analysis
started by Premack, other researchers (including Eisenberger, Karpman, &
Trattner, 1967; Allison & Timberlake, 1974; Allison, 1993: and see Leslie, 1996,
Chapter 4 for a review) have demonstrated that the amount of the operant
response required and the amount of access to the reinforcer that follows
must also be taken into account to specify the reinforcement relationship.
Most generally, it appears that reinforcement involves a set of relationships
between environmental events in which the individual is "deprived" of the
currently preferred rate of access to the reinforcer unless the operant
response increases above its currently preferred rate. This is called the
response-deprivation principle (Allison & Timberlake, 1974, and see Leslie,
1996, Chapter 4 for a brief formal statement of the principle).
As we have now defined reinforcement with reference to the current
behavioral repertoire, we should take care — in the laboratory or in real-
world applications — not to presume that a stimulus will necessarily
continue to be a reinforcer if the conditions are radically changed.
Conditions such as food deprivation are termed establishing operations,
because they change the current behavioral repertoire in such a way as
establish a particular event as a reinforcer. Applied researchers have recently
turned their attention to establishing operations because they are not only
important conditions of operant reinforcement, but may also provide a
direct means of obtaining a required behavior change (see Chapters 7 and 9).
 It follows form the argument developed here, that reinforcement cannot
be essentially linked to biological needs or corresponding drives in the way
that Hull (1943) suggested. However, it remains true that it is often possible
to use the reduction of a basic drive, such as the presentation of water for a
thirsty animal or food for a hungry one, as a reinforcing operation, and that
for practical purposes reinforcers are often "transsituational", that is effective
in many situations. This is particularly true with human behavior which is
strongly affected by conditioned reinforcement, which will be described in
Section 2.9.

2.6 The Simple Operant Conditioning Paradigm

The matters that we have been discussing in this chapter are variously
referred to in the literature of psychology as simple selective learning, trial-
and-error learning, effect learning, instrumental learning, instrumental
conditioning, operant learning, and operant conditioning. We prefer to use
the term simple operant conditioning for the situation where a reinforcing
stimulus is made contingent upon a response that has a nonzero frequency
of occurrence prior to the introduction of reinforcement. If a reinforcing
stimulus is contingent upon a response, that stimulus will be presented if
and only if the required response has been made.
Formally, the simple operant conditioning paradigm is defined as follows.
Each emission of a selected behavioral act or response is followed by the
presentation of a particular stimulus. If this arrangement results in an
increase in response frequency, relative to operant level and relative to other
behavior occurring in the situation, the incorporation of the response into a
behavioral loop and the narrowing of the topography of the response, then
we say that the selected behavior is an operant response, that the stimulus
functions as a reinforcer for that operant, and that what occurred was
operant conditioning. The reinforcement contingency can be represented
diagrammatically as follows:
The arrow stands for "leads to" or "produces". This diagram can, in turn, be
summarized as:
R → S+,

where R represents an operant response class and S+ the reinforcing

stimulus it produces. S+ is used to denote a positive reinforcer. The
distinction between positive reinforcement, of which simple operant
conditioning is an example, and other types of operant conditioning, will be
explained later.

2.7 Changing the Subject Matter: Vocal Operants

This section is included partly to illustrate the breadth of application of

simple operant conditioning and partly to direct our attention to some
characteristically human behavior. The usual elements of all languages are
sounds produced by the vibration of expelled air from the lungs, moving
through and across a set of muscles in the larynx called the vocal chords.
The tension of these muscles, a major determinant of the sound produced, is
under the same kind of neural control as movements of the other parts of
the body, and the emitted sound patterns can be considered as examples of
operant behavior. The jaws, lips, and tongue act in combination with the
larynx to mould the sounds and produce the more than forty different
humanoid sounds known as phonemes that are used in various combinations
in languages. Because the sounds of phonemes are directly dependent on the
movements of the vocal apparatus, measurement of phoneme production
constitutes an indirect measure of behavior, in the same way that
measurement of the depression of a lever constitutes an indirect measure of
the movements used by the rat in depressing that lever.
Human speech develops from the crude sounds emitted by infants.
Surprisingly, the human infant during the first 5 months of life emits all the
sounds used in every human language, including French nasals and trills,
German gutturals, and so on (Osgood, 1953). This sound production is not
elicited by stimuli, nor should it be confused with crying. Rather, in the
early months of life, a baby exhibits a very high operant level of sound
production. He or she may lie for hours producing gurgling sounds,
sputterings, whistles, squeaks, and snorts. The technical term babbling is
used to denote the spontaneous emission of these behaviors. An important
advance in babbling occurs at about the sixth month, when the sequential
structure of babbling is altered so that the infant tends to repeat its own
vocal production (uggle-uggle, oodle-oodle, luh-luh-luh, and so forth).
The changes that occur from babbling to speaking are complex, and no
single graph could describe the progress with any completeness. However,
one important change that takes place is the change in relative frequency of
the different sounds uttered as the baby grows older. Thus, in France, the
phonemes involved in the French r and the nasal vowels are strengthened by
the "reinforcing community": that is, the child's parents, its playmates, and
eventually, its teachers. In English-speaking countries, a different set of
phonemes is shaped into words by a different reinforcing community. Halle,
De Boysonn-Bardies, and Vihman (1991) found that in four French and four
Japanese 18-month-old children aspects of their vocalization, both in
babbling and word utterances, already resembled the speech of adults in the
two languages.
In one classic experiment, the behavior of 3-month-old babies was
observed while they lay in their cribs. During two observation sessions, an
adult experimenter leaned over the crib, at a distance of a little more than a
foot from the child, and remained relatively motionless and expressionless.
During this time, a second observer recorded the frequency of sounds
produced by the infant. In two subsequent sessions, the procedure was the
same, except that the first experimenter followed each non-crying sound
with a "broad smile, three 'tsk' sounds, and a light touch applied to the
infant's abdomen with thumb and fingers of the hand opposed" (Rheingold,
Gewirtz, and Ross, 1959, p. 28). This is, of course, just:
R (babble) → S+ (smile, clucking, touch of abdomen)

The effect of this operant conditioning procedure was to raise the

frequency of babbling well above its operant-level rate during these
conditioning sessions.
Even more striking were the findings of Routh (1969), working with 2-to
7-month-old infants. Using the same reinforcing stimuli, he reinforced either
vowel or consonant sounds rather than all vocalizations. He found that
vocalizations increased under both conditions, but infants differentially
increased the type of vocalization currently in the reinforced class.
Experiments of this type provide ample evidence that human vocal behavior
is susceptible to control by operant conditioning.

2.8 Simple Operant Conditioning of Complex or

“Unobserved” Human Behavior

Operant conditioning is a phenomenon which is by no means limited to the

simple animal and infant behaviors we have discussed so far. We study
laboratory animals because we can rigorously control their environment,
past and present, but operant behavior (behavior that can be modified by its
consequences) constitutes a large proportion of the everyday activities of
humans. When we kick a football, sew up a hem, give a lecture, discuss the
latest in fashions, bemoan the weather, and wash the dishes, we are
constantly emitting operant behavior. True, our complex skills entail much
more complicated sequences than the simple repetitive loop of the rat,
described earlier; but surprising complexity can also be generated in the
behavior of the rat, cat, pigeon, and monkey (many examples are included in
Leslie, 1996).
 It is not difficult to demonstrate simple operant conditioning in humans in
an informal manner: we can even perform demonstrations on our friends
without great difficulty. For example, with "unaware" participants, it is
possible to demonstrate that reinforcing certain topics of conversation, or
the use of certain classes of words, by showing approval or agreement, will
rapidly change the conversational speech of the participant. (We are apt to
find the demonstration more dramatic and convincing if we prevent our
human participant from "becoming aware" that we are performing such an
experiment, because that seems to rule out the possibility that he or she is
following an implicit verbal instruction, rather than "being conditioned";
verbal behavior is discussed in Chapter 6.) Nonetheless, the direct
verification of the laws of operant conditioning on human behavior is
important, for it shows that despite very great apparent differences between
humans and other animal species, certain functional similarities exist, and it
is these similarities that, in the end, justify our frequent reliance on the
study of the behavior of other organisms.
For these reasons it is important that formal experiments on simple
operant conditioning with humans be conducted, and many have been
carried out. For example, Hall, Lund and Jackson (1968) measured the rates
of study of six 6- to 8-year old children in class, who all showed much
disruptive behavior and dawdling. When attention from the teacher was
made contingent upon studying, there was a sharp increase in study rates. A
brief reversal of the contingency, where attention occurred after non-
studying, produced low rates of studying, and reinstatement of the
contingency (studying → teacher attention) once again markedly increased
studying.
This example of simple operant conditioning produced conspicuous
changes in a highly complex form of behavior. A very different example of a
dramatic effect of operant conditioning on human behavior is provided by
the classic study of Hefferline and Keenan (1963). They investigated
"miniature" operant responses involving a movement so small that electronic
amplification must be employed to detect it, and the participant is generally
not able to report observing his or her own responses. In one experiment,
small muscle-twitch potentials were recorded from the human thumb.
Dummy electrodes were placed at other points on the participant's body to
distract attention from the thumb response. Introduction of a reinforcement
contingency, in which small sums of money could be earned by
incrementing a counter, led to an increase in very small thumb twitches,
even when the participant was unable to say what the required response
was.
One way of categorizing the Hefferline and Keenan experiment is as
"conditioning without awareness"; it showed operant conditioning occurring
without the participants being able necessarily to report verbally on the
contingencies that were affecting behavior. This is an exception to what
appears to be the usual situation, where we can verbalize the rule describing
the contingency which is in operation. Indeed, once that verbal behavior
occurs it generally seems to determine what nonverbal behavior will occur.
A participant in a gambling game may, for example, decide that "The coin
generally comes down 'heads'". If that behavior is reinforced by chance when
the coin falls that way up on the first two occasions in the game, that verbal
behavior may be highly persistent — and the person may always select
'heads' — despite many subsequent disconfirming events when the coin
comes down as 'tails'. We will discuss the relationship between verbal and
nonverbal behavior in later chapters and will see that there are complex
relationships between the two. While it is often the case that rule following
occurs, and the nonverbal behavior then seems to be insensitive to its
consequences because it is controlled by the verbal behavior (such as the
rule "The coin generally comes down 'heads'"), it is also true that this type of
verbal behavior is itself quite sensitive to its consequences. That is, if
formulations of the rule are reinforced — we might follow statements that
"The coin is unbiased" with social approval, for example — this verbal
behavior will change quite rapidly.

2.9 Conditioned Reinforcement

It is apparent from even a cursory examination of the world about us that
some of the special consequences that we have been calling reinforcers have
a more natural or biological primacy than others, and we have already noted
that this led to Hull's (1943) theory that drive reduction was crucial to
reinforcement. Food, water, and sex fall into a different, more "basic",
category than books, money, and cars. Yet people, at one time or another,
work for all of the things in the latter category. We can distinguish between
these two categories by the manner in which a stimulus comes to be
effective as a reinforcer. For each individual, there exists a class of
reinforcers whose powers are a biological consequence of the individual's
membership of a certain species. These reinforcers are as much a property of
the species as are the leopard's spots, the cat's fur, the dog's tail. Possibilities
of reinforcement which come built into the organism this way define the
primary or unconditioned reinforcers, but there is also a second group of
conditioned reinforcers, which appear more variable and less predictable
from individual to individual than the primary set.
Money, cars, holidays, newspapers, prestige, honor, and the countless
other arbitrary things that human beings work for constitute a vast source of
reliable and potent reinforcers. But these objects and events have no value
for us at birth. Clearly, they must have acquired their capacity to reinforce at
some time during each individual's past history. A particular past history is a
prerequisite; witness the occasional adult for whom some of the
conventional reinforcers seem to hold no value. Moreover, gold has little
importance for a Trappist monk, primitive man would hardly have fought
for a copy of a best-selling novel, and not everybody likes Brahms. The
context is also important: the business executive may enjoy a telephone call
from a friend when work is slack, but be irritated by it occurring during an
important meeting. Another way of putting this is that establishing
operations (see Section 2.5) are important for conditioned as for
unconditioned reinforcement.
While the importance of conditioned reinforcers is much more evident in
human behavior than in the behavior of other species, the ways in which
previously unimportant stimuli (lights, noises etc.) come to have conditioned
reinforcing value have been extensively investigated in laboratory
experiments with other animal species. It turns out that a relatively simple
rule determines when a stimulus acquires conditioned reinforcing value: a
stimulus acquires conditioned reinforcing value if it signals a reduction in
the delay of (unconditioned) reinforcement (Fantino, 1977). Extrapolating
this principle to human development, we would expect children to be
reinforced by access to stimuli that signal forthcoming meal times, other
treats, or a period of parental affection. Because the stimuli that have these
functions vary from one child's experience to another's, we would anticipate
that conditioned reinforcers vary in value from individual to individual.
The stimulus that seems to have most general properties as a conditioned
reinforcer is, of course, money. Money has the culturally-defined property of
being exchangeable for just about any other item: it therefore has the
capacity to reduce the delay of many types of reinforcement. We can defined
a generalized conditioned reinforcer as one that has acquired reinforcing
value through signalling a reduction in delay (or presentation) of many
primary reinforcers. Money fits this definition, but it is still not a perfectly
generalized conditioned reinforcer, because we still tend to prefer some
forms of money to others (Lea, Tarpy and Webley, 1987). Thus, we might
prefer gold coins to notes, or refuse to put our money in the bank and keep
the cash at home instead. These "irrational" habits presumably reflect the fact
the reinforcing value of money is acquired and affected by details of the past
histories of individuals. Generalized conditioned reinforcers are often used
to increase adaptive behavior in applied or clinical settings (see Chapter 9).

2.10 The Definition of Response Classes

Our definition of the simple operant conditioning paradigm (Section 2.6)

stated that instances of an operant response class are followed by
presentations of a reinforcing stimulus, but we have not yet provided a
definition of response classes. One of the reasons that the science of
behavior has been late in developing lies in the nature of its subject matter.
Unlike kidney tissue, salt crystals or rock formations, behavior cannot easily
be held still for observation. Rather, the movements and actions of
organisms appear to flow in a steady stream with no clear-cut beginning or
end. When a rat moves from the front to the back of its cage, when you drive
500 miles nonstop in your car, or when you read a book, it is difficult to
identify points at which the continuous behavior stream can be broken into
natural units. A further complication is that no two instances of an
organism's actions are ever exactly the same, because no response is ever
exactly repeated.
As a first step towards defining a response category, or response class, we
might define a set of behaviors that meet certain requirements and fall
within certain limits along specified response dimensions. This would be a
topographically-defined response class, where topography is defined as
specific patterns of bodily positions and movements. We can then check
whether this response class meets the criterion of an operant response class
by following occurrences of instances of the class with a reinforcing
stimulus. If the whole class becomes more frequent, then we have
successfully defined an operant response class.
Consider some examples. We might define the limits of a certain class of
movements, such as those of the right arm, and attempt to reinforce all
movements within the specified limits. If reaching movements then occur,
are reinforced, and increase in frequency, we can conclude that reaching
(with the right arm) is an operant. Words are prominent examples of the
formation of culturally-determined response classes. All sounds that fall
within certain acceptable limits (hence are made by muscular activity within
certain limits) make up the spoken word "please". When a child enunciates
and pronounces the word correctly, reinforcement is provided and the class
of movements that produce "please" is increased in frequency. In both these
cases, the reinforced operant class is likely to be slightly different from the
topography originally specified.
In nature, it seems unlikely that reinforcement is ever contingent on a
response class defined by topographical limits in the way just described. In
the laboratory, reinforcement could be made contingent on a restricted
subset of behaviors defined in that way. But even there, units are more
usually approximated by classing together all the movements that act to
produce a specified change in the environment. We call this a functionally-
defined operant. It is defined as consisting of all the behaviors that could
produce a particular environmental change, and thus have a particular
function for the organism. It contrasts with a topographically-defined
operant which, as we have seen, would be defined as consisting of
movements that fall within certain physical limits.
The use of functionally-defined operants greatly facilitates analysis,
because not only do such units closely correspond to the way in which we
talk about behavior ("he missed the train" or "please shut the door"), but also
measurement is made easier. When a rat is placed in a conventional Skinner
box, it is easy to measure how many times the lever is depressed by a certain
amount; it is much more difficult to record how many paw movements of a
certain type occur. Similarly, it is fairly easy to record how often a child gets
up from a seat in a classroom, but hard to measure the postural changes
involved.
While we can alter the specifications of an operant for our convenience, it
must be remembered that the only formal requirement of an operant is that
it be a class of behaviors that is susceptible, as a class, to reinforcement. If
we specify a class that fails to be strengthened or maintained by reinforcing
its members, such a class does not constitute an operant response.

2.11 Response Differentiation and Response

Shaping

One of the most important features of operant conditioning is that response

classes, as defined in the previous section, can change. Formally, this process
is called response differentiation and its practical application is called
response shaping.
 What we have defined as simple operant conditioning is a special case of
response differentiation. Let us consider a case in which the specification of
the behavioral class to be reinforced is in terms of a single behavioral
dimension. In the definition of the lever press of a rat, the minimum force
required to depress the lever can be specified. This minimum force is an
example of a lower limit of a behavioral dimension. Hays and Woodbury
(cited in Hull, 1943) conducted such an experiment, using a minimum force
of 21 grams weight. That is, to "count" as a lever press, there had to be a
downward pressure on the lever of 21 grams weight or more. After the
conditioning process had stabilized, they examined the distribution of
response force for a large number of individual responses. While many
responses were close to 21 grams in force, there was a roughly symmetrical
distribution with a maximum at 29 grams, or 8 grams above the minimum
force required. The force requirement was then changed to a minimum of 36
grams. Over a period of time, the rat's behavior changed correspondingly,
and the center of the distribution of response forces became 41 to 45 grams.
Conditioning of this new class of behavior had thus been successful, but
there had been a further important consequence of this conditioning. Novel
emitted forces, never before seen in the animal's repertoire (those over 45
grams), were now occurring with moderate frequency. The results of the
experiment are shown in Figure 2.6.
This differentiation procedure, where certain response variants are
differentially reinforced, had resulted in the appearance and maintenance of
a set of novel behaviors. This occurred through the operation of two
complementary processes. At the time it was put into effect, the new
requirement of 36 grams encompassed some existing forces which continued
to be reinforced. Secondly, the 36-grams minimum requirement excluded
many forces previously reinforced. When these responses were emitted
under the 36-grams minimum procedure, they were subjected to extinction,
which is discussed in the next chapter. Extinction is the procedure of
removing reinforcement from a previously reinforced class of behavior. It
has the principal effect of reducing the frequency of occurrence of that class,
and it also increases response variability.
Figure 2.6 Distribution of response forces when (A, upper graph) all responses with a force of more
than 21g were reinforced, and (B, lower graph) when all responses with a force of more than 36 g
were reinforced (after Hays and Woodbury, cited in Hull, 1943).

The great power of the response differentiation procedure, when used

with a changing series of response classes, lies in its ability to generate and
then sustain behaviors hitherto unobserved in the person's or animal's
repertoire. This power is extended very much further in cases in which
progressive and gradual differentiations can be made to take place over time.
We call this method of introducing new behavior into the repertoire
response shaping by successive approximation. By such a process of
successive approximation on the lever-force dimension, Skinner (1938) was
able to train 200-gram rats to perform the Herculean feat of pressing a bar
requiring a 100-grams minimal force! A better-known example from human
behavior is the record time for the 100 meters race: a time that would have
been the world record in 1950 is now routinely improved on by athletes in
training. We can think of this as a skilled performance that has been shaped
within individuals, and passed on by other means between individuals.
Response shaping by successive approximation has a straightforward and
very important use in the operant-conditioning laboratory. Suppose an
experimenter wishes to reinforce the pecking of a wall-mounted key or disk
by pigeons with food. This response often has zero operant-level frequency
(that is, prior to training it does not occur at all) and thus must be shaped.
The experimenter successively approximates the desired form of the
behavior, beginning with a form that may not resemble key pecking at all.
For example, all movements in the vicinity of the key may first be
reinforced. Once these movements have increased in relative frequency,
reinforcement is made contingent on head movements directed towards the
key. Once such movements are frequent, reinforcement is made contingent
upon striking the key with the beak, and finally, upon depressing the key
with the beak. The process of introducing a response not previously in the
repertoire can be very easy or very difficult. The degree of difficulty
experienced probably reflects the preparedness of the organism to associate
the specified response and reinforcer as well as the stringency of the
response differentiation required by the experimenter.
Response shaping is a highly important technique in the application of
behavioral analysis to human problems. Many such problems can be
characterized as behavioral deficits: the individual concerned does not
succeed in making "normal" responses and thus his or her behavior is not
maintained by the social consequences that influence the behavior of others.
Stuttering, for example, may prevent the individual from routinely engaging
in conversation with others. Howie and Woods (1982) successfully used a
shaping procedure to produce and increase fluency of speech in adult
stutterers. Participants were reinforced in each session of training if they
met the currently required rate of stutter-free speech, if they avoided
stuttering, and if they completed a target number of syllables using a
continuous speech pattern. If they were successful, the required rate of
stutter-free speech was increased by 5 syllables per minute for the next
session, until a rate of 200 syllables per minute was achieved. Shaping
adaptive responding in applied or clinical settings will discussed in greater
detail in Chapter 9.

2.12 Summary

We can provide a scientific account of the types of behavior described as

"purposive", but the first step is to recognize that such behavior is influenced
by its previous consequences. A hungry pigeon in an operant test chamber,
or Skinner box, will peck at the response key because this behavior has
previously been followed by food presentation.
Skinner advanced the study of such behavior by deciding to use rate of
response as a measure, and by devising the Skinner box within which
laboratory animals can emit responses from time to time. If a contingency,
or relationship, is arranged between an emitted response and a reinforcing
consequence, then a number of characteristic behavioral changes ensue and
we say that operant conditioning has occurred. These changes include an
increase in response frequency, the sequential organization of behavior,
reduction in response variability, and reductions in other (non-reinforced)
behavior.
Operant conditioning will only occur when the stimulus made contingent
upon the operant response acts as a reinforcer. The property of being a
reinforcer, or reinforcing stimulus, is not inherent in a stimulus. Rather, it
depends upon the state of the organism and the environment at the time.
Operant conditioning will occur if the organism is currently deprived of its
preferred rate of access to the reinforcer and if occurrence of the operant
response results in an increase in that rate of access. Food is thus a reinforcer
for key pecking by a hungry pigeon because the current preferred rate of
feeding is very high, and delivery of food as a reinforcer increases the actual
rate of feeding towards that preferred rate. In this example, food deprivation
is an establishing operation that ensures that operant conditioning will occur
in the experiment.
There are many interesting demonstrations of operant conditioning with
humans. These include studies of vocalization by infants and of very small
movements in adults. The latter example is important because the operant
response classes increased in frequency even though the participants in the
experiment were unaware of the particular response required.
Human behavior is much affected by conditioned reinforcement. That is,
behavior is changed when the consequence is a stimulus with a function that
has been established through the previous experience of the individual. The
most potent example of a generalized conditioned reinforcer is money, but
other conditioned reinforcers (such as a liking for a particular type of music)
will be specific to the individual and result from their own particular history.
We tend to assume that behavior, or response classes, should be described
topographically, or in terms of the bodily movements involved. In fact,
operant conditioning generally involves functional response classes, in a
functional response class, all the members have a particular effect on the
environment. Examples of this type of functional class are a pigeon pecking
at a key mounted on the wall or a person writing a series of words. Operant
response classes can be established through response shaping. This is
necessary when the initial behavioral repertoire does not include the
required response. In the shaping process, successively closer
approximations to the required response are reinforced. The outcome is a
change in the behavioral repertoire to include the desired response.
Chapter 3
Extinction and Intermittent
Reinforcement
"So long as life endures, a creature's behavior is a clay to be molded by circumstances, whimsical
or planned. Acts added to it, and other acts which fall out, are the means by which it is shaped.
Like the two hands of an artisan, busily dabbing and gouging, are the processes, reinforcement
and extinction."
F.S.Keller and W.N.Schoenfeld, Principles of Psychology, 1950.

Operant conditioning results in changes in the behavioral repertoire. It

provides a method by which the organism adapts to its own circumstances
by selectively increasing the frequency of responses that are followed by
reinforcing stimuli. It is not surprising to find that if a previously reinforced
operant response is no longer followed by its usual reinforcing consequence,
the frequency of the operant declines. This process is called extinction. We
shall see in a later section of this chapter that operant extinction has the
same overall effect as the related process of extinction following classical
conditioning, first studied by I.P. Pavlov (Pavlov, 1927). This overall effect
common to the two conditioning processes is the reduction in frequency of a
specific response. In both cases, the process broadly reverses the effects of
conditioning once the circumstances, or contingencies, that resulted in
conditioning have been removed or substantially changed. However, there
are also a number of associated phenomena specific to operant extinction.
Not surprisingly, both operant extinction and classical extinction exert
important influences on human behavior.
3.1 Changes in Response Rate During Operant
Extinction

Extinction occurs when the reinforcement contingency that produced

operant conditioning is removed, but this can be done in at least two ways.
Following operant conditioning, the normal operation is to cease presenting
the reinforcing stimulus at all, and most of the findings reported here are
based on this procedure, but there is an alternative. If it is the particular
relationship, or contingency, between operant response and reinforcer that
defines operant conditioning and brings about changes in behavior, then any
operation that removes the contingency will constitute extinction. Thus, a
procedure in which the reinforcing stimulus continues to occur, but is no
longer dependent on occurrences of the operant response, could result in
extinction.
Note that the word "extinction" is used in two different ways. Extinction
refers to the experimental procedure, or operation, of breaking the
contingency between response and reinforcer. However, it is also a name for
the observed resulting decline in the frequency of the response when that
operation is carried out. We call this change in behavior the extinction
process. A response is said to have been extinguished if the frequency has
fallen close to its operant level as a result of there no longer being a
contingency between that behavior and the reinforcer. There are, of course,
other methods of reducing the frequency of a response (some of which will
be discussed in later chapters), but these are not called extinction.
Figure 3.1 Cumulative record of responding in extinction of lever press response previously reinforced
with food (from Skinner, 1938, data of F.S. Keller and A. Kent).

The decline in the rate of the once-reinforced response is the best

documented effect of extinction. The changes in rate are clearly seen on a
cumulative record, where they appear as wavelike fluctuations
superimposed on a general negative acceleration of the rate of responding.
In Figure 3.1 such an extinction curve appears for the lever-press response of
a rat, previously accustomed to receiving a food pellet for each lever press.
The response rate is highest at the start (just after reinforcement is
withdrawn), and gradually diminishes over the period of an hour and a half.
By the end of 90 minutes, the rat is responding at a rate only slightly higher
than its operant-level rate. As Figure 3.1 shows, the extinction curve is very
irregular and contains many periods of high activity interspersed with
periods of low activity (the flat portions of the curve). The latter becomes
more prominent towards the end of extinction. Some researchers have found
that the extinction process is due principally to a gradual increase in the
number of these inactive periods over time, and that when the organism
responds it does so at its usual high rate.
 Accompanying the overall decline in response rate in extinction, there is
often seen a transitory increase in rate at the very beginning of extinction.
This can be seen at the beginning of the cumulative record in Figure 3.1. The
reason for this transient effect is suggested by the results of another
procedure in which the contingency between the response (lever pressing)
and the reinforcer (food pellets) is broken. Figure 3.2 shows cumulative
records for two rats given food reinforcement for 100 lever presses, and then
shifted to a procedure where food pellets were delivered automatically at
approximately the same intervals at which they had been obtained during
reinforcement.
This "free food" procedure was effective in reducing response rates, which
rapidly declined to near zero, but the transient increase in rate was slight for
one experimental participant and non-existent for the other. We may
conclude that the transient rate increase is related to the shift to a procedure
in which the reinforcer is no longer presented. Time allocation again proves
a useful concept in describing this finding. During reinforcement of lever
pressing, rats typically spend a great deal of time retrieving and consuming
the reinforcers. This leaves comparatively little time available for making the
operant response. If they are subsequently transferred to a procedure in
which no reinforcing stimuli occur, the time spent on retrieval and
consumption is "released" for other activities such as the operant response.
The transient increase in rate described above may thus reflect the allocation
of more time to lever pressing at the beginning of extinction than was
available during reinforcement.

3.2 Topographical and Structural Changes of

Responding in Extinction

The effects of extinction are by no means confined to frequency changes in

the selected response. In particular, marked changes occur in the form of the
Figure 3.2 Cumulative records of lever pressing for two rats reinforced with food 100 times and then
transferred to a response independent food presentation schedule. The vertical line indicates the
transition from operant conditioning to "free food" at an equivalent rate. Food presentations are
indicated by vertical marks on the horizontal line below the cumulative record (data collected by M.
Keenan).

behavior during extinction. In a study by Antonitis (1951), in which the

operant under study involved a rat poking its nose through a slot in the wall
(see Figure 3.3), the effects of several sessions of extinction interspersed with
reinforcement were measured. One wall of the chamber used by Antonitis
contained a horizontal slot, 50 centimeters long. Whenever the rat poked its
nose into the slot, a light beam was broken, causing a photograph of the rat
to be made at the exact instant of the response. By reinforcing nose poking
with food, the frequency of this behavior was first increased above operant
level. Subsequently, nose poking was extinguished, reconditioned,
reextinguished, and reconditioned again. Antonitis found that response
position and angle tended to become stereotyped during reinforcement: the
animal confined its responses to a rather restricted region of the slot.
Extinction, however, produced variability in nose poking at least as great as
that observed during operant level; the animal varied its responses over the
entire length of the slot. Finally, reconditioning resulted in even more
stereotyped behavior (more restricted responses) than the original
conditioning had produced.

Figure 3.3 Apparatus used by Antonitis (1951) to reinforce nose poking.

The loop or chain of behavior established by reinforcement degenerates

when reinforcement no longer follows the operant response. Frick and Miller
(1951) gave rats 300 reinforcements over a period of five sessions in a
modified Skinner box. This box had a lever on one wall and a food tray on
the opposite wall. This increased the distance between lever and food tray,
and made the two responses topographically and spatially distinct, and thus
easy to record separately. These were denoted as RL: lever press and RT: tray
visit. During extinction, Frick and Miller observed the degeneration of the
previously-established RL-RT-RL-RT... loop. As extinction progressed, lever
presses began to follow lever presses (RL-RL-, and so on), and tray visits
began to follow tray visits (RT-RT-, and so on). There was very little
tendency for the pattern to become random during extinction. Rather, the
strengthened pattern of RL-RT-RL-RT-... gradually gave way to the operant-
level pattern of repeated occurrences of the same response. Notice that this
result was by no means logically inevitable, for the loop of behavior could
simply have declined in frequency during extinction, yet remained intact.
To summarize, the extinction procedure instigates a behavioral process
whose effects include decline in frequency of the operant response, an
increase in its variability, and a breakdown in the sequential structure of the
behavior. These important properties of extinction indicate that while
operant reinforcement acts to selectively increase certain response sequences
and thus restrict the behavioral repertoire, in extinction these effects are
reversed, and the variability of behavior is to some extent reinstated.

3.3 Extinction-Induced Aggression

We have described some changes in the formerly reinforced response

resulting from extinction. What happens to the other behaviors that do not
have a history of reinforcement in the experiment? Not surprisingly, some
responses that are reduced in frequency when an operant is reinforced (in
the case of a rat reinforced with food these may include grooming and
investigatory behavior) increase again during extinction. More surprisingly,
some "new" behavior may be seen. That is, responses occur that were not
seen during reinforcement and had effectively zero operant level prior to
reinforcement. The most remarkable of these is aggression. Azrin,
Hutchinson and Hake (1966) trained a hungry bird to peck a disk for food.
When the experimental bird had acquired key-pecking behavior, a second
"target" bird, immobilized in a specially designed box, was introduced into
the experimental compartment (see Figure 3.4). The box holding the target
bird was mounted on an assembly that caused a switch underneath to close
whenever the box was jiggled vigorously. The assembly was carefully
balanced so that normal spontaneous movements of the target bird were
insufficient to close the switch, whereas any forceful attacks that the
experimental bird might direct against the exposed body of the target bird
would be recorded. Attacks occurred predictably: whenever its
reinforcement contingencies were abruptly changed from reinforcement of
pecking to extinction, the experimental bird invariably attacked the target
bird. The attacks were vicious and aggressive, lasting up to 10 minutes.
Figure 3.4 Apparatus used for measuring aggression induced by extinction in a Skinner box (Azrin,
Hutchinson, & Hake, 1966).

Other experiments have established a considerable degree of generality

for this result by demonstrating that extinction-induced aggression can be
obtained with various species and reinforcers. The important point to
remember is that these attacks do not occur simply because no
reinforcement is available, but because reinforcement was previously
available and has now been discontinued.

3.4 Resistance to Extinction

Were the extinction process allowed to go to completion, the operant-level

state might eventually be reached; that is, the frequency of the operant
response might return to the before-conditioning level. The time taken for
this to occur could then be used as an index of the individual's persistence in
the face of extinction, and thus of the strength of responding before
extinction was begun. In actual experiments, a return to operant level is
rarely, if ever, reached. Hence, more convenient and practical measures of
persistence are based on how fast the response rate declines during
extinction. For instance, the number of responses emitted, or the amount of
time, up until the point at which some low rate criterion (such as a period of
5 minutes with no responses) is met, are called resistance-to-extinction
measures.
Resistance to extinction provides a quantitative behavioral index which is
related in an interesting way to a number of experimental operations. In
everyday life, we are often interested in how persistent a person will be in
the face of no reward. A person whose resistance to extinction is low is said
to "give up too easily" or to lack "perseverance" at a difficult task. On the
other hand, too much resistance to extinction is sometimes
counterproductive. The man or woman who spends too much time
fruitlessly trying to patch up a broken love affair may miss a good chance for
a new and better relationship.
One of the variables that has been shown to affect resistance to extinction
is the number of previous reinforcements. It seems plausible that if a large
number of responses have been reinforced, resistance to extinction will be
greater than if only a few have been. This general hypothesis has been
confirmed by several experiments (for example, Williams, 1938; Perin, 1942;
Hearst, 1961) which indicate that the resistance to extinction of an operant is
low when only a few reinforcements have been given in conditioning, and
then gradually increases with increasing number of reinforcements until a
maximum is reached. Even bigger effects on resistance to extinction result
from exposure to intermittent reinforcement, which is discussed later in this
chapter.
Another variable that would seem likely to affect the persistence of a
response in extinction is the effortfulness of the response. Mowrer and Jones
(1943) hypothesised that responses that required great effort to make would
extinguish more quickly than would responses requiring less effort. This
prediction has been confirmed in a study by Capehart, Viney, and Hulicka
(1958), who trained rats to press a lever for food. They varied the force
necessary to depress the lever during conditioning, so that on some sessions,
a heavy lever was present, and on others, it was light or intermediate. The
animals were then divided into three groups, one of which was extinguished
using the heavy lever, another using the light lever, and the last on the
intermediate lever. Using a criterion of no responses in 5 minutes as the
index of resistance to extinction, they obtained the function shown in Figure
3.5.

Figure 3.5 Resistance to extinction of lever pressing as a function of the weight of the lever (or bar)
(after Capehart, Viney, & Hulicka, 1958).

3.5 Spontaneous Recovery

Extinction may be extended until the rate of a previously reinforced operant

response has reached a low level. If the experimental participant (for
example, a rat in a Skinner box) is then removed from the situation and
returned a bit later, another (smaller) extinction curve will be obtained (see
Figure 3.6). Even though no reconditioning (a process which we discuss in
the next section) has taken place between the two extinction sessions, a
certain amount of spontaneous increase in responding has occurred.
Figure 3.6 Spontaneous recovery from extinction of a rat's lever-press response. The portions of the
curve to the left and right of the vertical line in the middle of the graph were separated by 47 hours
away from the experiment (Skinner, 1938).

The amount of this spontaneous recovery (as measured by the resistance

to extinction in the second extinction session) depends on the time lapse
between the end of the first extinction and the beginning of the second one.
With food reinforced operants, spontaneous recovery has been observed
after as little as 15 minutes, and often has been found to reach a maximum
after about two hours. The existence of spontaneous recovery supports a
conclusion from the schedule-induced aggression findings: once a response
has been extinguished, the organism is not returned to the state it was in
before conditioning was started. Further support for this hypothesis will be
found in the next section.

3.6 Successive Conditioning and Extinction

The first extinction after original reinforcement is a unique phenomenon.

Later extinctions (after reconditioning by the reintroduction of
reinforcement) differ by being more rapid and containing fewer total
responses. This effect was documented by Bullock and Smith (1953). They
exposed rats to 10 daily sessions of a procedure that reinforced the first 40
lever responses, followed directly by 1 hour of extinction. When the
extinction curves were examined, it was found that they became
progressively smaller over Sessions 1 to 10. The effect is shown in Figure 3,7.
Whereas in Session 1 the average resistance to extinction in 1 hour was 50
responses, by Session 10 this had dropped to only 10 responses.

Figure 3.7 Averaged cumulative response curves for the first (1), fifth (5), and tenth (10) sessions of
extinction (after Bullock & Smith, 1953).

These results can be extrapolated beyond ten sessions. It would seem that
only a few more sessions would be needed before the animals would reach
what is called one-trial extinction. In one-trial extinction, only a single
response is emitted following the withdrawal of reinforcement. The change
in behavior has become abrupt, and it seems reasonable to conclude that the
organism has come to discriminate the extinction procedure as such. The
concept of discrimination is of great general importance and will be a
central topic of Chapter 4. Few responses in extinction are the rule at the
human level, as many of our own responses show a rapid decrement when
reinforcement ceases: we do not continue to insert coins into a faulty soft
drinks or candy dispenser when we fail to receive the payoff. When we open
the mailbox and discover it is empty, we do not keep opening it. Like Bullock
and Smith's rats, we have learned to not to respond needlessly. However,
unlike those rats, we are likely to formulate verbal rules as to what is
happening in the situation. As we will see later (Chapter 6), this is likely to
produce particularly rapid extinction.

3.7 The Operant Extinction Paradigm

The extinction procedure gives rise to the extinction process. As we have

seen, the extinction process consists, in part, of a decline in response rate.
However, a number of other behavioral processes (such as fatigue,
habituation, satiation, and punishment) entail a similar decline, and we must
be careful to distinguish them. If a decline in rate of response is all we
observe, we are likely to find it difficult to say which response-reduction
process is operating. As we will wish to use the extinction process to explain
more complex processes, it is important that we understand both its specific
procedure and the various characteristics of its resulting process. We will
then be able to distinguish those instances of decline in response rate that
are the result of extinction from those that reflect other processes.
Formally, the operant extinction paradigm is defined as follows. The
contingency between a previously-reinforced operant response and its
reinforcer is removed by either (a) ceasing to present the reinforcing
stimulus, or (b) presenting that stimulus independent of the occurrence of
the response. This has the following effects:

1. A gradual, somewhat irregular decline in response rate marked by

progressive increases in frequency of relatively long periods of non-
responding. This may be preceded by a transient increase in
response rate.
2. An increase in the variability of the form and magnitude of the
response.
 3. A disruption of the loop or sequence of behavior that characterized
the reinforced operant.

The decline in rate continues until the operant level is approached as a

limiting value.

3.8 Extinction Outside the Laboratory

We are all familiar with the power of extinction; many instances can be
identified in everyday life in which the frequency or probability of certain
behavior declines because it is no longer reinforced. In ordinary language,
this decline in response probability may be attributed to other causes, but to
the experimental psychologist the role of extinction is clear:
An aspiring writer who has sent manuscript after manuscript to the publishers only to have them
all rejected may report that "he can't write another word". He may be partially paralyzed with
what is called "writer's cramp". He may still insist that he "wants to write", and we may agree with
him in these terms: his extremely low probability of response is mainly due to extinction. Other
variables are still operative which, if extinction had not taken place, would yield a high probability
of the behavior in question (Skinner, 1953, pp. 71-72).

The task of the psychologist is easy when he or she merely provides post
hoc analyses of everyday terms and situations, but we have already seen
how, in this case, laboratory studies have already provided us with an
account of the extinction process that goes well beyond that which can be
extracted from casual observation.

3.9 Extinction of Classically Conditioned

Responses

As noted in Chapter 1, not only did Pavlov (1927) carry out the initial
studies of classical conditioning, but he sustained a systematic research
program over many years. The investigation of extinction following
conditioning was a major part of this. In parallel with operant conditioning,
classical extinction occurs if the CS-US pairing is broken. This is usually
achieved by repeatedly presenting the CS without the US. The result is a
fairly steady diminution of the response to the CS. An example for the
rabbit's nictitating membrane (blinking) response is shown in Figure 3.8.
Although the data in this figure are the average performances of groups of
rabbits, very similar results would be obtained from individual rabbits. In
the control group, the CS and US were presented but not paired together in
the "acquisition phase" and thus conditioning did not occur in that group.
The experimental group showed conditioning occurring rapidly over 5 days,
then reaching a steady asymptotic level. In extinction, the number of
conditioned responses fell fairly steadily from day to day.
Figure 3.8 Average data for classical conditioning followed by extinction of rabbits' nictitating
membrane response (Gormezano, Schneiderm-an, Deaux & Fuentes, 1962). Details are given in the
text.

Various inhibitory phenomena were discovered in the experiments of

Pavlov and his associates. This is interesting because Pavlov, being trained as
a physiologist, presumed that inhibitory (response-suppressing) processes as
well as excitatory (response-eliciting) processes will occur in conditioning, it
is not inevitable that inhibitory concepts will be needed to explain behavior.
After all, a response either occurs or fails to occur; we need not necessarily
infer from its absence that it is inhibited, it might simply be that the
stimulus no longer elicits a response. The need for inhibition as an
explanatory concept will be made clearer by considering the related
phenomenon of spontaneous recovery within classical conditioning, also
demonstrated by Pavlov.
If a period of time elapses after the extinction of a classically conditioned
response and then the experimental participant is returned to the
experimental situation and the CS is again presented, a certain amount of
spontaneous recovery occurs. This means that a higher level of responding is
observed than at the end of the previous session. Pavlov argued that this
demonstrates that inhibition had developed during the first extinction
session and had dissipated, to some extent, before the next test, thus
allowing the response to recover. Whatever the details of the theoretical
explanation, it is interesting that the two pioneers in their respective fields,
Pavlov and Skinner, both demonstrated spontaneous recovery in their
conditioning paradigms. We should clearly expect to see evidence of this in
real world applications. That is, when human behavior has been conditioned
and then extinguished, we can anticipate some subsequent brief recovery of
the behavior.

3.10 Intermittent Reinforcement

So far, we have restricted our discussions of operant behavior to examples of

simple operant conditioning, where operant responses are continuously
reinforced and every occurrence of the response is followed by delivery of
the reinforcing stimulus, and examples of extinction, where that
contingency is removed. If we change the conditions so that the reinforcing
stimulus occurs only after some of the designated responses, we have
defined the general procedure of intermittent reinforcement. Intermittent
reinforcement procedures can be arranged in a number of ways, with
varying rules, or schedules, determining which individual responses are
followed by the reinforcing stimulus.
It has been found that intermittent reinforcement procedures have great
utility for generating stable, long-term baselines of learned behavior, against
which effects of drugs, physiological manipulations, emotional stimuli, and
motivational factors can be studied. These applications of the principles of
behavioral analysis are very important for the development of psychology
and the neurosciences in general. These procedures have as yet been used
less often outside the laboratory in applications to significant human
problems, where the procedures of simple operant conditioning and
extinction have traditionally been preferred, but they are currently gaining
greater use there as well. Examples of these applications will be discussed in
later chapters.
Early experimental studies of learned behavior were conducted by
investigators who were mainly concerned with the acquisition of behavior,
and these investigators took little interest in intermittent reinforcement.
Although it is true that the acquisition of "new" behavior usually proceeds
most smoothly when each and every response is reinforced, it turns out that
intermittent reinforcement procedures produce reliable and distinctive
patterns of behavior, which are extremely resistant to extinction. In
intermittent reinforcement procedures, the response is still a necessary
condition, but no longer a sufficient condition, for the delivery of the
reinforcer. We refer to those experimental procedures that specify which
instances of an operant response shall be reinforced as schedules of
reinforcement. Thus, continuous reinforcement is a schedule in which every
response is reinforced whenever it occurs (for reasons that will become
apparent shortly, this very simple schedule is also called FR1). A host of
schedules have been devised and studied in which reinforcement is
noncontinuous, or intermittent. Each of these schedules specifies the
particular condition or set of conditions that must be met before the next
response is reinforced.
If we consider the relatively simple situation where only one response is
to be examined and the stimulus conditions are constant, there are at least
two conditions for reinforcement of an individual response that we may
specify: the number of responses that must occur, and the time that must
elapse. Schedules involving a required number of responses are called ratio
schedules (referring to the ratio of responses to reinforcers); and schedules
specifying a period of time are called interval schedules (referring to the
imposed intervals of time between reinforcement). Schedules can also be
either fixed (where every reinforcer is delivered after the same ratio or
interval requirement has been fulfilled), or variable (where the ratios and
intervals can vary within the schedule).
Here are verbal descriptions corresponding to an example of each of these
four simple types of reinforcement schedules:
The tenth operant response that occurs will be reinforced, then the tenth of
Fixed ratio 10 (FR 10).

the subsequent operant responses will be reinforced, and so on. The response requirement is fixed
at 10 responses.

Fixed interval 20 seconds (FI 20 seconds). The first operant response that occurs once 20 seconds
have elapsed will be reinforced, then the first response that occurs once a further 20 seconds have
elapsed will be reinforced, and so on.

Variable ratio 15 (VR 15). The operant response requirement varies with an average value of 15.
Thus it might be that twenty-fifth response that occurs is reinforced, and then the tenth response,
and then the thirtieth response, and so on. Over a long run, the average of these requirements will
be 15.

Variable interval 40 seconds (VI 40 seconds). The inter-reinforcement interval varies, with an
average value of 40 seconds. It might be that the first operant response after 20 seconds is
reinforced, then the first response after a subsequent interval of 55 seconds, then the first response
after a subsequent interval of 35 seconds, and so on. Over a long run, the average of these times
will be 40 seconds.

Although the procedures require a complicated verbal description, each of

the four schedules we have defined generates a characteristic performance,
or behavioral steady state. These states can be easily identified by looking at
cumulative records (see Figure 3.9). Recall from Chapter 2 that the
cumulative recorder steps vertically, a small and fixed amount, each time a
response occurs, while continuously moving horizontally at a fixed speed
(this record can either be made during the experiment, or it can be simulated
by a computer from recorded details of the session). So the slope of the
record at any point reflects the rate of response; cessation of responding
produces a flat record, while a very high response rate produces a steep one.
Vertical marks on the record indicate the delivery of reinforcers.
Although the records in Figure 3.9 are hypothetical, they are in no sense
idealized (Leslie, 1996, for example, presents many actual records that are
almost indistinguishable from these). Reinforcement schedules exert such
powerful control over behavior that even a previously "untrained" rat, placed
in a Skinner box by an "untrained" student, could generate one of these
records after a few hours. Significantly, these performance patterns have
been produced in many species, and with a variety of operant responses.
Figure 3.9 Typical cumulative records of performances maintained by four schedules of intermittent
reinforcement.

Here are some typical characteristics of performance generated by each

schedule:
Fixed ratio (FR). A high rate of response is sustained until reinforcement occurs. This is followed
by a relatively lengthy post-reinforcement pause before the high rate of responding is resumed.
The post-reinforcement pause increases with the ratio of responses required for reinforcements,
and can occupy the greater part of the experimental participant's time.

Variable ratio (VR). In common with the fixed ratio schedule, this procedure generates a high rate
of response, but regular pausing for any length of time is very uncommon.

Like the fixed ratio schedule, this procedure also produces a post-reinforcement
Fixed interval (FI).

pause, but responding at other times occurs at a lower rate than on ratio schedules, except towards
the end of the interval, where it accelerates to meet the reinforcer. The characteristic positively-
accelerated curve seen on the cumulative record is called a "scallop". In general, longer fixed
intervals produce lower rates of responding.

As with the variable ratio schedule, consistent pauses of any length are rare.
Variable interval (VI).
However, response rates are moderate to low, depending on the mean interval, with longer mean
intervals producing lower response rates.

Intermittent schedule performances cannot, in general, be explained as the

experimental participant adopting the most optimal strategy: experimental
participants do not invariably learn to do what would benefit them most.
For instance, treating operant responding as analogous to working (perhaps
as a laborer), we would expect response rates on fixed interval schedules to
fall until only one response per reinforcer occurred, emitted at precisely the
end of the interval. Indeed, several early theorists suggested that the number
of responses made on what we now call a schedule of reinforcement would
be the least required to obtain all the reinforcers: this notion has not stood
the test of time as many schedules generate numbers of responses that
greatly exceed the minimum required. Furthermore, on fixed ratio schedules
we might expect a maximum rate of operant responding to be continuously
sustained for as long as possible, because that would maximize the rate of
reinforcement, but long pauses occur. Leslie (1996, Chapter 4) provides a
review of theoretical analyses of the behavioral processes that come together
to generate the characteristic schedule performances. For our present
purposes, the most important fact about schedules is that they do generate a
great deal of responding, and it occurs in reliable and persistent patterns.

3.11 Differential Reinforcement Schedules

We have described four simple, or basic, schedules, FI, VI, FR, and VR.
Another important class of schedules of reinforcement are those which
specify a required rate of the operant response or of other behavior. An
example of this is the differential reinforcement of low rates (DRL) schedule.
In animal experimental studies, this schedule is usually programmed by
reinforcement of only those responses which follow a previous response
with a delay greater than a specified minimum value. On DRL 10 seconds,
for example, a response is reinforced if, and only if, it occurs more than ten
seconds after the previous one.
The DRL schedule can be conceptualized as a way of reducing the
frequency of an operant response, unlike the other schedules that we have
discussed so far. Consequently, it has been employed to deal with human
behavioral problems where the behavior of concern occurs excessively
frequently. Psychologists working with human behavioral problems are
often seeking ways to reduce behavior, and a variety of other reinforcement
schedules have been devised that indirectly reinforce reductions in a target
behavior. These include differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO),
differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior (DRI), and differential
reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA). As implied by their titles, these
schedules reinforce various categories of behavior other than the target
behavior, but their effectiveness is measured primarily by the reduction in
the target behavior that occurs. The "schedule of choice" will depend on
details of the situation, but many effective interventions using these
schedules have been reported. Some of these are described in Chapter 9.
 Human behavioral interventions that reduce target behaviors are clearly
of as much general importance as those that increase target behaviors.
Another general way of eliminating unwanted behavior is through the use
of aversive contingencies. However, as we shall see in Chapter 5, there are
widespread contemporary objections to the use of aversive contingencies in
modifying human behavior, and differential reinforcement schedules
described here are consequently of great practical importance.

3.12 Extinction Following Intermittent

Reinforcement

Earlier we noted that the amount of responding in extinction was affected

by the number of prior reinforcers, and the effortfulness of the response
during the previous period of reinforcement. An even more powerful
influence on resistance to extinction is the schedule on which reinforcers
were previously delivered. Indeed, the fact that any type of intermittent
reinforcement increases resistance to extinction has generated a large
research area of its own. This phenomenon, termed the partial reinforcement
extinction effect, has been used as a baseline to study the effects of drugs
and physiological manipulations believed to affect emotional processes
taking place during extinction (see Gray, 1975, for a review).
From a purely behavioral standpoint, the introduction of extinction, once
a schedule-controlled performance has been established, provides further
evidence of the powerful control of behavior by schedules, because the
pattern of behavior in extinction depends on the nature of the preceding
schedule. For example, extinction following training on an FR schedule
consists mostly of periods of time responding at the high "running rate" of
responding that is characteristic of the schedule performance interspersed
with increasingly long pauses, while extinction following training on a VI
schedule consists of long periods of responding at a fairly low rate —initially
similar to that maintained by the schedule — which gradually declines
(Ferster and Skinner, 1957). The latter performance might be described as an
"extinction curve" (similar to the one seen in Figure 3.1), but a large number
of responses may be emitted. In one study (Skinner, 1950), a pigeon emitted
over 3,000 responses in more than 8 hours.
In general, it is the similarity between the extinction situation and the
previous conditions under which reinforcement was available that maintains
behavior, and the transition from VR to extinction produces little apparent
change, because the previous occasions on which responses were reinforced
were unpredictable. In experiments, this can lead to high rates of behavior
being maintained in extinction, at least initially. Ferster and Skinner (1957)
reported that after a number sessions on VR (with the later sessions being on
VR173 where an average of 173 responses was required for each
reinforcement), a pigeon made around 5000 responses in extinction without
a break at the high rate that had been characteristic of performance on the
schedule. It is not surprising, in the light of findings such as this, that many
games of chance and gaming machines provide payoffs on VR schedules. It is
also clear that all these schedules give the experimental participant
experience of "intermittent extinction," and thus can lead to remarkable
perseveration of behavior.
It was believed for a long time that the effects of intermittent
reinforcement constituted a major difference between operant and classical
conditioning. This view developed because of the powerful "response-
strengthening" effects of intermittent reinforcement within operant
conditioning, and the apparent "response-weakening" effect seen in some
classical conditioning studies. That is, use of intermittent presentation of the
US following the CS can lead to a weaker conditioned response. However, it
now clear that a partial reinforcement extinction effect can be obtained with
a number of classical conditioning procedures; even though the conditioned
response may be weaker in the intermittent reinforcement condition than
with continuous, or 100%, reinforcement, when extinction is introduced
there is more persistent responding from experimental participants that have
previously received intermittent reinforcement (Pearce, Redhead, and Aydin,
1997).
 One of the most persistent problems faced by those engaged in
modification of human behavioral problems is the observation that
treatment gains are not maintained once the behavioral intervention has
been withdrawn. The partial reinforcement extinction effect has been
recognized by a number of researchers as a potential solution to this
problem (Kazdin, 1994; Nation and Woods, 1980; Tierney and Smith, 1988).
The way in which this effect may be used is to initially train the desired
behavior on a continuous reinforcement schedule until it occurs at a high
rate. At this stage, an intermittent reinforcement schedule is introduced. For
example, a FR2 schedule might be used initially and the schedule value
incremented gradually until the client is responding on a very "thin"
reinforcement schedule (that is, one where a large number of responses are
required for each reinforcer). If the program is withdrawn at this point the
behavior will be highly resistant to extinction and stands a greater chance of
being brought under the control of naturally occurring reinforcers in the
environment. Kazdin and Polster (1973) demonstrated this effect with a
group of adults with learning difficulties who were reinforced for increased
levels of social interaction. In the case of highly persistent problem
behaviors the opposite strategy may be adopted. Behaviors such as
attention-seeking seem to be maintained on "natural" intermittent
reinforcement schedules. We try to ignore them but give in occasionally,
effectively reinforcing them on an intermittent basis. This makes them
extremely resistant to extinction, rendering the use of extinction as a
therapeutic strategy difficult. Paradoxically, deliberately reinforcing the
behavior on a continuous basis can have the effect of reducing the time
taken for extinction of the response to occur once the extinction phase is
introduced.

3.13 Human Behavior Under Schedules of

Reinforcement
It was mentioned earlier that while many species generate similar and
characteristic patterns of behavior on simple reinforcement schedules, adult
humans do not generally exhibit the same patterns of behavior. This is
obviously an important discrepancy, because our general interest in the
behavior of non-human animal species is sustained by the expectation, often
borne out by empirical evidence, that their behavior resembles that of
humans in similar situations.
Given very simple tasks, such as pressing a button or a key for
reinforcement with small amounts of money or tokens, adult humans often
produce behavior that is consistent with the "common-sense" view that they
are acting in accordance with what they believe to be the rule determining
when reinforcers are delivered. On an Fl schedule, for example, the
experimental participant may have come to the view that "If I wait 20
seconds, then the next button press will produce a token."
We can conceptualize this as the experimental situation leading the
participant to engage in a certain sort of verbal behavior which generates a
particular pattern of "button-pressing behavior". This may result in him or
her counting to pass the appropriate length of time and then making one
reinforced response. Unfortunately, the experimental participant's "common
sense" may lead him or her to formulate a variety of different verbal rules
describing the reinforcement contingencies that may be operating, and thus
it is often impossible to predict how a number of experimental participants
will behave under the same set of contingencies. One principle that this
illustrates is that we need to know about relevant aspects of the history of
the organism to predict how they will behave in a given situation. In
everyday parlance, different people will bring different expectations
(because of significant differences in their past lives) to the situation. Once
again, this underlines the value of doing experiments on non-human
animals where there is more likelihood that we can specify relevant previous
experiences in such a way that they will not confound the results of an
experiment. However, this does not resolve the serious problem we have
encountered; a science of behavior requires us to establish how we can
obtain the same behavior from each experimental participant under the
same circumstances. We also wish to know why there are apparently
differences between human behavior and that of many other species.
Fortunately, a number of different approaches have begun to resolve these
problems. First of all, young children will produce the patterns of behavior
typical of other species, provided they are trained before the age at which
language acquisition is becoming rapid (Bentall, Lowe, and Beasty, 1985).
Secondly, shaping the verbal behavior by successive approximation (by
awarding tokens to "guesses" that approximate increasingly closely to the
contingency in operation) changes both the verbal rule being formulated and
the operant button-pressing behavior of adults (Catania, Matthews and
Shimoff, 1990). Thirdly, reorganizing the situation slightly so that an
alternative attractive behavior is available as well as the button-pressing
activity can lead to adult humans producing the patterns of behavior
characteristic of Fl reinforcement schedules in other species (Barnes and
Keenan, 1993).
These findings underline the importance of language, or verbal behavior,
in the control of human operant non-verbal behavior, and as we shall see in
Chapter 6, our developing understanding of the links between non-verbal
and verbal behavior is beginning to give us an account of how humans differ
from, and have greater skills than, other species. In the present context, they
suggest that while other things being equal the behavior of adult humans is
likely to correspond to verbal rules that they formulate, or are instructed to
follow, in a situation involving a schedule of reinforcement, this rule-
governed behavior is itself influenced by operant reinforcement
contingencies.

3.14 Summary

Conditioning changes behavior because certain relationships in the

environment have been established. Once these relationships no longer exist,
extinction occurs. This term refers both to the procedure of removing the
conditioning relationship and to the outcome, which is that the frequency of
the previously conditioned response declines.
Following operant conditioning, extinction is generally arranged by
ceasing to present the reinforcing stimulus. Often there is a brief increase in
response rate, followed by an erratic decline to a very low, or zero, level of
responding. During extinction, response variability (which declines in
operant conditioning, see Chapter 2) increases. If the operant reinforcement
contingency is re-introduced, response frequency increases and response
variability again declines.
The transition from operant conditioning to extinction often induces
aggression in laboratory animals, if there is another animal available to be
attacked. Such aggression does not occur solely because the operant is
unreinforced; it only occurs when reinforcement has previously been
available.
The amount of operant behavior in extinction (the resistance to
extinction) is affected by a number of features of the conditioning situation,
For example, both the number of reinforcements that have been received
and the effort required for a response affect resistance to extinction.
Following extinction, a period of time away from the conditioning situation
may result in spontaneous recovery. That is, on return to the conditioning
situation, the previously reinforced experimental participant emits a number
of responses, even though extinction remains in effect.
Repeated cycles of operant conditioning and extinction have predictable
effects. The transitions become very quick, in that as soon as operant
conditioning is reinstated responding returns to its characteristic rate, and as
soon as extinction is reinstated responding stops. This pattern takes a
number of cycles to develop.
Classically conditioned responses are generally extinguished by
repeatedly presenting the CS without presenting the US, A steady reduction
in conditioned response magnitude is usually seen, with no measurable
response occurring if enough CS-only trials are presented. As with operant
conditioning, spontaneous recovery will occur (if the extinction session is
terminated and then resumed sometime later).
 In intermittent operant reinforcement, some but not all responses are
followed by the reinforcing stimulus. Schedules of intermittent
reinforcement, defined by a required number of responses or by the
requirement for a period of time to elapse before a response is reinforced,
generate large amounts of operant behavior organized into distinctive
patterns. These can be used as a behavioral baseline against which the effect
of motivational and other variables can be assessed. Differential operant
reinforcement schedules are a further class. These are designed to either
sustain a response at a low rate or to eliminate it through the intermittent
reinforcement of other behavior. These are very important strategies for
modifying problematic human behavior.
Perhaps the most important general consequence of intermittent
reinforcement is that behavior becomes highly persistent. Following training
on a schedule where many responses are required for reinforcement, for
example, the experimental participant may produce hundreds of responses
in extinction before response rate falls to a low level. This partial (or
Intermittent) reinforcement extinction effect also occurs in classical
conditioning, at least in so far as conditioned responses are more persistent
following intermittent reinforcement.
Although most intermittent reinforcement schedules have powerful
effects on behavior, these are not always observed when adults are trained
with these procedures in experiments. This is because of the role of verbal
behavior and verbal rule-following in humans, and experiments with
modified reinforcement schedules are providing a means of studying this
complex area of human behavior.
Chapter 4
Stimulus Control
Ever since Pavlov (1927) extended the concept of the reflex to the study of
conditioned reflexes in classical conditioning, behavioral scientists have
sought to analyze the control exerted by stimuli over behavior. Many
stimulus classes — that is, sets of similar or related stimuli — exert control
over behavior in the sense that certain responses become much more
probable (or much less probable) when a member of the stimulus class is
present. As with the other phenomena that we have introduced in earlier
chapters, such stimulus control is a characteristic not only of human
behavior but also that of many other animal species. Consequently, we will
be able to draw on the results of experimental work with various species in
order to illustrate its features. However, we will begin by identifying some
defining characteristics of stimuli and stimulus classes.
The environment around us has measurable physical dimensions. Thus,
we talk about atmospheric pressure, ambient temperature, light energy with
a given wavelength, sounds of certain frequencies, and so on. We can
describe the stimuli present in the environment, or those explicitly presented
during experiments, in terms of those physical dimensions. However, from
our point of view, this multidimensional physical environment has some
especially important aspects. The effective stimulus class, the range of events
that influences the behavior of an individual in their natural environment or
in an experiment, is more restricted than the whole range of events that
make up the physically-defined environment for two reasons:

1. The effective stimulus class has only those properties than can be
perceived by the individual organism. It makes perfectly good sense
to speak of a projector displaying a field of ultraviolet radiation on
a screen, but as we will be unable to see it (although a honey bee
 could) it is not a stimulus for us because it could not enter into a
relationship with our behavior. More subtly, if your arm is jabbed
by the points of two needles, you will only feel one prick if the
needles are close enough together. In this case, the distance between
the two is below the threshold for its detection.
2. At any given time, behavior may be influenced by some, but not all,
of the stimulus properties potentially perceivable by the individual
organism.

We can summarize these two restrictions on the effective stimulus class as

what the organism can learn about the stimulus, and what the organism
does learn about the stimulus. In terms of the classical divisions of
psychology, these topics fall into the areas of perception and learning,
respectively. In this chapter, as elsewhere, we are primarily concerned with
learned behavior, but we will start by considering some aspects of stimulus
perception

4.1 Perceptual Stimulus Classes

The prevailing environment of an organism (its "psychological" environment)

may be considered to be the pattern or configuration of all energies, present
at any given time, that are capable of having a systematic effect on behavior.
These energies are only a small subset of the energies studied by physicists.
They are restricted to those that can be detected by the specialized
anatomical structures, or receptors, that organisms have for receiving certain
energies and for transforming them into electrical nerve impulses. The eye is
specialized for the reception of a limited range of electromagnetic radiation,
the ear for a limited range of air-pressure vibrations, the tongue and nose for
certain chemical energies. Receptors in the skin detect mechanical pressure
and thermal changes. There are receptors within the muscles and joints of
the body that detect the movement of the muscle and joints in which they
are embedded. A complete specification of the patterns of electromagnetic,
mechanical, chemical, and thermal energies, impinging on an organism's
receptors at any time, can rarely be undertaken. Fortunately, it is not usually
necessary, as behavior can come under the selective control of only limited
parts or features of the energy configurations that make up what we call the
physical environment.
For purposes of simple illustration, we will only use examples in the rest
of this section that relate to visual perceptual stimulus classes. A stimulus is
a part of the environment and can be described in terms of its physical
dimensions. In manipulating the visual environment, we frequently confine
our experimental changes to one of the fundamental dimensions by which
physicists describe light. For our purposes, light may be considered to be a
limited range of electromagnetic disturbance, radiated at 186,000
miles/second in wave form. Wavelength is one important dimension of
electromagnetic radiation, and part of that dimension is a stimulus
dimension to which the different verbal responses we call colors have been
attached. The wavelengths that we call light comprise the very small portion
from about 380 to 760 nanometers of the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
Nearly all animals respond to differences in amplitude or intensity of light
waves (we call the corresponding response dimension brightness), but only a
limited number of species have receptors specialized for detecting changes in
wavelength, and are thus said to have color vision. Pigeons, humans, snakes,
and monkeys are examples of animals that do. Others, such as the rat and
dog, are said to be color-blind because differences in wavelength alone
cannot be learned about and thus come to control differential responding.
The wavelengths that occur in the rainbow and are perceived by us as
colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) are called pure
spectral lights because they contain only one wavelength. They can be
produced in the laboratory by a device called a monochromator. Most lights,
including reflected light that reaches the eye from surfaces such as tables,
chairs, blackboards, and lawns, are far from pure in this sense. Generally,
even the light from a homogeneously colored surface or a lamp is made up
of a large mixture of different wavelengths. Those wavelengths that are
predominant usually determine the color-naming response we make. Some
mixtures of light, however, are not named by their predominating
wavelengths. For example, the word "purple" is never used to name a pure
spectral light of one wavelength; "purple" is the color name for a mixture of
red and blue. The lights we call white and the surfaces we call gray radiate
heterogeneous mixtures of nearly all visible wavelengths. No single
wavelength predominates in such lights, but the label "colorless" sometimes
given to them seems inappropriate.
Visual stimulus dimensions are not confined to different wavelength
distributions and intensities of isolated patches of light. Relevant dimensions
that can control behavior may be defined to include spatial combinations of
the fundamental dimensions of wavelength and intensity. For instance, the
relative intensities of two adjacent light regions can be a powerful
controlling stimulus dimension, determining the brightness response that an
observer will make to a portion of the pattern. That is, a gray patch may be
seen as bright if surrounded by a less intense surround, and as dull if
surrounded by an area of higher intensity.
Note that in this discussion we use one set of terms to describe stimulus
dimensions, and another set to describe corresponding behavioral responses.
Although there are lawful correlations between these stimulus and response
dimensions, labels for stimuli and responses should not be confused.
Frequency and intensity of light energy are stimulus dimensions; color and
brightness are response dimensions. Frequency and intensity of sound
energy are stimulus dimensions; pitch and loudness (or volume) are response
dimensions. Smell, taste, temperature, and weight are response terms
associated with the stimulus dimensions of chemical structure, thermal
energy, quantitative force, and so on. Recognition of the difference between
the terms appropriate for describing stimuli and those for describing
responses will prevent a great deal of confusion.
A perceptual stimulus class consists of stimuli that lie along a physical
dimension, such as those of frequency or intensity of light or sound.
Instances of a class may vary somewhat along that dimension, but still
produce the same response. For example, light stimuli in the range 680 to 720
nanometers will be labeled as red, and thus fall into the same perceptual
class. While perceptual stimulus classes seem to be determined in part by the
evolutionary history of the species — as we have noted not all animal
species have color vision, for example — we will see throughout the
remainder of this chapter that animal and human behavior also comes under
the control of stimulus classes that are established through the learning
history of the individual.

4.2 Stimulus Control in Classical Conditioning

The first major experimental work on stimulus control was Pavlov's study of
differentiation. As reported in Chapter 1, he carried out many experiments
in which a conditioned stimulus (CS), such as the ringing of a bell was
reliably followed by an unconditioned stimulus (US), such as food in the
mouth, on a number of occasions, and as a result the CS came to elicit a
conditioned response. Pavlov demonstrated this process many times, and
carefully varied features of his experiments to establish the generality of the
effect. In a straightforward elaboration of the basic experiment,
differentiation was achieved by pairing one stimulus with food (this is
termed the CS+) and, once the CS+ had begun to reliably elicit conditioned
salivation, another stimulus (CS-) was introduced which was not followed
by food. The CS- and the CS+ were presented alternately, in a random
sequence. The results of two of Pavlov's experiments are as follows. In the
first, CS+ was a rotating disk and CS- was the same object, rotating in the
other direction, in the second, the two stimuli were a tone and its semitone.
In both experiments, before the differentiation phase began CS+ had been
established as an eliciting stimulus for salivation. When CS- was introduced,
salivation to it was, at first, slight. With continued presentations of both
CS+, followed by food, and of CS-, not followed by food, salivation to CS-
increased until it approached that to CS+. Following this rise, there was a
decline in salivation to CS- until it reached zero. The ability of CS+ to elicit
salivation continued undiminished, and a discrimination was established
between the two stimuli. The results of these two experiments are illustrated
graphically in Figure 4.1. According to Pavlov, the process of what he called
differentiation, and we shall call discrimination, involves inhibition because
of the time course of its development. The idea is that the similarity of CS+
and CS- induces a response to CS-, but subsequently the fact that the US
does not follow the CS- results in inhibition of responding developing to that
stimulus.
Many classical conditioning experiments show that the strength of the
conditioned response increases rapidly over early trials, but with additional
trials these increases become smaller and finally stop (we say that the
strength of the conditioned response has reached an asymptote). However,
Kamin (1968) was the first to demonstrate that not every CS paired with a
US will result in a conditioned response that increases in this fashion. He
showed that one can obtain a blocking effect in the following manner. If CS1
(for example, a light) is paired with a US over number of trials there will be
an increase in the conditioned response strength to a high asymptotic value,
but if CS2 (for example, a tone) is then introduced and presented for a
number of trials at the same time as CS1 and paired with the same US, not
much conditioning to CS2 will occur. That is, on subsequent trials
presentation of CS1 alone will elicit a substantial conditioned response, but
presentation of CS2 alone will not.
One further stimulus-control phenomenon in classical conditioning is
related to the biological significance of conditioning. Pavlov discovered that
if CS1 is a stimulus of high intensity and CS2 is a weaker stimulus, and the
two are presented together and followed by a US, then only CS1 will come
to elicit a strong conditioned response. We say that conditioning to CS2 has
been overshadowed by conditioning to CS1, and this phenomenon is called
overshadowing. An interesting type of overshadowing can occur if CS1 and
CS2 are from different sensory modalities. Then the overshadowing that
occurs depends on the nature of the US. For example, Garcia and Koelling
(1966) found that in an experiment with rats, if CS1 was lights and noise and
CS2 was the taste of a liquid, then conditioning would occur to CS1 (but not
CS2) if the US was a painful electric shock, and conditioning would occur to
CS2 (but not CS1) if the US was a treatment that caused a stomach upset.
There are clearly "rules" — further aspects of what Seligman (1970) called
preparedness (see Chapter 2) — determining which potential CS comes to
elicit a conditioned response

Figure 4.1 Data of Pavlov (1927) on the development of differentiation, or discrimination, by two
individual dogs in salivary conditioning experiments. Details are given in the text.
 The phenomena of discrimination, blocking and overshadowing indicate
that classical conditioning provides a sophisticated set of processes whereby
relevant classes of stimuli gain control over behavior, while irrelevant
stimuli do not. This is very much what Pavlov (1927) believed when he
presented his original findings and contradicts the contemporary media
notion that "Pavlovian reactions" are somehow not part of intelligent
behavior (see also Rescorla, 1988). We will present other information
relevant to this issue later in this chapter.

4.3 The Three-Term Relationship of Operant

Conditioning

Recall that in Chapter 2 we provided a preliminary formal account of simple

operant conditioning that consisted of only two terms, the operant response
and the reinforcing stimulus. However this relationship is established, either
implicitly or explicitly under certain stimulus conditions, there is a restricted
set of stimuli that specify the occasions on which the response can be
reinforced. In an experiment, these may be simply the stimuli arising from
being in the apparatus and having the opportunity to make the response.
Our general account of operant conditioning should thus include this
feature. We will, therefore extend our formal account of operant
conditioning to a three-term relationship by including the discriminative
stimulus.
Consider the example of the lever-pressing response of a hungry rat in a
Skinner box being reinforced with food. The complex of stimuli arising from
"being in the Skinner box" stand in an obvious relationship to reinforced
lever pressing; after all, this is the only location the rat has the opportunity
to lever press. The experimenter may also arrange that a discriminative
D
stimulus (S ) is provided that explicitly signals when lever pressing is
reinforced. This may simply be the houselight in the ceiling of the Skinner
box, or it may be an additional auditory or visual signal, in either case, the
situation is one in which the SD sets the occasion for reinforcement. The SD is
thus a stimulus that does not elicit responding, but in its presence responses
are emitted and reinforced (either continuously or intermittently). When the
SD is effective, and response rates are higher in its presence than in its
absence, we say that it exerts stimulus control.
The three-term relationship between the discriminative stimulus, operant
response, and reinforcing stimulus, is written thus:
SD: R → S+

For our present example:

SD is the houselight

R is the lever-press

S+ is delivery of a food-pellet

The use of an SD implies that at times during the experiment this stimulus is
not present. It may simply be absent (for example, houselight switched off),
or may be replaced with a different one (for example, a steadily illuminated
houselight might be replaced with a flashing one). In either case, we refer to
the alternate stimulus situation, which generally signals extinction, as SΔ
("S-delta"). SD and SΔ are often referred to as positive and negative
discriminative stimuli. Both an SD in operant conditioning procedures and a
CS in classical conditioning exert stimulus control. The differences between
the two lie in the nature of the behavioral control — an SD sets the occasion
for a higher frequency of a reinforced response while a CS elicits a response
— and the type of conditioning history — operant or classical — that led to
that stimulus gaining control over the behavior.

4.4 Stimulus Generalization

This behavioral phenomenon is seen in crude form when a child learning to
speak refers to all furry objects as "cats", and calls all male adults "Daddy". It
is exemplified in our own behavior when we hail a stranger mistakenly
because he appears to resemble a friend. The phenomenon of generalization
is obviously very important, and the conditioning processes provide a useful
way of studying it. It would be highly maladaptive if operant or classical
conditioning produced responses that were so specifically linked to the
training stimulus (SD or CS) that the response disappeared if some small
"irrelevant" feature of the stimulus changed. Conversely, it would be equally
inappropriate if huge changes in the stimulus produced no change in the
response. That would represent an absence of stimulus control; stimulus
control being defined as the presentation of the stimulus reliably increasing
(or decreasing) the probability of the behavior.
The method of studying stimulus generalization is simple in principle. In
the case of operant conditioning, once a response has been conditioned,
variations are made in some well-controlled aspect of the environment and
the rate or amount of responding at various stimulus values is measured.
This is called generalization testing along a particular stimulus dimension.
Let us consider a specific example. The apparatus shown in Figure 4.2 is a
modified Skinner box in which pure light from a monochromator illuminates
the pecking key. The monochromator permits the precise selection and
presentation of any one of a very large number of visible wavelengths. The
apparatus also includes provision for rapidly changing from one wavelength
to another. In an experiment performed by Guttman and Kalish (1956), birds
were shaped to peck the disk which was transiliuminated by a yellow-green
light of wavelength 550 nm. Following some continuous-reinforcement
training, the birds were transferred to a variable-interval schedule (VI 1-
minute). When behavior had stabilized under VI, tests were made to
determine to what extent the 550 nm light on the disk was specifically
controlling behavior. This test consisted of an extinction procedure in which
the birds were exposed to a randomized series of successive 30-second
presentations of different wavelengths, only one of which was the 550 nm
actually used in training. No other changes were made in the bird's
environment.
When the numbers of extinction responses emitted under each of the
different stimuli were calculated, they formed the curve in Figure 4.3. This
indicates that the pigeons gave the maximum number of extinction
responses only at their training stimulus, and gave progressively fewer
responses at the test stimuli located progressively farther away from the
training stimulus along the wavelength dimension. This gradation of
responding, seen when response strength is assessed in environments
somewhat different from the environment in which original conditioning
took place, is known as the generalization gradient.

Figure 4.2 A pigeon Skinner box fitted with an optical system to project pure light on to the pecking
key (after Guttman, 1956).
Figure 4.3 Numbers of key pecking responses emitted by pigeons in the presence of 11 different
wavelengths of light, projected one at a time on to the pecking key. Previous reinforced training took
place only at 550nm, and during these tests no responses were reinforced (Guttman & Kalish, 1956).

Generalization is a pervasive and often useful property of behavior. For

instance, skills learned in one environmental situation can be used in new
situations. Having learned to catch a ball thrown from a distance of 5 feet,
we will catch it pretty well at 10, 20, and maybe even 40 feet. Parents who
teach their children to say "thank you" at home are implicitly relying on
generalization to see to it that "thank you" will be emitted outside the home.
Our educational system is predicated on the assumption that the skills
acquired in school will spread to environments outside the school.
Nonetheless, the generalization gradient is there to remind and caution
educators that the more closely a training situation resembles the situation
in which the behavior will later be needed, the more effective will be the
training. Schools and other agencies use this principle when they make the
teaching situation as near to "real life" as possible.

4.5 Stimulus Salience

Various factors determine whether a particular stimulus dimension will

acquire control over behavior. Among these are discrimination training.
which is discussed later in this chapter, and the salience of that stimulus
dimension. By salience, we mean roughly, "likelihood of being noticed and
responded to". Even within one stimulus dimension, certain stimulus values
may be more likely to be responded to. Hailman (1969) was able to
demonstrate the adaptive value of this phenomenon. He measured the
unconditioned pecking behavior of newly-hatched gull chicks elicited by
various monochromatic stimuli (or "colors"). He obtained a function that
peaks sharply and resembles a generalization gradient. There is clearly a
stimulus class of a fairly narrow range of wavelengths of light which is
effective in producing pecking; the peak corresponds to the color of the adult
gull's beak and reflects the newly-hatched chicks' tendency to peck at their
parents' beaks, rather than anything else, and thus enhance their chance of
being fed in the first few crucial hours of life.
The phenomenon of overshadowing, discussed in Section 4.2, suggests
that if a stimulus dimension is not the most salient of those present, it will
not acquire control over responding. Pavlov (1927) demonstrated that if a
compound CS, consisting of one intense and one weak component, was used
in classical conditioning with dogs, very often no conditioned response was
seen to the weaker component of the CS when it was presented by itself. He
thus described it as overshadowed by the intense CS. Van Houten and
Rudolph (1972, and reported in Mackintosh, 1977) have demonstrated this
effect in two operant conditioning experiments with pigeons. In the first
experiment, one group of pigeons was reinforced for pecking a key
illuminated with white light and in the presence of a 30-mph flow of air,
while another group had the same conditions, except that the key was
unilluminated and the box was dark. Subsequent tests showed that air-flow
speed controlled responding in the second group, but not the first. The
second experiment was similar, but now a 1,000-Hz tone was presented to
both groups while key pecking for food. Again, one group had a white
illuminated key, while the other had an unilluminated key in a dark box. The
results are shown in Figure 4.4. As in their earlier experiment, the presence
of the visual stimulus prevented control being acquired by the other
modality. The other stimulus did acquire control, however, when no visual
stimulus was presented.
Very often, human behavior does come under the control of several
features (or dimensions) of a complex stimulus. A child may learn that buses
in his or her hometown are red, have six wheels, two decks, and a rear door,
that they are very noisy, and smell of diesel oil. Visiting another town and
seeing rather different vehicles, the child may still correctly identify them as
buses. His or her response "bus" is not attached to only one (or very few) of
the stimulus features. With children that show autistic behavior, on the other
hand, a phenomenon has been demonstrated that resembles overshadowing.
Lovaas and Schreibman (1971) trained autistic and other, nonautistic,
children to pull a lever on an FR4 reinforcement schedule for candy, with a
compound auditory and visual discriminative stimulus. After acquisition
(which took longer for the autistic children), the children were tested with
the auditory and visual components of the SD, separately. Most of the other
children responded on 100 per cent of trials of both types, while the autistic
children tended to respond differentially, some responding on 100 per cent of
one type of trial and none of the other. This abnormal acquisition of
stimulus control may underlie various aspects of autistic behavior, which
has often been described in terms of over-selectivity.
Figure 4.4 Van Houten and Rudolph's data showing generalization gradients for pigeons that had been
trained in the presence of 1000 Hz auditory frequency, either in the dark (no key light) or with an
illuminated key (Mackintosh, 1977).

4.6 The Stimulus Discrimination Paradigm

We noted earlier, that the phenomenon of generalization is of great

importance. Similarly, the capacity to learn to discriminate appropriately is
vital. If we are exposed to conditions where appropriate behavior is signaled
by the presence or absence of specific stimuli, we need to be able to learn to
respond at the "right times". The behavioral process of discrimination has
this outcome, and in this section we provide a brief formal account of it.
The three-term relationship of operant conditioning, between SD, R and
S+, specifies that the response, R, will become more frequent in the presence
of SD. If SD is sometimes present and sometimes absent, a discrimination
learning procedure has been set up. The simplest type of stimulus
discrimination in operant conditioning involves one response (R) class and
two stimulus conditions. The response is reinforced in one of the stimulus
conditions (SD) and is extinguished in the other stimulus condition (SΔ, or S-
delta). The result is that the probability of responding in SD comes to exceed
that in SΔ Eventually, the probability of responding in SΔ may fall to operant
level or below. The term SΔ is also used to denote conditions of less
reinforcement, as well as zero reinforcement (or extinction).
Note that although we here define discrimination as an operant paradigm,
there is a closely related classical conditioning paradigm. Earlier, in Section
4.2, we described the differentiation paradigm, in which one CS (CS+) is
followed by food (or another US) while another is also presented but never
followed by the US. With this procedure, after a number of CS+ and CS-
presentations, a greater response is elicited by CS+ than CS-. In parallel with
the operant procedure, the response to CS- often tends towards zero with
extended training. These related operant and classical procedures turn out to
have very similar behavioral consequences.
Like reinforcement and extinction, discrimination is both a procedure and
a behavioral process with a specified outcome. This interdependence
between procedures and outcomes reflects the fact that behavioral
phenomena are neither pieces of behavior nor sets of environmental
conditions, but interactions between the two.
Our formal definition of discrimination corresponds quite closely to our
everyday use of the term. Discriminations are demonstrated at the human
level by the ability to "tell two or more things apart". Some of us, for
instance, discriminate the paintings of Monet from those of Manet, butter
from margarine, or two sets of similar finger-prints. In "telling these things
apart," we are showing differential responding to them. Human
discriminations vary considerably in the number of stimulus situations and
response alternatives involved, as the following examples show. In every
case, the necessary condition of differential reinforcement (and behavior)
associated with different environments is met:
 1. The discriminating moviegoer does not go to every film that arrives
at his or her neighbourhood cinema. He or she goes to some, and
does not go to others,
2. We say that some groups of people are discriminated against when
they are treated differently from the way that other people are
treated. That is, the discriminated group is treated one way and
other people are treated another way.
3. The professional wine-taster can discriminate a variety of wines
that all taste the same to the novice. The professional's
discrimination is evidenced by his or her ability to give a unique
name (R1, R2, R3, ... R1000) to each one of a thousand different
wines (S1, S2, S3, ... S1000).

4.7 Multiple and Concurrent Schedules of

Reinforcement

In our discussion of operant reinforcement schedules in Chapter 3, we used

examples in which only one schedule was in effect in any one session of an
experiment. Now that we have introduced the three-term relationship
between SD, response and reinforcer, we can consider more complex
schedules, where two or more schedules are programmed within the same
session. Thus, we might alternate two different schedules for the same
operant response which is a multiple schedule; or we might simultaneously
have two different schedules programmed, one for each of two different
operant responses, which is a concurrent schedule. Multiple and concurrent
schedules represent examples of the control of behavior by more complex
schedules, and provide information about the ways in which schedules
interact. An important feature of a multiple schedule is that each component
schedule has an associated discriminative stimulus. For example, in a
multiple Fl FR schedule, a tone might signal the F1 component, while white
noise would be presented during the FR (in each case, the same response
would be reinforced). Once stable performance is established, we say that
behavior is under stimulus control, and each stimulus produces the
distinctive performance characteristic of the corresponding schedule when
presented. An example of the development and maintenance of rat behavior
on a multiple Fl 5-minute FR 20 schedule is shown in Figure 4.5. The lever
pressing had previously been trained on simple FR and evidence of this is
seen in the first session (Record A), but by the end of this session (B), control
by both components of the schedule is evident and becomes clearer by 11
hours of training (C). After 38 hours, behavior is fairly stable (D), although
bursts of FR-type responding occur occasionally during Fl (at d and e). The
lower panel of Figure 4.5 shows performance after much more training,
when the ratio has been changed to 40. This example shows how multiple-
schedule performance develops from the previous performance and how, as
training proceeds, control by both components becomes stronger and
inappropriate behavior less common. It is a very important general feature
of schedule-controlled performance that its acquisition, and sometimes the
actual nature of the performance, is strongly influenced by the experimental
participant's previous experience. Where the previous experience is known,
we can see how it affects performance.
Figure 4.5 Cumulative records of lever pressing by a rat on a multiple Fl 5-minute FR20 schedule
(upper panel), and on a multiple Fl 5-minute FR 40 schedule (lower panel) (Ferster & Skinner, 1957). In
both cases, periods of time on the FR schedule are characterized by continuous responding at a high
rate with a high rate of reinforcement. Other details are given in the text.

On a multiple schedule, discriminative stimuli signal different schedules

for one response at different times. This makes it an example of a successive
discrimination procedure. Alternatively, in a concurrent schedule, two or
more independent reinforcement schedules are applied to two response
classes at the same time. Concurrent schedules are thus a type of
simultaneous discrimination procedure. Unlike a multiple schedule, the
experimental participant in a concurrent schedule determines when to
switch from one schedule to the other. A typical concurrent responding
situation is illustrated in Figure 4.6. In this example of a pigeon Skinner box,
the two keys are equally accessible, although only one can be contacted at a
time, and both are available all the time. Each key has an independent
reinforcement schedule associated with it; this means that responding on key
B has no effect on the programming or delivery of reinforcements for
responding on key A.

Figure 4.6 A two-key pigeon Skinner box, which allows concurrent schedules of reinforcement to be
investigated.

After adequate training on a concurrent schedule, the experimental

participant divides its time between the two schedules and produces
appropriate behavior on each. An example of stable performance on a
concurrent FR 100 Fl 5-minute schedule of a hungry pigeon, key pecking for
grain, is shown in Figure 4.7. Characteristic Fl and FR performances are seen
alternating with each other. The only new feature seen is a "staircase" effect,
from time to time, in the Fl component. This is produced by the
experimental participant responding on the Fl key during postreinforcement
pauses on the FR key.

Figure 4.7 Cumulative records of key pecking by a pigeon a concurrent FR100 F1 50minute schedule
of reinforcement. Two records are created simultaneously and the FR record has been placed above
the Fl record (Catania, 1966).

As well as enabling the study of behavior under two different

reinforcement schedules, concurrent schedules have been extensively used to
investigate choice between two schedules that may offer different rates or
amounts of reinforcement. In such concurrent schedules, the relative rate of
the two responses turns out to be a sensitive index of choice between
alternatives. These studies, and their applications to human behavior, are
discussed in Chapter 11.

4.8 The Effects of Discrimination Training

The discrimination procedures we have described have been used many

times to successfully establish differential responding to two or more
stimulus situations. Consequently, we know that they specify sufficient
conditions for a discrimination to develop. But given that an experimental
participant successfully discriminates between two stimulus conditions, it
does not follow that every difference between the two conditions controls
responding. Mackintosh (1997) points out that in many human experiments
that formally resemble the studies with other species that show differential
responding and generalization gradients, humans do not show the same
patterns of behavior. Rather, and as discussed in Chapter 3, the behavior of
human experimental participants often appears to be under the control of
verbal rules. So, for example in an experiment involving visual stimuli of
different wavelengths, responding might occur in correspondence with a
rule "Only respond when the stimulus is bright red", and generalization
along the dimension of wavelength of light might not be observed. We will
discuss the general difference between contingency-shaped and rule-
governed behavior in more detail in Chapter 6, but Wills and Mackintosh
(reported in Mackintosh, 1997) were able to demonstrate that if a human
experimental task was made very difficult, then responding did generalize
along the dimension of physical similarity which distinguished the stimuli in
their experiment and the overall pattern of behavior was as would be
predicted from studies of other, non-verbal, animals.
Recall from Section 4.5 that more salient stimuli gain control of
responding at the expense of others, even when both are equally associated
with reinforcement. In the experiments of Rudolph and Van Houten
described there, we saw that pitch or air-flow did not gain control over
responding (that is, variations in those stimulus dimensions did not produce
a generalization gradient peaked at the training stimulus value) when a
visual stimulus was also present, but dimensional control did develop when
the visual stimulus was removed. Other studies have shown that
discrimination training, with presence and absence of tone or air flow as SD
and SΔ, is sufficient to establish control by these dimensions. We may
therefore conclude that differential reinforcement along a stimulus
dimension results in dimensional control when that dimension is the only
one that distinguishes SD from SΔ. If SD and SΔ differ along several
dimensions, control may be established by the most salient dimension.
Discrimination training procedures can be classified as intradimensional
or interdimensional. In intradimensional training, SD and SΔ lie on the same
stimulus dimension (for example, two different wavelengths of light). This
technique provides us with information about the effects of the interaction
of reinforcement at SD with extinction at SΔ on values along that stimulus
dimension. In interdimensional training, SD and SΔ are located on
independent stimulus dimensions. For example, in an experiment with
pigeons reinforced for key pecking, SD could be green key illumination,
while SΔ is an oblique white line on a dark key. This technique enables us to
obtain separate generalization gradients about SD and SΔ along the
corresponding dimension, and can result in inhibitory stimulus control.

4.9 Inhibitory Stimulus Control

We have described instances of stimulus control where the maximum point

on the generalization gradient occurs at SD, but stimulus control also exists
when the minimum of the gradient occurs at SΔ. Only when SD or SΔ lie on
independent dimensions, is it possible to sort out the excitatory (response-
facilitating) effects of SD from the inhibitory (response-suppressing) effects
of SΔ. If we vary a stimulus dimension on which SΔ lies and which is
independent of SD (in the sense that all stimuli on that dimension are
equally unlike SD), and find an inverted generalization gradient with a
minimum at SΔ, then we can say that SΔ exerts inhibitory stimulus control.
Hearst, Besley, and Farthing (1970) trained hungry pigeons to peck a blank
white key (SD) for VI food reinforcement, and alternated periods with the
white key with periods of extinction, with a thin black line bisecting the
white key (SΔ). When the number of responses to SΔ was less than 4 per cent
of the number to SD, a generalization procedure was introduced. Various line
tilts were presented for 30 seconds at a time, and the VI reinforcement
schedule was always in effect. The results for five successive sessions of this
procedure for two groups, trained with different angled lines at SΔ, are
shown in Figure 4.8.
For both groups of pigeons, a U-shaped gradient, with a minimum at the
training SΔ value, is seen on the first two sessions. By the fifth session, the
curve has flattened out. This is not surprising, because the birds are now
being trained not to discriminate on this dimension as reinforcement is
available at every value presented. Note that in the first session, all values of
the line tilt stimulus suppress responding below the SD value (shown as B).
This shows that the overall effect of the line stimulus is inhibitory. This effect
has also dissipated by the fifth test session.
Such demonstrations of a gradient with a minimum at SΔ confirm the
predictions made by accounts of discrimination, which assume that a
stimulus associated with extinction acquires inhibitory properties. Similar
predictions are made by theories of classical conditioning, from Pavlov's
(1927) to more recent ones (for example, Rescorla and Wagner, 1972). These
assume that a CS associated with the absence of the US comes to actively
inhibit the conditioned response, rather than merely failing to elicit the
conditioned response. It seems that stimuli associated with operant
extinction acquire similar properties.
Figure 4.8 Inhibitory generalization gradients for groups of pigeons on successive test days with VI
reinforcement at all line-tilt stimulus values. Upper panels show data from nine pigeons previously
extinguished at 0°. Lower panels show data from eight pigeons previously extinguished at +30°
(Hearst, Besley, & Farthing, 1970).

4.10 Stimulus Equivalence

Thus far we have discussed stimulus control in terms of the physical

properties of stimulus classes. We have seen that human and non-human
experimental participants can emit a response in the presence of a stimulus
they have never encountered, as long as it is physically similar to an SD used
during training. Furthermore, the more dissimilar a test stimulus is from the
SD the weaker, or less frequent, is the emitted response. We have suggested
that generalization and discrimination could account for aspects of complex
human behavior. However, if we examine more closely the stimulus classes
that control complex aspects of our behavior, such as social interaction, we
quickly come to realize that the types of stimulus control discussed thus far
are only part of the story.
 Consider the following example. You are driving a car and you encounter
a red traffic light: the red light acts as an SD for applying the brakes of the
car and stopping. However, many other stimuli could serve the same
function. Here are some examples:

a policeman stepping onto the road with a raised hand,

a passenger shouting "Stop the car!",
an elderly person trying to cross the road.

In this context, all four stimuli are functionally equivalent; that is, they
control the same behavior. Even in the case of this very simple example it is
apparent that the basis of this functional equivalence is not physical
similarity and it is necessary to consider alternative explanations. We might
argue that each stimulus acquired control through direct training: in other
words, stopping the car has been reinforced in the presence of each of these
stimuli. However, this seems a laborious method, and, in the case considered
here, a dangerous method, for stimuli to acquire control over behavior.
There have been some recent developments in behavioral analysis that
provide an account of how functional stimulus classes may be formed
efficiently. These developments have arisen from research on stimulus
equivalence, or equivalence classes.
Before describing equivalence classes, we must describe the
discrimination training procedure most commonly employed to study them,
which is matching-to-sample training. The experiments have usually been
carried out on human experimental participants and, for convenience,
computer-generated images are often used as stimuli. Stimuli are usually
nonsense syllables or random shapes and thus have no meaning for the
experimental participants prior to the experiment. The procedure involves
presenting a stimulus, referred to as the sample, centrally near the top of a
computer display screen (see Figure 4.9). Several (usually three) comparison
stimuli are presented simultaneously at the bottom of the screen. The
experimental participant's task is to learn through trial and error which
comparison goes with the sample. Choices are made by striking an
appropriate key, and feedback on correct choices is given automatically by
the computer. It is important to note that the "correct" response is defined by
the experimenter and that there is no logical connection or physical
similarity between the sample stimulus and any of the comparison stimuli.
Given sufficient training, human and nonhuman experimental
participants can readily learn to match stimuli in this manner, and select the
correct comparison to go with each sample that is being used on all, or a
very large percentage, of trials. (In the example given, there will be a total of
three different sample stimuli and three corresponding comparison stimuli.)
However, it is when human experimental participants are trained on a
number of related matching-to-sample tasks that some interesting emergent
relationships are observed which have not been explicitly trained. These are
observed in the case of verbally-competent human experimental participants
(those who are able to speak and use language) and they give rise to
equivalence classes.

Figure 4.9 Schematic diagram of a typical layout of stimuli presented simultaneously (or with onset of
A1 slightly before the other stimuli) on a computer screen for matching-to sample training of the A-B
relationship. The sample stimulus A1 must be matched to correct comparison stimulus, B1, by
selecting a corresponding response key. On other trials for this task, B1, B2 and B3 will presented in
different sequences, and A1 will be replaced by A2 or A3 as the sample stimulus.

The simplest experiment of this type involves two related matching

responses. Experimental participants are initially trained to match several
(typically, three) comparison stimuli (B1, B2, B3) to the same number of
sample stimuli (A1, A2, A3). On a trial, either A1, A2, or A3 is presented as a
sample and B1, B2, and B3 are all presented simultaneously as comparisons,
as in Figure 4.10. Feedback is given for correct choices (which will be B1
given A1, B2 given A2, and B3 given A3) and for incorrect choices. (A
difference between "feedback" and "reinforcement" is that we use feedback to
describe a procedure in which information is provided to the participant on
each occasion on which they make a response. They are told whether this is
"correct" or "incorrect", and this feedback is usually presumed to act as
reinforcement for the correct responses.) Once criterion performance is
achieved on the matching-to-sample task, which typically involves making
correct responses on more than 90% of a batch of trials, a second phase of
training begins. In this phase either B1, B2, or B3 appears as a sample and
three new comparisons C1, C2, and C3 appear. Correct choices will now be
C1 given B1, C2 given B2, and C3 given B3. Once again, there is generally no
physical resemblance or logical relationship between the B sample stimuli
and the C comparison stimuli that must now be selected to go with them,
just as there was no such A-to-B relationship in the earlier phase. Again,
training continues until a criterion level of correct responding is achieved.
If tested at this stage on certain untrained matching responses, verbally-
competent human experimental participants may respond correctly. For
example, they will correctly match the appropriate A stimuli with the B
stimuli, if the B stimuli appear as samples and the A stimuli appear as
comparisons. This emergent matching response is referred to as symmetry,
because it is the reverse of the relationship which had previously been
trained. Similarly, they will correctly match the appropriate B stimuli to C
stimuli, another type of symmetry response. If the A stimuli are presented as
both sample and comparisons, they correctly match each A stimulus with
itself. This is referred to as reflexivity, and will be observed in the case of B
and C stimuli also. As reflexivity essentially involves successfully matching
something to itself, it seems most unsurprising but, as we shall see later, it is
not normally a consequence of matching-to-sample training in nonhuman
species. If the A stimuli appear as samples and the C stimuli as comparisons,
verbally-competent human participants will correctly match C stimuli to the
appropriate A stimuli. This is called transitivity. They will also show
combined symmetry and transitivity, which is observed when the C stimuli
are presented as samples and the A stimuli as comparisons. When all these
matching responses are observed, a stimulus equivalence class (involving A,
B, and C) is said to have been formed, because each member of the class is
treated equivalently (Sidman, 1971, 1986). Figure 4.10 is schematic
representation of the three-member equivalence classes described above.
The notion that physically unrelated stimuli are treated as equivalent
when they are members of the same class is a formal statement of
something that is very familiar to us. For example, the written word "shoe",
the spoken word "shoe" and a picture of a shoe are all said to refer to the
same thing, and a child could be taught to treat them as equivalent through
matching-to-sample training (Sidman, 1990). However, this may be a
uniquely human capacity. While A-to-B and B-to-C training is sufficient to
produce equivalence classes in verbally-competent humans, animals of other
species (including chimpanzees, see Dugdale & Lowe, 1990) may succeed in
reaching criterion performances on the matching-to-sample tasks but not
show any emergent relationships. They may not, for example, even match
stimuli to themselves (such as A1 to A1) without explicit training.

Figure 4.10 Outcome of stimulus equivalence class training. The arbitrary and physically dissimilar
stimuli A1, B1, and C1 are now in Classl and will be treated as equivalent. Subsequent training could
add further elements, D1, E1, etc., to this class and they would also be treated as equivalent to A1, B1,
and C1. The same properties apply to Classes 2 and 3.

A striking feature of equivalence classes is that as the number of members

(stimuli) increases, the number of emergent matching responses increases
dramatically. For example, training two relationships (A to B and B to C)
produces a three member class with a further seven matching relationships
emerging (A to A, B to B, C to C, B to A, C to B, A to C, C to A, a total of 32
- 2 = 7) but training four relationships (A to B, B to C, C to D, D to E
produces a five member class with a further 21 matching relationships
emerging (52 - 4 = 21) (Fields and Verhave,1987). "Natural" stimulus
equivalence classes (that is, those that enter into relationships with human
behavior in real-life settings) may have very many members with a huge
number of emerging matching responses. This fact, along with the account
of generalization between physically similar stimuli we gave earlier in this
chapter, gives us a way of dealing with some long-standing philosophical
problems. Philosophers have posed questions such as "What is the essential
feature of a chair? How do we decide what is, and what is not, an example
of a chair?" We now have the elements of a general answer to this question,
and many like it. A chair is a class of stimuli which are functionally
equivalent in allowing us to make the response of sitting down. Some
members of the class have physical similarities, but a new design of chair
(which does not have those physical features) can be added to the class and
subsequently be seen to be as "chair-like" as the more conventional members
of the class. It is worth noting that every individual will have their own
"class of chairs": someone who has never encountered a particular new
design of chair may not identify it as a chair. This type of example suggests
that some of the traditional philosophical questions may be misconceived,
and that there are no absolute or essential features of "being a chair".
As noted above, a key feature of equivalence classes is that under certain
circumstances behaviors controlled by one member of a class may be
controlled by other members of the class without explicit training, it is this
characteristic of equivalence that provides an account of how physically
dissimilar stimuli may control the same behavior without the need for
explicit training, and thus be functionally equivalent. That is, a pattern of
behavior under the control of an SD may be transferred "automatically" to
other stimuli that are in an equivalence class with that stimulus. For
example, if you typically talk in a certain way with same-sex friends, you
may start to talk in this way to any new same-sex friend that you make,
without a history of reinforcement for talking to that person in that way.
Clearly, this is a powerful method of extending a person's behavioral
repertoire. It may also contribute to less desirable outcomes by providing a
rapid method of attaching fear and anxious behavior to specific situations
that were not previously feared.
This could happen in a number of ways. Most straightforwardly, if we
suppose that a young child has a stimulus class of "places where frightening
things happen", then he or she may go to some lengths to avoid being in
those places, may show extreme fear if encountering one of them by
accident, and so on. Any stimulus that is added to the class will then control
the whole range of fear-related behaviors, and it may be very easy to
introduce a new member to the class. For example, the child may go into a
strange room and be somewhat frightened by a sudden noise, and this may
be sufficient for this place to become a new member of that stimulus class
and thus control the whole range of fear-related responses. Alternatively,
saying to the child "You are frightened of monsters, aren't you? Well, there
are monsters in the wood-shed!", may be sufficient to produce an aversion to
all wood-sheds. Finally, a frightening experience in one particular store
might produce a fear of all public places because, for that child, they are all
members of the same stimulus class.

4.11 Summary

Behavior comes under the control of many aspects of the environment, in

that the probability of a response class changes markedly when certain
stimuli are presented. These stimuli cannot be any aspect of the physical
environment, because only some aspects of the physical environment can be
perceived. A further limitation is that at any particular time only some of
those aspects of the environment that could influence behavior are actually
effective in so doing.
Perceptual stimulus classes are classes of events that differ only in terms
of a physical stimulus dimension, such as wavelength of light or amplitude
of sound, and thus lie along that physical stimulus dimension. Pavlov
showed that if two stimuli that varied in one dimension were used as CS+,
which was followed by the US, and CS-, which was not, then the important
phenomena of generalization and discrimination could both be
demonstrated. Generalization occurred after only a few trials when the
conditioned response acquired to CS+ was also shown to the physically
similar CS-, but after many trials discrimination occurred and there was
now no response to CS- because it had not been followed by the US.
Classical conditioning procedures have also been used to demonstrate other
stimulus control phenomena such as blocking and overshadowing.
Operant conditioning can only be fully defined in terms of a three-term
relationship that includes the discriminative stimulus, or SD, that sets the
occasion on which the operant response, R, can be followed by the
reinforcing stimulus, S+. When an explicit SD is used in an experiment, such
as the houselight in a Skinner box, it can be shown that the SD exerts
stimulus control and the operant response is much more frequent in its
presence than in its absence. As in classical conditioning, stimulus
generalization can be demonstrated following operant conditioning. If
various stimuli are presented that differ from the SD along a salient
dimension (such as the wavelength of light), then a generalization gradient
may be obtained with higher response rates being emitted to stimuli that
more closely resemble the training SD. Generalization is an important aspect
of behavior, because it results in behavior persisting — to an extent — as the
environment changes slightly. Generalization does not occur along every
dimension of an SD, and less salient (or "unimportant") stimulus dimensions
may not turn out to control the operant response.
Operant discrimination training occurs when a negative discriminative
stimulus, SΔis provided as well as SD. In the presence of SΔ, which
may alternate with SD, there is a lower or zero rate of reinforcement for the
response. Like reinforcement and extinction, discrimination is both a
procedure and a behavioral process with a characteristic outcome, as the SD
comes to control a high rate of responding, while SΔ maintains a low rate
and may inhibit responding. Discrimination is an important behavioral
process which results in selective responding to relevant environmental cues.
The three-term relationship for operant conditioning enables us to define
more complex schedules of reinforcement. These include multiple schedules
where different discriminative stimuli signal different schedules of
reinforcement for a single operant response class, and concurrent
reinforcement schedules where two independent reinforcement schedules
are simultaneously available for two operant responses. These procedures
maintain more complex patterns of behavior, but the patterns are made up
of the patterns characteristic of the simpler component reinforcement
schedules.
Human behavior is not only controlled by perceptual stimulus classes.
Often it is affected by stimulus classes with physically dissimilar members
that are determined by the individual's learning history. These stimulus
equivalence classes are pervasive in everyday life (for example, the class
consisting of the written word "chair", the spoken word "chair", a picture of a
chair, etc.), and they can be investigated experimentally using matching-to-
sample procedures. With verbally competent participants, a limited amount
of training with these procedures (such as, given A1 pick B1, given B1 pick
C1) can result in the emergence of many relationships between stimuli that
have not been explicitly trained (such as, given A1, pick A1, given A1 pick
C1, given B1 pick A1, given B1 pick A1, given B1 pick B1, given C1 pick A1,
given C1 pick B1, given C1 pick C1). These stimuli are thus treated as
equivalent, and appear to have the same functions as each other. That is, a
function acquired by one member of the class transfers to all other class
members. This finding has enormous potential for explain rapid changes in
human behavior, including undesirable ones such as fear of many situations
that have never been directly experienced (see Friman, Hayes, & Wilson,
1998).
Chapter 5
Aversive Contingencies
The first step in our systematic account of operant behavior was the
definition of simple operant conditioning. It was defined as the presentation
of a response-contingent stimulus, which produced a number of
characteristic response changes that included an increase in response
frequency. We called the stimulus in that paradigm a positive reinforcer and,
to this point, have generally restricted the account of operant behavior to
those situations involving such positive reinforcement.
Only casual observation is needed, however, to detect the operation of
another kind of reinforcement, defined by the operant conditioning that
occurs through the response-contingent removal of certain environmental
events. We see that birds find shelter during rainstorms, dogs move to shady
spots when the summer sun beats down upon them, and people close
windows when the roar of traffic is loud. In these instances behavior is
emitted that removes or terminates some environmental event: rain, heat or
light, and noise, in the examples given. These observations suggest the
existence of a distinctive class of reinforcing events. Because the operation
that defines these events as reinforcing is their removal, and is opposite in
character to that of positive reinforcers (defined by their presentation), they
are known as negative reinforcers (S–). In general, negative reinforcers
constitute those events whose removal, termination, or reduction in
intensity, will increase or maintain the frequency of operant behavior.
In this chapter, we shall describe two important experimental paradigms,
escape and avoidance, as procedures with a characteristic outcome. In these
procedures, negative reinforcers (aversive stimuli) operate as the special
response-contingent stimuli that are used in characteristic ways to produce
the outcome characteristic of each procedure. A third procedure which also
involves aversive stimuli and has a characteristic outcome, is punishment.
This involves the response-contingent presentation of an aversive event, and
has the characteristic outcome that the frequency of the operant response is
reduced by this contingency. Finally, we shall consider classical conditioning
procedures where the US has aversive properties. In parallel with what we
have found in our consideration of positive operant reinforcement and
classical conditioning with appetitive US's, there are similarities in the
outcomes of operant conditioning procedures involving aversive stimuli and
aversive classical conditioning. Throughout this chapter, we shall, as in
earlier chapters, seek to identify basic processes of operant and classical
conditioning, to describe their action and interaction in particular situations.
Here and in later chapters we seek to demonstrate the applicability of these
behavioral processes isolated in the laboratory to significant issues in human
life. Unlike positive reinforcement, the use of aversive contingencies is
strongly linked to ethical concerns. Some of these will be introduced in this
chapter, and we will return to them when considering the management of
human behavioral problems in detail in later chapters.

5.1 Escape from Aversive Stimuli

In the laboratory, aversive stimuli have typically taken the form of electric
shocks, prolonged immersion in water, and high intensities of light, sound,
or temperature. These are the events that, in common parlance, we call
"annoying", "uncomfortable", "painful", "unpleasant", "noxious", and "aversive".
Of these terms, we shall use the word "aversive" as a technical synonym for
negative reinforcement.
Aversiveness suggests the key notion of "averting", "moving away from",
or "escaping from" a situation. We may reasonably expect to find that the
acquisition of behavior that leads to escape from (or termination of) an
aversive stimulus is a fundamental behavioral process. After all, if an
organism is not equipped to escape from potentially physically damaging
stimuli, its survival is endangered, it is thus likely that evolution will have
equipped most species with the capacity to learn through escape
contingencies.
We need a clear definition of escape in order to distinguish it from other
aversive procedures that will be introduced later, in the escape procedure, a
stimulus is presented and termination of that stimulus is contingent upon
the occurrence of a specified operant response. If this contingency results in
an increase in frequency of the response, and in the other associated
behavioral changes described for positive reinforcement in Chapter 2, then
escape learning has occurred. We can also conclude that the stimulus
presented is an aversive stimulus, which is acting as a negative reinforcer for
the response specified because its termination is the crucial event.
We can represent the escape procedure symbolically by the following
three-term relationship:
S-: R1 → S°

where S- = aversive stimulus

R1 = specified operant response
S° = absence of aversive stimulus
Note the following important points:

1. Escape learning, as defined here, is a form of operant conditioning.

2. The stimulus is designated as aversive, and its termination as
negatively reinforcing, on the basis of the results of the experiment.
The experiment can, therefore, be seen as a test of the aversiveness
of the stimulus.
3. The aversive stimulus also has other properties, because it sets the
occasion on which the escape response is reinforced by its
termination (we will discuss this aspect further later in this section).

Typically, an experiment involves a number of escape trials, each

terminating after a correct response or a fixed period of exposure to the
aversive stimulus, separated by intertrial intervals in which no stimuli are
presented.
 Various simple procedures have been used for experimental studies of
escape training. In an early study by Muenzinger and Fletcher (1936), a rat
was placed in a T-shaped maze that contained an electrically charged grid
floor. The floor was wired so that as long as the animal remained on the grid,
a continuous shock was administered to its paws. A cover over the maze
prevented the rat from escaping the shock by jumping out of the apparatus.
One escape route remained; the animal could find safety by running
consistently to a designated arm of the T.
Behavior in the T-maze is usually measured on each trial by timing the rat
from start to safe, or by counting the "incorrect" turns ("errors") into the
unsafe arm of the T. On early trials, the rat is equally likely to run right or
left, but as acquisition of the response of turning to the safe side proceeds,
responses to the "incorrect" side decrease.
More recent studies of escape have generally used apparatus in which a
long series of trials (S– presentations) can be presented at appropriate
intervals without the participant having to be removed. In the Skinner box,
for example, lever presses can be arranged to terminate electric shocks
coming from the grid floor. But the most common apparatus for the study of
escape conditioning has been the shuttle box of Figure 5.1. This box is simply
a two-compartment chamber, where the measured operant response is
movement from one chamber to the other (usually movement in either
direction counts as a response). Movement is detected by spring switches
under the floor, or by photocells. The aversive stimulus (S–) is usually pulsed
electric shock delivered through the grid floor. Escape behavior is rapidly
acquired in this apparatus, possibly because the required operant response
(running) is closely related to the unconditioned behavior elicited by the
shock.
Figure 5.1 A shuttle box designed to study avesive contingencies with rats. When the shutte raised,
the rat can jump the hurdle and get into the other half of the apparatus.

Many experimental studies have employed rats as participants and

electric shock as the S–. These choices were made because it is relatively
easy to deliver a controlled shock to a rat through the grid on which it is
standing. Other stimuli (for example, noise or blasts of air) are less easy to
control, and other species present a variety of methodological problems.
These biases of experimenters towards using methods that are convenient
are understandable, but have not been based on much knowledge as to how
representative the situation studied is of escape learning in general, so we
must be ready to expect some surprises when the escape paradigm is used
with other species and other stimuli.
However, it has been possible to demonstrate some generality of the
effects of various different procedures for escape training. Results for rats
which learned to press a lever which turned off electric shocks intermittently
delivered through the grid floor appear in Figure 5.2A, while Figures 5.2B
and 5.2C document the results of similar experiments with other aversive
agents. Figure 5.2B illustrates the effects of increasing the intensity of a
sound on VI lever-pressing escape rate of cats. The results of Figure 5.2C
were obtained from a group of rats whose pushing of a panel on Fl
contingencies terminated lights of various intensities. Both the (B) and (C)
panels of Figure 5.2 demonstrate that escape behavior may reach a
maximum rate and then decline if the aversive-stimulus intensity is made
very great. The decline in responding associated with very intense aversive
events is not well understood, but is thought to be due to a general
suppressive (emotional) effect of strong aversive stimuli. This "side-effect"
will be discussed later.

Figure 5.2 Escape response rates as function of the intensity of three different aversive stimuli. A
Dinsmoor and Winograd, 1958; B Barry and Harrison, 1957 C Kaplan, 1952.

Since we are interested in possible parallels between negative and positive

reinforcement, we may ask to what variable in the field of positive
reinforcement does aversive stimulus intensity correspond? Superficially, the
intensity of a negative reinforcer seems analogous to the magnitude of a
positive reinforcer. Intensity of S– and magnitude of S+ are both stimulus
properties of the reinforcer, and increases in both variables can generate
increases in responding in some procedures. However, closer analysis of the
functional role that these two variables play in negative and positive
reinforcement, respectively, suggests that the analogy is only superficial. The
principal effect of raising the intensity of a light, or a sound, or a shock, from
a low to a high value, is that the reinforcement of behavior is made possible
through termination of the new intensity. Increasing the intensity of an S–
has, therefore, the effect of a reinforcement-establishing operation. Thus, in
the presence of a weak intensity of light, or noise, a rat will not show
conditioning of a response that terminates the light or noise. Similarly, with
a small value of food deprivation, a response that produces food will not be
strengthened. Conversely, high values of both shock intensity and food
deprivation make it possible to use shock termination and food presentation
as reinforcers for operant behavior. Thus, shock intensity is better described
as a motivational variable, than as a reinforcement magnitude variable.
Ethical concerns have limited the number of experiments on escape
behavior with human participants (but see Chapter 7 for some examples of
where assessment of escape-motivated behavior requires repeated
presentation of aversive stimuli). That is, we are reluctant to carry out, or
sanction others carrying out, experiments which necessarily involve people
being presented with aversive events. Our concern is perfectly reasonable —
as is concern with the ethics of carrying out experiments with nonhuman
animals that involve aversive stimuli — but it can be argued that it is
misplaced because escape behavior is very important in humans as in other
species. Consequently, our general scientific curiosity should be aroused,
and, more importantly, a better knowledge of how it occurs in humans
would enable us to devise intervention strategies for significant human
problems. Let us consider the example of self-injurious behavior. This is a
very distressing problem that greatly reduces the quality of life of a large
number of people with learning difficulties. One way of conceptualizing this
phenomenon would be as a failure of escape learning that normally occurs.
For most of us, the pain of striking our head on a wall, for example, rapidly
leads to a change in behavior and this is a form of escape learning. It may be
that some people lack the capacity to readily learn in this way, or, more
likely, that other escape contingencies (perhaps escape from social pressures)
have a greater influence on their behavior. As with all forms of conditioning,
we need basic research on escape procedures with human behavior, and
comparative studies with other species, in order to understand the
behavioral processes and to design effective interventions for serious
behavioral problems.

5.2 Avoidance Behavior

Consider the escape paradigm applied to the example of someone walking in

the rain:

This seems to be a clear case of escape behavior; putting up the umbrella

is reinforced by escape from the rain. Consider, however, another behavioral
element of this incident; the fact that the person was carrying an umbrella.
Can we explain the "umbrella carrying response" in terms of an operant
reinforcement contingency? It seems likely that umbrella-carrying on a
showery day is reinforced by the avoidance of getting wet that would
otherwise occur. We can thus state:

Note the differences between this three-term relationship and the one for
escape. The discriminative stimulus (SD) for making the response is not now
an aversive stimulus as well: it need not actually be raining when we leave
the house for us to take an umbrella. Furthermore, the consequence of
making the response is rather different. In the escape paradigm, S– offset
occurs as soon as the response is made. In the avoidance paradigm, S– is
prevented from occurring by the response.
In an avoidance procedure, a stimulus is programmed to occur unless a
specified operant response occurs. Occurrence of that response cancels or
postpones these stimulus presentations, if this contingency results in an
increase in frequency of that response, then avoidance learning has
occurred, and the stimulus has negative reinforcement properties for that
response. Notice that the avoidance procedure supplements the escape
paradigm in giving us a second, independent, way of discovering negative
reinforcers, and thus defining aversive stimuli.
Representing avoidance diagrammatically is awkward, because the crucial
element is the postponement or cancellation of an event which has not yet
occurred. Figure 5.3 illustrates "timelines" for two types of avoidance
schedule which have often been used in experimental studies. (The aversive
stimuli are assumed to be electric shocks.) In free operant avoidance (Figure
5.3A), shocks occur at regular intervals, the shock (S-S) interval, unless an
operant response occurs. If it does, the next shock is postponed for a period
of time, the response-shock (R-S) interval. On this schedule, no shocks will
ever be delivered if each response follows the preceding one within the
response-shock interval. In discriminated avoidance (Figure 5.3B), a
discriminative stimulus (SD) precedes each shock delivery. A response during
the "warning signal" SD cancels the shock delivery and (usually) terminates
the SD. Responses during the intertrial interval have no effect. Every shock
will be avoided if one response occurs during each SD.
Figure 5.3 Event records or timelines illustrating the procedures of (A) free operant avoidance; (b)
discriminated avoidance; and (c) escape.

Some data on the acquisition by rats of a iever-press response to avoid an

aversive stimulus of foot shock are shown in Figure 5.4. After an intertrial
interval which averaged 10 minutes, a 1,000 Hz tone SD was presented. If the
lever was pressed during the SD, it was terminated and shock was avoided.
This study also involved an escape contingency. If the rat failed to make the
avoidance response within 60 seconds, shock was delivered continuously
until a response occurred (Hoffman and Fleshier, 1962). Figure 5.4 shows that
the average response latency for the group of rats declined steadily across
sessions, while the number (percentage) of avoidance responses increased.
Both latency and number of responses reached an asymptote in the seventh
session and showed little further change. The third measure shown is the
number (percentage) of intertrial intervals (SΔ periods) in which a response
occurred. Comparison of the avoidance curve with the intertrial interval
responding curve gives a classic example of the development of a
discrimination: SD responding increases first, then SΔ responding increases.
Then, as SD responding continues to increase, SΔ responding reaches a peak,
thereafter declining towards zero. The acquisition of avoidance behavior and
its discriminative control thus proceeds in the fashion familiar to us from
many types of positively reinforced behavior, as discussed in Chapter 4.

Figure 5.4 Three measures of behavior during acquisition of a discriminated lever-press avoidance
response. Data are from a group of 12 rats (Hoffman & Fleshier, 1962).

In discriminated avoidance, the response generally has two consequences:

SD termination, and shock avoidance. What happens when only one of these
consequences is provided for the response? Kamin (1957) found that while
shock avoidance per se produces a certain level of responding, the SD-
termination contingency also enhances responding. So the removal or
absence of the SD for the avoidance response appears to be a reinforcing
event, an idea to which we shall return shortly.
Free operant avoidance is, as its name implies, a procedure in which a
response occurring at any time serves to postpone or eliminate programmed
aversive events. No signals are ever presented to warn the participant of
impending aversive stimuli. This schedule, first devised by Sidman (1953)
and illustrated in the time-lines of Figure 5.3A, leaves the animal free to
respond at any time, and without any external cues, or signals, as to when to
make that response.
 An example of the acquisition of a lever-pressing response by a rat on
Sidman's free-operant avoidance schedule is shown in Figure 5.5. In this
case, both the R-S and S-S intervals were 30 seconds. After an initial period
where many of the shocks used as aversive stimuli were delivered, the rat
developed fairly rapidly a sustained moderate rate of responding, which
resulted in shocks being delivered only occasionally (Verhave, 1959). This
means that only rarely did the rat pause for more than 30 seconds (the R-S
interval) or fail to respond within 30 seconds of receiving a shock (the S-S
interval).
This is a remarkable performance when you consider that when the rat is
successful, nothing happens. That is, since no external stimulus
consequences are presented, the only feedback from making a response
constitute so-called kinesthetic aftereffects (that is, sensations produced
within the body by the movements involved in pressing the lever) and
whatever small noise the lever makes. Compare this situation with the
discriminated-avoidance schedule, where an explicit SD signals the time to
respond, and SD termination usually follows completion of the response.
Figure 5.5 Cumulative records of lever press avoidance during training of a rat on free operant
avoidance. Shock deliveries are indicated by small vertical marks. The first record is at the bottom of
the figure. From the second record onwards, very few shocks were delivered (Verhave, 1959).

As discussed in Chapter 2, everyday descriptions of avoidance behavior

are couched in purposive terms. In the case of avoidance, we say that we
turn the wheel of a skidding car away from the direction of the skid to avoid
a crash, that one builds a bridge in a certain way to avoid its collapsing, that
a deer flees in order to avoid a pursuing wolf. The term "to", or "in order to",
imputes a certain purposive quality to the behavior. Purposive or teleological
explanations are generally rejected by scientists on the grounds that such
explanations purport to let a future (and, therefore, nonexistent) event be the
cause of a present (existing) event; and because purposive explanations add
nothing to the bare facts. Consequently, behavior theorists persistently
sought to explain the facts of avoidance by a mechanism that was clearly
non-teleological. However, in attempting to frame an account of avoidance
behavior that was analogous to simple operant conditioning or escape
behavior, they struck a serious problem. In both simple operant conditioning
and escape learning, behavior is reinforced by making a stimulus change
consequent upon that behavior (even with intermittent reinforcement, some
responses are immediately followed by the reinforcing stimulus). In
avoidance learning, however, the aversive stimulus is present neither after
the response nor before it. Rather, it occurs intermittently in the absence of
responding.
There are at least two routes to a solution of this problem. Either some
stimulus, or stimulus change, must be identified which is a consequence of
responding and acquires the power to reinforce avoidance responses; or we
accept the facts of avoidance behavior as a basic, and irreducible, process in
which behavior changes because that change produces a reduced frequency
of aversive events over a period of time. A review of the extensive
experimental research literature shows that, in various nonhuman species,
negatively-reinforced behavior can be maintained by conditioned aversive
stimulus termination, safety signal presentation, aversive stimulus density
reduction, and delay of the aversive stimulus. This suggests that while short-
term consequences (for example, the onset of a safety signal) may have big
effects, consequences over a longer period (for example, the occurrence of a
period of time with a lower frequency of aversive events) may also be
effective. However, avoidance behavior sometimes fails to develop where
one or more of these inducing factors are present.
The main reason for "failures" is that every avoidance procedure involves
not only a negative reinforcement contingency, but also the necessary
ingredients for aversive classical conditioning, which is discussed in Section
5.4. Aversive stimuli are repeatedly paired with either apparatus cues or SD's,
and we often find that species-typical aversive behaviors are elicited by
avoidance situations (Bodes, 1970). Species-typical aversive behaviors
represent those unconditioned behaviors that occur naturally in response to
attack. In rats — most often used in experimental studies — the most readily
identifiable ones comprise freezing, flight, and attack, and these behaviors
are sometimes incompatible with the required operant response. When
factors relating to the evolutionary history of the species start to "interfere"
with the outcome of conditioning experiments, the choice of operant
response class is no longer arbitrary, in the sense defined in Section 2.4, and,
relatedly, the findings may not generalise to other species and to human
behavior. Fortunately, with avoidance, as with the other behavioral
processes we have introduced, most of the findings are not restricted in this
way.

5.3 Punishment

Punishment is a procedure in which aversive stimuli are made contingent

upon behavior. The modification of behavior by contingent presentation of
aversive stimuli is an extremely controversial subject. Punishment is an
emotive word, and much progressive thinking in education, psychotherapy,
child rearing, penal reform, relationship-improvement programs, and even
radical social change, is based on the premise that our first step must be to
eliminate punishment. The validity of this claim depends on what is meant
by punishment, the effects (direct and indirect) that punishment has, and
ethical considerations. These issues are discussed in Chapter 10.
We define punishment, similarly to other behavioral processes, as a
procedure with a characteristic outcome. In the punishment procedure, a
stimulus is made contingent upon a specified response. If a variety of
characteristic effects occur, particularly a reduction in frequency or
suppression of that response, then we say that punishment has occurred, and
that the contingent stimulus is a punisher, a punishing stimulus, or an
aversive stimulus. We can represent the procedure as:
R → S–

where R is the specified response, and

S– is an aversive stimulus.
Clearly, the punishment paradigm supplements escape and avoidance
procedures as an independent way of assessing the aversiveness of
contingent stimuli. However, note that, in parallel with all other operant
procedures, the effect of the contingent stimulus depends on the particular
situation, the particular response selected for study, and other contextual
variables. We cannot assume, for example, that the verbal command, "Sssh!",
which effectively silences a child talking in church, will also have this effect
in a schoolroom. Neither can we assume that a stimulus identified as an
effective punisher for one operant will necessarily effectively punish another
operant behavior, or that a stimulus found aversive from escape or
avoidance procedures will necessarily act as a punisher. In practice, the
ubiquitous punishers in laboratory experiments with nonhuman participants
have been, almost exclusively, electric shocks, as has also been the case in
studies of escape and avoidance. Occasional studies with humans have also
used shocks, but, as we shall see later, aversive stimuli that do not cause pain
are more ethically acceptable. All the issues concerned with the application
of punishment procedures with human behavioral problems are discussed in
Chapter 10.
 In ordinary language, the word "punishment" is used ambiguously. It can
either mean the delivery of an aversive stimulus contingent upon a response,
as here, or simply the delivery of an aversive stimulus in no particular
relation to behavior. We have removed this ambiguity, and we shall see later
in this chapter that there are important behavioral differences between the
two procedures. We also depart from ordinary language in specifying that
punishment has only occurred when a particular behavioral effect is seen.
Early laboratory work on punishment appeared to support the conclusion
that punishment yields only a transient effect on operant behavior (Estes,
1944; Skinner, 1938), and this conclusion is still occasionally quoted.
However, as long ago as 1966, an authoritative review was produced by
Azrin and Holz of later findings where reliable punishment effects were
obtained. They pointed out that a number of methodological requirements
must be met to enable punishment phenomena to be investigated
successfully, and these were not always achieved in the early studies. There
must be a reliable methodology for maintaining operant behavior in the
absence of punishment, which is supplied by the use of schedules of
intermittent positive reinforcement, and there must be a punishing stimulus
which can be defined in terms of physical measurements (so that it can be
reliably reproduced), delivered in a consistent manner to the experimental
participant, and which cannot be escaped from (for example, by leaving the
experimental situation). The punishing stimulus should also be one that does
not elicit strong behavioral responses itself, and which can be varied in
intensity over a large range. From the 1960s, use of intermittently reinforced
operant behavior in Skinner boxes with electric shock delivered as the
punishing stimulus, met all these requirements. The main conclusions of
Azrin and Holz (1966) were consistent with the hypothesis that punishment
can have effects that are broadly opposite to those of positive reinforcement:
within limits, more intense and more frequent punishment produces greater
response suppression, provided that the punishing stimulus is reliable and
immediately follows the response. Interestingly, if the punisher is itself
delivered on an intermittent schedule, then the effects are analogous to those
seen with positive reinforcement. Thus, response suppression tends to
increase towards the end of the ratio requirement if the punisher is delivered
on a fixed ratio schedule, and towards the end of the time interval if the
punisher is delivered on a fixed interval schedule. Other factors they
identified as contributing to punishment effectiveness were that long periods
of punishment should be avoided, that punishment should be correlated
with extinction but not with delivery of a positive reinforcer, and that
punishment effectiveness increases when an alternative (reinforced)
response is available. Not all the data they reviewed was from nonhuman
studies, and Figure 5.6 shows a clear effect of punishment (by "an annoying
buzzer sound") on human operant behavior, which was greatly enhanced
when an alternative reinforced response was also available.
Inhibitory stimulus control (as described in Section 4.9) can also be
demonstrated with punishment procedures. Using pigeons pecking at an
illuminated plastic key located on the wall for food reinforcement, Honig
and Slivka (1964) punished key-pecking in the presence of one wavelength of
the light used to illuminate the key. They found that response rates were
suppressed in the presence of that wavelength, and response suppression
generalized to other wavelengths with suppression declining as the
wavelengths become more different from the punished wavelength. This
effect is directly analogous to that seen when responding is extinguished in
the presence of one visual stimulus (SΔ) while being reinforced in the
presence of others (SD).
Figure 5.6 Cumulative records of the punished responding of human participants on a VI schedule of
reinforcement under three conditions. When an alternative response was available, punishment totally
suppressed responding (Azrin & Holz, 1966, based on data from Herman & Azrin, 1964).

Punishment can be shown to modify human behavior under laboratory

conditions. We need not employ painful aversive stimuli, since we can rely
on the aversiveness of loss of potential reinforcements. Bradshaw, Szabadi,
and Bevan (1977) examined the effects of a punishment contingency on the
performance of humans pressing buttons for points on a variable-interval
(VI) schedule. The points could be exchanged for money at the end of the
experiment. After initial training, multiple VI schedules were used, in which
different reinforcement rates were obtained in different components, and a
variable-ratio (VR34) punishment contingency was superimposed on
alternate sessions. Reinforcement on the VI schedules were always signaled
by a very brief green light flash and the addition of one point to the score on
a counter in front of the participant. When punishment occurred, a red light
flashed on briefly and one point was subtracted from the counter.
Figure 5.7 Response rate, with and without a punishment contingency for three human experimental
participants as a function of reinforcement rate in the components of a multiple VI schedule. The bars
give standard errors (Bradshaw, Szabadi, & Bevan, 1977).

The results from their three participants are shown in Figure 5.7. Without
punishment, response rate was a negatively accelerated function of
reinforcement rate in each component of the multiple schedule, and the data
are a good fit to an equation describing Herrnstein's (1961) matching law.
The matching law, which is discussed further in Chapter 11, is a quantitative
formula which relates rate of responding for an operant to obtained rate of
reinforcement for that response. As can be seen, the response rate increases
towards an asymptote. This function has been shown to fit data for a very
large number of experimental studies with nonhuman participants, and is
here shown to fit human data. During punishment, the maximum
(asymptotic) response rate was greatly reduced for all participants, but the
data were still a good fit to the curve predicted by the matching law. This
shows a consistent and extremely orderly effect of punishment on human
operant performance.
 It is also important that the effectiveness of punishment is evaluated in
significant non-laboratory situations and a number of such studies are
described in Chapter 10. Given that, within laboratory settings and applied
settings, punishment can be an effective contingency, many questions still
remain. One of the most interesting is the question as to what behavior
increases if a punishment contingency is successful in greatly reducing one
category of behavior. Not much research has been done on this, but Dunham
(1971) suggested, based on experiments with gerbils in which several
different behaviors were recorded while one was punished, that it was the
most frequent unpunished behavior that increased in probability, and thus
filled the time made available by suppression of the punished behavior.
However, Crosbie (1993) in a formally similar study with human participants
found that when one of four operant responses was punished with monetary
loss, in a similar fashion to the Bradshaw et a!. (1977) study, the punished
response was reduced in frequency but no rule of the type suggested by
Dunham predicted which responses would increase in frequency.

5.4 Aversive Classical Conditioning

Escape, avoidance, and punishment procedures all involve programmed

relationships between responses and aversive stimuli. The other general class
of aversive contingencies involves relationships between neutral
(conditioned) stimuli and aversive stimuli, and are varieties of classical
conditioning. Classical conditioning can occur in procedures that were
designed to demonstrate the operant conditioning phenomena of escape, or
avoidance or punishment. These findings can be seen as a "nuisance" (given
that the classical conditioning was not the main focus of study), but are
better taken as illustrations of how operant and classical conditioning
interact in laboratory settings as well as in natural settings.
Aversive classical conditioning is studied directly when contingencies are
arranged between CS's and aversive US's. Many aspects of the resultant
process parallel appetitive classical conditioning. Indeed, many Pavlovian
phenomena were originally demonstrated with aversive conditioning. The
responses most often studied were salivation and leg flexion in dogs, and
eyeblinks and heart rate in humans and other species. However, all these
paradigms involve restrained organisms. If freely-moving participants are
used, some effects are seen in aversive classical conditioning that distinguish
it from appetitive classical conditioning.
These effects are twofold: species-typical aversive behaviors and
suppression or disruption of ongoing behavior can be elicited by the aversive
CS, In some situations, these are two sides of the same coin, because the
elicited aversive behaviors interfere with the ongoing behavior; but in others
disruption occurs during an aversive CS that cannot be attributed to species-
typical aversive behaviors. The latter case is called conditioned suppression
and is discussed later.
Although species-typical aversive behavioral repertoires vary from
species to species (as the term implies), there are some common behaviors in
these repertoires. Zener (1937) carried out an early investigation of classical
conditioning in which, following initial training, he removed the restraints
from the dogs and then observed the effects of presenting various CS's.
Where a localized CS (such as a light coming from a lamp) had previously
been followed by an appetitive US, the dogs approached it (and licked it!),
but where the CS had previously been followed by an aversive US, the dogs
simply ran away from it once given that opportunity. Withdrawal of this
type has, not surprisingly, been found to be a common classically
conditioned species-typical aversive behavior, in situations which allow it to
occur. A fair amount of other information is available about the laboratory
rat, which at one time was the experimental psychologist's favorite
experimental participant, and piecemeal data on other species have been
recorded. It is widely agreed that freezing, defecation, flight (running away),
and aggression are components of the rat's aversive repertoire. Of these,
defecation and freezing can be conditioned to a CS associated with aversive
stimulus (Hunt & Otis, 1953), and components of aggressive behavior are
seen if a pair of rats receive a CS that has been paired with aversive stimulus
(Ulrich, 1967).
Our lack of detailed information about the human behavioral repertoire
makes it difficult to assess the role of species-typical behavior. However, the
pioneer behaviorist, J. B. Watson, suggested that our emotional responses are
acquired through classical conditioning of species-typical behavior, and
similarly many contemporary accounts of the effects of "stress" on human
behavior state that these species-typical emotional responses commonly
occur in complex social situations where they are not appropriate or useful.
One such response is the pronounced change in heart rate which occurs in
fear and stress, and this has often been shown to be influenced by classical
conditioning.
A typical study of conditioned suppression was carried out by Hunt and
Brady (1951). They trained liquid-deprived rats to press a lever for water
reinforcement on a VI schedule. When response rate on this schedule had
become stable, a clicker CS was presented periodically for 5 minutes, and
immediately followed by a brief electric shock US to the rat's feet. Some of
the typical behavioral changes that ensued are shown in the cumulative
lever-pressing records in Figure 5.8. The first CS presentation had little
discernible effect, but the accompanying US (denoted by S in panel B)
temporarily slowed the response rate. After a number of CS-US pairings, the
CS suppressed responding almost totally, but responding recovered as soon
as the US had been delivered. Because suppression of responding during the
CS is dependent on a conditioning history, it is called conditioned
suppression.
The conditioned-suppression procedure, first developed by Estes and
Skinner (1941), has proved to be a very sensitive behavioral technique. The
effect of the CS is usually described in terms of the degree of suppression of
the positively-reinforced operant behavior relative to the rate of the operant
response during the non-CS periods. Measured in this way, conditioned
suppression increases with magnitude of the US, decreases with length of
the CS, and is in general, such a sensitive indicator of classical-conditioning
parameters that it has often been treated as the best method of studying
classical-conditioning effects (for example, Rescorla, 1968), although it
actually measures the reduction in, or disruption of, operant responding.
The sensitivity of the conditioned-suppression technique has led to its
widespread use in evaluation of drug effects (Millenson & Leslie, 1974). The
drugs tested have mostly been those known clinically to reduce anxiety,
because conditioned suppression has often been treated as a model of fear or
anxiety. Recent studies have demonstrated that conditioned suppression can
be used to disentangle neuropharmacological mechanisms. For example, the
conditioned-suppression reducing effects of some anxiolytic (anxiety-
reducing) drugs can be selectively reversed by another drug with a known
effect in the brain. From this evidence we can deduce much about the
pharmacological action of the anxiolytic agent.
Figure 5.8 Cumulative records showing development of conditional suppression in a rat lever pressing
for water reinforcement on a variable-interval schedule (Hunt and Brady, 1951).

5.5 The Ethics of Aversive Contingencies

Laboratory demonstrations, along with our everyday experience, suggest
that punishment is a pervasive and important behavioral process. Like
positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and classical conditioning,
the sufficient conditions for its occurrence are frequently met in the natural
environments of humans as well as of other organisms. As Azrin and Holz
(1966) point out, to "eliminate punishment from the world" would involve
elimination of all contact between the individual and the physical world,
because there are so many naturally occurring punishment contingencies.
We learn not to do a great many things, such as touching hot surfaces,
falling out of bed, shutting our fingers in doors, and all the other ways in
which we avoid natural aversive consequences.
If we agree that the contingencies of punishment specified by the physical
world are not eradicable, can we and should we nevertheless minimize the
number of punishment contingencies operated by individuals and
institutions upon individuals? We can distinguish between those that involve
painful stimuli and those that involve response cost or time out. "Time-out"
refers to all procedures which involve temporary prevention of access to
positive reinforcers. In everyday life, these include removal of attention
(being ignored), withdrawal of privileges, and levying fines. Many
experimental studies with nonhuman animals have shown that painful
stimuli elicit aggressive behaviors and these can become predominant.
Clearly, this is highly undesirable and would seem to be sufficient reason to
reject the use of punishment contingencies that involve painful stimuli, if
alternatives can be found. Time-out has been used effectively to modify
behavior in a number of procedures, and unsurprisingly works best when
there is a high rate of reinforcement prior to time out (Kazdin, 1994). We will
provide a detailed account of its application in Chapter 10.
There is a more subtle problem that applies to all types of punishment
contingency that are administered by another individual or an institution.
Through classical conditioning, the agent may itself become aversive, or the
aversive properties of the situation may result in avoidance learning. The
punishment contingency will then be ineffective, because it will no longer
make contact with the individual's behavior. Instead, the individual will
refuse to have anything to do with the other individual or the institution.
Against the drawbacks of punishment, must be set any advantages it may
have over alternatives. Its chief advantage is undoubtedly the rapidity with
which response suppression can be produced. It is often pointed out that an
equivalent change can be produced by positive reinforcement without
undesirable side-effects, but reinforcing an alternative response may not
have as specific or rapid effects on the behavior to be eliminated. If a child
persists in running off the sidewalk into the path of vehicles, socially
administered punishment may be the only way of preventing the "natural"
punishment contingency from having more drastic effects. Again, in Chapter
10 we will review recent studies that have successfully used punishment to
eliminate an otherwise life-threatening behavior.
It might be objected that the issues raised in this section so far concern
the "pragmatics" rather than the "ethics" of using punishment. From the point
of view of behavioral analysis, however, these two topics cannot be
dissociated. An ethical precept, such as "hitting people is wrong", can only be
evaluated by defining the terms involved, assessing the consequences of
implementing the procedure so defined, and comparing these with the
consequences of alternative procedures, or of doing nothing. As indicated by
the choice of example of ethical precept given above, a major contemporary
concern is whether procedures that involve inflicting pain should be used,
particularly in child rearing or with other vulnerable individuals. The
discussion in this section, and indeed in the whole of this chapter, indicates
that rather than trying to answer apparently simple questions of this sort
directly it will be more productive to go through the steps of defining terms,
specifying procedures, and then assessing outcomes, or consequences, of
such interventions and their alternatives.
It is perfectly possible, at least in principle, to carry out such analyses for
specific cases, perhaps of a child who is highly disruptive in classroom
settings or of a person with learning difficulties who engages in self-
injurious behavior, but we should note that throughout this volume two
major themes have been the importance of context, or control by
discriminative stimuli, and of personal history. Thus we can anticipate that
any judgment that is arrived at as to the appropriateness of punishment or
another non-aversive intervention will apply to that specific case in the
context where the behavior of concern occurs and in the light of the relevant
history of reinforcement of the person. A case of disruptive classroom
behavior might, for example, be successfully eliminated by the threat that all
the children in the class will miss a break period if it continues (this a group
punishment contingency); while self-injurious behavior might decline if
social interaction were to be provided as an alternative activity. Such
examples show how behavioral analysis uses general principles to explain
how people are different from each other and require individualised
assessment and treatment if their behavior is to change. They also suggest
that general ethical precepts, such as "hitting people is wrong", cannot be
shown to be true or false. In Chapter 11, we will review how human rights
of individuals in treatment should be protected. Amongst the guidelines
presented there is "an individual has a right to the most effective treatment
procedures available". This is a key idea in evaluating the appropriate use of
aversive contingencies.
Although completely general conclusions on these issues cannot be
drawn, it is possible to discover whether there is a broad consensus as to
how to proceed. Wolf (1978) argued that it was appropriate to establish the
social validity of applied behavioral analysis by assessing public opinion as
to the social significance of its goals, the appropriateness of its procedures
and the importance of its effects. Relatedly, Kazdin (1980) devised the
"treatment evaluation inventory", which presents people with a written (but
hypothetical) case description along with a description of a number
procedures and asks them to rate acceptability of each of the procedures for
the behavioral problem described. Blampied and Kahan (1992) used this
inventory with 200 people recruited from a cross-section of the general
public and asked them to rate the acceptability of response cost, social
reprimands, time out, overcorrection and physical punishment (the actual
use of all these procedures is reviewed in Chapter 10) for a 10-year-old boy
or a girl, at home or at school. They found that response cost procedures
(where a "fine" or other penalty is imposed) were rated the most acceptable,
with physical punishment being markedly less acceptable than any of the
others.
This discussion has dealt with the genera! implications of aversive
contingencies in human behavior. Chapter 10 includes an extended
discussion of the use of behavioral techniques designed to decrease human
behavior in problem cases, and there we will see that, as suggested here,
many of the difficult issues can be resolved in specific cases. It will also be
clear, however, that value judgments are inevitably involved and we will
return explicitly to those in a review of human rights issues in Chapter 11.

5.6 Summary

Behavior is affected riot only by positive reinforcement contingencies but

also by operant and classical conditioning processes involving aversive
contingencies. Consequently, this chapter presents a review of the operation
and effects of aversive contingencies.
Escape learning, a form of operant conditioning, is perhaps the simplest
and most basic type. A variety of experimental procedures have been used in
studies of nonhuman animals to show how conditioning proceeds when the
operant response results in termination of an aversive stimulus. In such
procedures, the presentation of the aversive stimulus acts as an establishing
operation, because it motivates the animal to remove it. While few studies
have involved human participants for ethical reasons, it is important that we
understand escape because it is just as important for humans as for other
species.
In avoidance learning, an aversive stimulus is programmed to occur
unless the operant response occurs. Again, a variety of different procedures
have shown this contingency to be effective in modifying the behavior of
nonhuman animals. The success of other species on this apparently more
complex task suggests that the same set of behavioral processes is involved
as in other tasks. More complex experiments have shown this to indeed be
the case. However, there are some instances where the avoidance
contingency fails to produce the expected change in operant behavior. In
these instances, the occurrence of other unconditioned or classically
conditioned behavior is responsible for the "failure". This illustrates the
importance of understanding all the effects that aversive stimuli may have.
Punishment is a procedure in which aversive stimuli are made contingent
upon the operant response and thereby reduce its frequency. This also has
reliable effects in experiments with nonhuman animals, provided various
methodological concerns are addressed. A small number of experimental
studies with humans have also produced consistent effects The general
pattern is that punishment has effects that are broadly opposite to those of
positive reinforcement, it is important to realize that "punishment" is here
used as a technical term that does not have all the meanings it has in
everyday language.
Classical conditioning has often been demonstrated in experiments with
aversive unconditioned stimuli, and the outcome is similar to that when
positive, or appetitive, unconditioned stimuli are used. However, the form of
the conditioned response often involves behaviors associated with fear and
escape when aversive stimuli are used. This means that these behaviors may
"interfere" with operant behavior in any procedures where aversive stimuli
are being used. These issues are addressed directly with the conditioned
suppression procedure, where aversive classical conditioning is
superimposed on positively reinforced operant behavior. This procedure has
provided a useful baseline for investigation of many variables, including
anxiety-reducing drugs.
Discussion of aversive contingencies invariably raises ethical issues. It is
important to remember that aversive contingencies exist in the physical as
well as the social environment of everyone, and we should therefore make
efforts to understand their operation. We will see in later chapters that there
is good evidence to prefer the use of positive reinforcement contingencies to
change behavior wherever possible, but that this is not possible in every
case. This further underlines the need to know how aversive contingencies
affect behavior. Later chapters will provide a detailed account of the
appropriate use of contingencies designed to reduce unwanted problematic
behavior, and relate this to the human rights of individuals in treatment. The
use of aversive contingencies is a major issue in the assessment of the social
validity of behavior analysis, and techniques for this assessment have been
developed in recent years.
Chapter 6
Complex Behavior: Concept
Acquisition, Modeling, and Verbal
Behavior
The principles elaborated in the preceding chapters permit us to describe and
analyze a large fraction of the learned behavior of people and other animals.
But were we to terminate our account of behavior with the phenomena of
operant conditioning, classical conditioning, stimulus control, and aversive
contingencies, we would still be forced to admit that the bulk of complex
human behavior had either been left untouched or at best dealt with rather
indirectly. The activities that might be classified as complex human
behaviors are, of course, extremely diverse, and in this chapter we will
examine concept acquisition and modeling, and then turn to verbal behavior
itself which seems so intimately associated with many forms of complex
human behavior.
For each category of complex human behavior, we will set out to define it
carefully in behavioral terms, and examine the extent to which we can relate
it to the principles of behavior outlined in earlier chapters. In so doing, we
will be using the comparative perspective that is prevalent throughout this
book. That is, we will be seeking to identify those behavioral processes that
contribute to complex human behavior that are shared with other species.
Because behavioral science is a biological science our initial strategy should
always be to seek to establish these commonalties. We will also extend this
strategy to verbal behavior, which has often been seen by philosophers,
linguists, and psychologists of other orientations, as not being susceptible to
this approach.
6.1 Concept Acquisition: The Example of Learning
Sets

To "acquire a concept" or "form a concept" sounds like an abstract mental

process, with no obvious behavioral connotations. Consideration of what it
means to "have a concept", however, suggests that concept acquisition is
closely related to the behavioral process of discrimination.
If a child has the concept of "school", he or she will apply this name to
educational establishments, but not to other large public buildings, as he or
she may have done when younger. We may say that the response "school" is
under the discriminative control of a particular stimulus class. This class
might be defined as those buildings having features common to schools and
not found in other buildings, or it might be a class established through the
process of stimulus equivalence class formation described in Chapter 4. In
either case, an experimental investigation would be necessary to find out
which features are important in the control of this child's behavior. It is an
important general point that each person's stimulus classes, or concepts, are
their own. That is, two people might both use the phrase "new car", for
example, but it may mean something slightly different to each of them. This
difference will have come about through the different experiences of the two
individuals.
We begin with a consideration of a simple animal discrimination learning
paradigm, which shares certain important properties with human concept
acquisition. This will enable us to identify the term concept with certain
precise features of behavior.
One class of discriminations involves two situations and two responses
(this is slightly more complicated than the examples used in Chapter 4), and
has been studied using the Wisconsin General Test Apparatus (WGTA),
shown in Figure 6.1. Seated in front of the WGTA, a monkey or other
primate, may be presented with several objects on a movable tray, one
object concealing a peanut in a well beneath it. Suppose two objects to be in
use, a solid wooden cross and a solid wooden U-shaped object. The peanut is
always to be found under the cross figure, whether the latter appears on the
left or on the right. The two possible contingencies may be diagrammed as
S+u: RL → S+ and Su+: RR → S+

where S+u means that the cross is on the left, Su+ means that the objects are
reversed, RL means that the monkey lifts the object on the left, and RR means
that the monkey lifts the object on the right. Any "incorrect" responses have
no consequences except the removal of the tray, while "correct" responses
(those specified above) produce the peanut (S+). A learning trial consists of
presentation of one of the two possible contingencies. Either a correct or an
incorrect response terminates the trial, and the next trial follows after a
short intertrial interval.
Over a number of such trials, a discrimination will develop favoring
reaching for the "cross". Since this process is a gradual one, tens to hundreds
of trials, depending on species and individual differences, may be necessary
to reach an asymptotic value of near or at 100 per cent "correct" responses.
Figure 6.1 The Wisconsin General Test Apparatus. The experimenter can retract the tray, re-arrange
the objects, place food under some of them, and then present the tray again to the monkey (Harlow,
1949).

Each single set of these contingencies is called a discrimination problem.

Suppose, once the discrimination process has reached its asymptote, or
steady maximum value, we present a new set of contingencies, differing
from the old contingencies only in the objects used as the two stimuli, for
example, a solid wooden sphere and an inverted wooden cone. This time, the
discrimination process will be slightly more rapid. We can then continue to
present new problems, one after the other, using different objects, and the
discrimination processes will become appreciably more rapid: perhaps less
than a half-dozen trials are necessary for errorless performance by the time
100 discriminations have been learned. Eventually, after several hundred
problems, the monkey is able to solve any new problem of this sort
immediately. If, by chance, it chooses the correct object on Trial 1, it
thereafter continues to choose the correct object. If, by chance, it chooses the
wrong object on Trial 1, it reverses its response pattern immediately and
chooses the correct object from Trial 2 on. In both cases, the monkey's
performance is nearly always perfect by Trial 2. In effect, presentation of a
long series of similar problems has eradicated the gradual discrimination
process. We are left with an animal that solves new discriminations
immediately.
Figure 6.2 shows results of this learning set (L-set) procedure obtained
from a typical experiment with rhesus monkeys. Each curve is the average of
a number of discrimination processes resulting from different discrimination
problems, shown for Trials 1 to 6 only. "Discrimination process 1 to 8" is
gradual, and it is clear that its maximum value would occur well beyond the
6 acquisition trials shown. The average process for problems 9 to 16 is less
gradual; the curve is steeper and will reach its asymptote more quickly.
Subsequent processes are still steeper, until, after 232 problems, there is no
"process" as such. There is only the result: on Trial 2, the monkey is nearly
always correct. Performance on Trial 2 can be used to track the development
of this skill, known as a learning set (L-set).

Figure 6.2 Changes in rate of acquisition of acquisition of discrimination processes. The curves are
average scores of eight monkeys (after Harlow, 1949). Details are given in the text.

Figure 6.3 shows the performance level on Trial 2 as a function of the

number of problems previously presented. The figure is, then, a convenient
description of the L-set acquisition process, and an important feature of the
process shown is its gradual and continuous character: the ability to solve a
discrimination problem in one trial is itself acquired by a gradual process.
L-set performance varies with the species tested. Children tested in L-set
procedures typically surpass chimpanzees and monkeys in overall
performance, but they, too, exhibit a continuous L-set acquisition process.
Primates lower on the phylogenetic scale than rhesus monkeys, such as
squirrel monkeys and marmosets, show a more gradual L-set acquisition
process than Figure 6.3 depicts. Even after 1,000 or more problems, the
asymptote of their L-set process is significantly lower than perfect L-set
performance. Other animals, like rats and cats, show some steepening in
successive discrimination processes, but they never reach sophisticated L-set
results within the limits of the experiments that have been performed. A
summary from five species is shown in Figure 6.4.
These data suggest that "true" L-sets are a privileged ability of primates.
Such a conclusion would have to be treated with great caution, in view of
the many methodological difficulties in establishing comparable problems
for different species, but has in any case turned out to be wrong. Herman
and Arbeit (1973) have shown that a bottle-nosed dolphin is capable of
performing from 86 to 100 per cent correct on Trial 2 of each problem of an
auditory L-set task. The experimental study of learning continues both to
erode the number of behaviors attributable only to humans and to "upgrade"
many species not previously suspected of "higher" learning abilities.

Figure 6.3 Development of a learning set. Data are derived from Figure 6.2, based on performance on
Trial 2.
Figure 6.4 Performance of five species on a series of visual discrimination problems (from
Mackintosh, 1974; after Warren, 1965).

6.2 Conceptual Behavior and Discriminations

We have avoided using the term "concept" in the preceding discussions, but
it seems natural to wonder whether an organism possessing an L-set for the
larger of two objects, or for the green one of two objects might reasonably
be said to exhibit the concept "larger of two", or "green one of two". Perhaps
the "concept" acquired in the example with the WGTA is "the object of the
two presented which had the peanut under it on the previous trial". Such
behavioral control in humans is often the basis upon which we assign the
word "concept". For instance, we agree that a child has the concept of
ownership when he or she can discriminate his or her own possessions from
those of anyone else. We say that a child has the concept of a noun phrase
when he or she can pick out the noun phrases from unfamiliar sentences.
Similarly, we credit the child with the concept of equality of number when
he or she can identify equal quantities in unfamiliar settings, as when he or
she can match the number of beads in one jar to the number of apples on a
table. However, we require a more rigorous definition of a "concept" if we
wish to examine in detail the relation between L-sets and concepts.
Put more formally, an organism is said to exhibit a concept when it can
identify any member of a set of related situations. Additionally, the
organism can acquire that ability via an explicit reinforcement history, or
instructions relying on a previous reinforcement history, in the presence of a
subset of the situations.
This definition enables us to link the L-set paradigm to concept formation.
The L-set procedure is a systematic way of ordering a reinforcement history
that leads to conceptual behavior. Though the monkeys do not speak, the
behavior they acquire from L-set procedures seems analogous to what
humans in concept-formation experiments do, using verbal responses. The
word "concept" denotes the behavioral fact that a given response is under the
control of a class of related SD's. An interesting corollary of this definition is
that it does not separate a concept from a discrimination, which is the
behavioral fact that an SD has come to control an operant response. Our
word usage in a particular case will be determined merely by the broadness
of the class of controlling SD's. If the class of SD's seems relatively narrow, we
call the behavior a discrimination, if it seems relatively wide or broad, we
are more likely to call the behavior a concept. We may also use the term
concept where it is clear that the stimulus class that controls the behavior
has been established through a process of stimulus equivalence class
formation and contains elements that are physically unrelated. We will
further discuss this category in the next section.

6.3 Arbitrary Stimulus Classes: Disjunctive

Concepts and Equivalence Classes
In the previous sections, we have claimed that when the behavior of
organisms comes under the discriminative control of the members of a
broad class of SD's, these organisms are demonstrating conceptual behavior.
In the concepts discussed, the controlling SD classes may be described as a
set of stimuli bound together by a common relationship of spatial
arrangement or structure. In other concepts, such as "bigger than", "comes
from", "to the right of", "is a member of", "leads to", and "threeness", the
common relationships binding all the elements of the class are not spatial
structure, but other types of relationships that are named by the verbal
responses they produce. Thus, "bigger than" is a verbal response that names
the relationship shared by the members of the controlling SD class.

While relational concepts are very common, behavior is also frequently

observed to come under the control of broad classes of stimuli whose
members seem to lack common relationships. An obvious physical stimulus
relationship, for instance, is absent in the SD's for "food". A carrot, a pea, a
leaf of spinach, and a glass of milk appear as extremely diverse objects. From
its visual characteristics alone, a pea is more like a marble than it is like a
leaf; a carrot is more like a stick than it is like a glass of milk. Evidently,
dissimilarity in the members of a broad SD class is no deterrent to their
ability to control a similar response. Such stimulus classes are known as
disjunctive concepts. The members of the SD class "food" are either carrots, or

peas, or spinach, or milk, ... . The response is under the control of a broad
class of SD's, and therefore, meets one of the important criteria of conceptual
behavior; nevertheless, the lack of a single common relationship, a thread
linking all the members of the class, prevents the generalization to new
members that is typical of other concepts. These disjunctive concepts are
very important. That is, there are many stimulus classes where all the
elements control the same response but where the members of the class are
very physically diverse, such as the concepts "my friends", or "famous
writers".
The key point is that an individual who has such a concept has learnt to
treat the elements as equivalent. We have already described this process in
Chapter 4 as stimulus equivalence class formation. Verbally-competent
humans appear to be different from other animals in that they can develop
large classes of functionally-equivalent stimuli, even though those stimuli,
the elements of the class, are physically dissimilar from each other. Once a
new member is added to the class it is treated the same as the others. Thus,
if a person acquires a new friend, he or she may then invite them to a party
along with other friends. Similarly, if a person learns that Thackeray is a
famous writer he or she may then buy Thackeray's books when they appear
in the store without further encouragement. In each case, the new member
of the stimulus class is being treated as if it is the same as other class
elements that have been encountered previously and reinforced under
certain circumstances.

6.4 Polymorphous Concepts and Natural Concepts

Formally, in an m-out-of-n polymorphous rule, there are n relevant

conditions of which m must be satisfied. An example is given in Figure 6.5
from a study by Dennis, Hampton, and Lea (1973) who used a card-sorting
task to examine polymorphous concepts. The rule here is: "A member of Class
A possesses at least two of the properties symmetric, black, and circular (all
other stimuli are members of Class B)." While the card-sorting task is highly
artificial, it is arguable that most of our "real world" or natural concepts are
of this type. For example, a person will have many features common to
people in general, but no one feature is necessary.
Figure 6.5 Patterns of geometric symbols grouped according to a two-out-of-three polymorphous rule
(Dennis, Hampton, & Lea, 1973).

In the first experiment of Dennis et al. (1973), college students were asked
to sort packs of cards showing either rows of shapes (as in Figure 6.5),
typewritten letters, or random shapes into two piles (A and B). After each
response, the experimenter told them whether their allocation of a card to a
pile was "right" or "wrong". On different trials, the participants were required
to sort the cards by a conjunctive rule (for example, "A's are black AND
composed of circles"), or disjunctive rule (for example, "A's are black OR
composed of triangles"), or a polymorphous rule such as the one previously
described. They sorted a pack of 48 cards and the response measured was the
number of cards sorted before the last error, where an error is putting a card
in the wrong pile. Dennis et al. (1973) found that the median number of
cards sorted was 9, 28, and 40 for the conjunctive, disjunctive, and
polymorphous rules, respectively. This shows that the polymorphous
concept was the most difficult to acquire, then the disjunctive, then the
conjunctive.
In a second experiment, each participant was given four examples in each
category (A and B) and asked to state the rule. Again, each participant was
tested with cards divided according to a conjunctive, disjunctive, and
polymorphous rule. They were given a maximum of 10 minutes to solve the
problems. The median solution times were 34 seconds, 2 minutes 35 seconds,
and 10 minutes, respectively. This means that typically the participants
failed to state the polymorphous rule within 10 minutes, although the
disjunctive rule was produced fairly quickly and the conjunctive rule very
quickly. Comparison between their first and second experiments suggests
that polymorphous conceptual behavior in response to reinforcement
contingencies is acquired only slightly more slowly than conjunctive and
disjunctive conceptual behavior, but polymorphous rules take a great deal
longer to acquire than the other types. This points out that contingency-
shaped behavior does not depend on prior acquisition of the corresponding
verbal behavior, or rules.
This view is supported by experiments with pigeons. Using food
reinforcement for key pecking, pigeons have been trained to successfully
discriminate between color slides with and without people in them,
although the people were at all sorts of positions, angles, distances, and so
forth (Herrnstein & Loveland, 1964). "Person" is clearly a polymorphous
concept as previously defined. Furthermore, Lea and Harrison (1978) trained
pigeons in a similar procedure to discriminate on the basis of a 2-out-of-3
polymorphous concept, similar to the ones used by Dennis et al. (1973). If
pigeons can acquire polymorphous concepts, but humans have great
difficulty in stating polymorphous rules, we can only conclude that
acquisition of the verbal rule is not a necessary condition for solving this
sort of problem. Further research has provided extensive evidence of
pigeons' ability to discriminate both natural concepts, such as people, fish,
trees, etc., and artificial concepts, such as Lea and Harrison's polymorphous
concepts (for example, Bhatt, Wasserman, Reynolds, & Krauss, 1988).
The studies of conceptual behavior discussed in this chapter illustrate both
the continuity between psychological processes in humans and other species,
and also the differences. While many species need, and can be shown
through experiments to have, the capacity to make subtle discriminations
and to identify natural concepts, human beings show greater facility and
have the additional capacity to form stimulus equivalence classes. This in
turn is related to our use of verbal behavior, which will be further discussed
later in this chapter.

6.5 Rules as Solutions to Problems

A standard combination lock presents a problem, which can only be solved

by trial and error. Thus a lock with 50 numbers, which opens when the
correct sequence of three numbers is dialed, will require an average of 503/2
or 62,500 sequences to be tried before it will open. Supposing each sequence
took 6 seconds to complete, this would take about four days and thus makes
such a lock an effective form of protection. The statement "try every possible
combination" is a rule guaranteeing its eventual (but not rapid) solution. In
other situations we may use search strategies, or "rules of thumb", designed
to save time in reaching a solution. If an individual can solve problems of a
particular type, he or she is said to know the rules for their solution.
"Knowing the rules" is clearly related to "having the concept". Correctly
identifying dogs, is like being able to state a rule specifying what will count
as a dog. However, there are important differences. First, accurate use of
concepts does not imply that the user will be able to produce a verbal rule.
Second, once a rule has been stated, it may exert control over behavior
directly. This is an interesting phenomenon, because from a behavior
analysis perspective "stating a verbal rule" is itself a type of behavior, albeit
verbal behavior. We are here noting a very important and complex aspect of
human psychology: our accounts of some psychological processes involve
behavior-behavior relationships, as well as the environment-behavior
relationships which have been frequently encountered in this volume. Rule-
governed behavior, discussed further in Section 6.8, is the general name for
those occasions where verbal behavior, in the form of a rule, is acquired
either through verbal instruction or through direct experience of some
reinforcement contingencies, and then determines other behavior.
 If a three-number sequence is required to open a combination lock, and
the sequence is always such that the third number is twice the second
number, which is the same as the first, then once this rule is acquired, it will
be used. The rule provides for very efficient problem solution (and thus
reinforcement of the appropriate behavior). However, as we saw in the
previous section, learning the rule is not the same as responding to the
reinforcement contingencies. There are many types of human behavior that
are influenced by reinforcement contingencies without the individual
knowing rules or even thinking them relevant. The baseball pitcher pitches
with great accuracy without being able to articulate the rules governing his
or her own movements or the flight of the ball in the air.
With human participants, it is possible to carry out concept formation
experiments, and concurrently ask them to verbalize the rule that defines the
concept. They are asked to specify which features of a stimulus determine its
allocation to a particular category. These procedures are called concept
identification. Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin (1956) presented human
participants in experiments with the 81 cards shown in Figure 6.6. These
cards varied in four ways: (1) the number of figures (1, 2, or 3), (2) the color
of the figures (red, green, or black), (3) the shape of the figures (cross, circle,
or square), and (4) the number of borders (1, 2, or 3). The participants were
first shown a given card (for example, the one with three red circles and two
borders, which can be written as "3R-o-2b") and told that this was a positive
instance of a concept that they were to identify. The participants were then
advised that they could choose additional cards from the 80 remaining to
obtain more information. After each choice, they were advised whether the
particular card they chose was or was not an instance of the concept When
the task consisted of identifying conjunctive concepts (red circles, two green
figures and so on), the majority of participants adopted a strategy which
consisted of choosing cards that varied in one, and only one, dimension from
the known initial positive card. In this way, each selection eliminated one or
more concepts. Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin were able to show that a
number of variables, such as whether the concept was conjunctive or
disjunctive, the manner in which the 81 cards were displayed, and the
number of examples the participants were permitted to choose, affected the
type of systematic strategy employed. In such a situation, the participant is
prompted to devise rules which are in turn highly effective strategies for
arriving at correct responses.

Figure 6.6 A set of cards used to study concept identification. The forms vary in number, shape, color,
and number of borders (Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin, 1956).

6.6 Modeling

The experimental analysis of behavior has been mostly concerned with the
factors that govern the performance of a behavior, and less concerned about
how that behavior is acquired. For this reason, operants selected for study
have usually been simple acts which can be completed in a very short space
of time (lever pressing, key pecking, button pressing, and so on). Similarly,
although it is acknowledged that classical conditioning can simultaneously
produce diverse effects on behavior, investigators have normally looked in
detail at a single, relatively simple, aspect of behavior (salivation, eyeblinks,
heart-rate, and so forth). Thus, neither operant nor classical-conditioning
techniques are oriented to the analysis of the acquisition of complex
behavioral sequences. However, it is a compelling fact that humans readily
acquire such sequences, and often do so very rapidly. Moreover, in applied
behavior analysis, acquisition of behavior sequences is often the primary
objective. In Chapter 9, we will discuss a range of techniques for enhancing
such acquisition. These involve combinations of techniques that have already
been introduced, along with modeling, which will be introduced here.
Many everyday examples of acquisition of complex behavior sequences
seem to depend on observation. For example, the new factory worker may
be shown how the machine works by the supervisor, and then he or she can
operate it himself or herself immediately with reasonable efficiency. His or
her subsequent improvement towards being a skilled operator depends on
feedback (reinforcement) from the machine and from co-workers, but the
rapid initial acquisition is hard to explain by operant principles. We might
crudely conceptualise it thus:

While this might suffice to explain why "copying supervisor's behavior" is

performed, it does not provide a mechanism for its acquisition. How does the
worker manage to execute a long and complex behavior sequence that he or
she has not produced previously or been reinforced for?
The only operant principle that might provide an explanation is chaining,
which will be one of the techniques discussed in detail in Chapter 9.
Behavior chains are sequences that are reinforced when completed. They can
be long and complex, but they are established through a relatively lengthy
piecing-together process of shaping — also discussed at length in Chapter 9
— and this involves explicit reinforcement. In our present example, however,
there is only a single demonstration (trial) and no explicit reinforcement for
either worker or supervisor.
If an observer acquires a new response pattern or behavior sequence by
observation of another individual, this is an instance of modeling. There are
three types of modeling influence. The first, and most striking, is the one we
have described. This can be called the response acquisition effect of
modeling. Observation of a model (another person) may also lead to the
inhibition or facilitation of already learned behavior. For example, observing
someone else making jokes about a taboo subject and gaining approval may
lead to the observer telling similar jokes. We will call this the response
modulation effect. The third modeling effect occurs when the behavior of
others functions as a discriminative stimulus for the same type of behavior
by the observer. If the person walking along the street in front of you
suddenly stops and gazes up into the sky, it is very likely that you will do
the same when you reach that point in the street. This is the response
facilitation effect. It differs from the response modulation effect in that the
consequences of the model's behavior are important in response modulation,
but not in response facilitation. If your companion makes a joke about
religion which is followed by an embarrassed silence, this will tend to inhibit
similar behavior on your part. Response facilitation, on the other hand, can
occur without the observer seeing the consequences of the model's behavior.
The response facilitation effect differs from the response acquisition effect
because response facilitation does not involve any "new" behavior. Rather,
the observer produces behavior already in his or her repertoire. In both
cases, however the model's behavior functions as a discriminative stimulus
for the same behavior by the observer.
The response facilitation effect is well known to ethologists (scientists
concerned with the observation of animal behavior in natural settings). The
coordinated behavior of flocks or herds of animals is controlled in this
fashion. Psychologists, on the other hand, have been primarily concerned
with the response acquisition and response modulation effects. These differ
in that the former is an effect on learning (the acquisition of behavior or
change in the behavioral repertoire), while the latter is an effect on
performance (the probability of the behavior occurring in a particular
situation).
Bandura and associates carried out a classic series of studies showing the
powerful effects on children of short periods of observing adults or children
modeling specific behaviors. In a typical study (Bandura, 1965), children
(aged 42 to 71 months) watched film of an adult who produced several novel,
physical and verbal aggressive behaviors. The film lasted 5 minutes and
involved an adult approaching an adult-sized plastic doll and ordering it out
of the way. Then the model (the adult) laid the doll on its side, sat on it, and
punched it on the nose. This was followed by hitting it on the head with a
mallet and then kicking it round the room. Finally, the model threw rubber
balls at the doll. Each act of physical aggression was accompanied by a
particular verbal aggressive response. Following this performance, the
children observing the film saw one of three closing scenes. Either another
adult appeared with candies and soft drinks and congratulated the model,
giving the model food and drink (model-rewarded group), or the second
adult came in and reprimanded the model, while spanking the model with a
rolled-up magazine (model-punished group). For a third group of children,
the film ended before the second adult arrived (no-consequences group).
Immediately after watching the film, each child was taken to a room
containing a similar large doll, a mallet, balls, and a number of other toys
not seen in the film. The child spent 10 minutes in this room, where they
could be observed through a one-way mirror. The experimenter then
entered, carrying soft drinks and pictures. These were offered to the child as
rewards if he or she could imitate what the model had done in the film. Each
modeled behavior that the child produced was reinforced with a drink or a
picture.
The results from both parts of the experiment are shown separately for
boys and girls in Figure 6.7. There were 11 participants in each of the six
groups. The most notable feature of the data is the generally high level of
modeling behavior. After watching a short film, a number of conditions
produced mean levels of between 3 and 4 different modeled behaviors out of
a possible maximum of 8 (4 physical acts and 4 verbal behaviors). Apart
from this, the sex of the children, the consequences for the model, and the
consequences for the children all influenced behavior. Figure 6.7 shows that
in the first observation period, when no reinforcement was provided, the
boys reproduced more of the model's aggressive acts than the girls. In the
second period, however, when modeling was reinforced, all groups
considerably increased modeling behavior and the differences between the
sexes were largely eliminated. These two phases demonstrate: (1) that some
modeling occurs without reinforcement for the participants (this is the
response acquisition effect); (2) some modeled responses are acquired that
may not be performed unless explicitly reinforced; and (3) the sex difference
in aggressive behavior diminishes when aggression is reinforced. In the first
observation period, the amount of modeled behavior was also influenced by
the observed consequences of the behavior for the model. If the model had
been seen to be punished for the aggressive behavior, the children showed
less aggression. The effect was particularly dramatic for the girls in the
model-punished group. They modeled an average of less than 0.5 aggressive
acts in the first period, but increased this to more than 3.0 when
subsequently reinforced for aggressive acts. This exemplifies a powerful
response modulation effect: performance of aggressive behavior was jointly
influenced by the observed consequences for the model and the available
consequences for the participant.
Figure 6.7 Average number of aggressive acts modeled by children as a function of consequences for
the model, sex of child, and whether the child was reinforced for modeling (Bandura, 1965).

In Bandura's (1965) study, observation of the adult model for a short

period of time was a sufficient condition for the children to imitate some of
the model's behavior without reinforcement or explicit instructions. This is a
remarkable finding and suggests that modeling may be responsible for the
acquisition of many social and complex behaviors. After all, we spend a
great deal of time observing the behavior of others. However, we obviously
do not acquire all the behavior we observe, and some models must be more
likely to be imitated than others. It turns out that models with demonstrated
high competence, who are experts or celebrities, are more likely to be
imitated. The age, sex, social power, and ethnic status of the model also
influence its effectiveness (Bandura, 1969)
Bandura (1969) describes modeling as "no-trial learning" because response
acquisition can occur without the observer being reinforced. As modeling
effects cannot be described as classical conditioning either, Bandura
concludes that there is a modeling process that can be distinguished from
both operant and classical conditioning processes. However, it is possible
that modeling is maintained by conditioned reinforcement. We all have a
history of being reinforced for behavioral similarity, or matching the
behavior of a model. During language acquisition by a young child, for
example, parents often spend long periods of time coaxing the child to repeat
a particular word or phrase. When the child finally produces the appropriate
utterance, this behavioral similarity is immediately reinforced.
As behavioral similarity is often paired with reinforcement in this way, it
could become a conditioned reinforcer. If behavioral similarity does have
conditioned reinforcing properties, this might explain how modeling
behavior can occur in experimental and clinical studies, even though it is
not apparently reinforced. The paradigm would be:

where the last term, S+, is a conditioned reinforcer. Behavioral similarity

would only acquire and retain conditioned reinforcing properties if it was
explicitly reinforced in a variety of situations. Nonreinforced modeling in
the test situation can then be described as generalized imitation, because
modeling behavior is generalizing from reinforced to nonreinforced
situations. Gladstone and Cooley (1975) were able to demonstrate
conditioned reinforcing effects of behavioral similarity. Children were given
the opportunity to model a behavior sequence (that is, act as models) and
then operate a bell, a horn, or a clicker. If the appropriate one of these
responses was made, the experimenter (acting as the observer) immediately
imitated the behavior the child had modeled. If behavioral similarity has
reinforcing properties, the child-model should select the response that
resulted in imitation by the experimenter-observer, and this did indeed
happen. This study demonstrates reinforcing effects of behavioral similarity,
and raises the possibility that these effects are involved in all modeling
situations.
Even if conditioned reinforcement contributed to modeling effects,
however, we still have to explain how behavioral similarity is achieved by
the observer. As we pointed out earlier, the sudden production of integrated
behavior sequences is one of the most striking features of response
acquisition through modeling, and this cannot be accounted for by operant
reinforcement principles alone. Operant conditioning principles, as outlined
so far, are concerned mainly with processes of selection, because a
reinforcement contingency operates to increase or decrease the frequency of
an existing category of behavior relative to other categories of behavior.
However, as we have noted from time to time, we need also to investigate
those processes of behavioral variation that provide the "raw material" on
which contingencies operate. In Chapters 2 and 3 we discussed extinction
and shaping which are examples of these, and this aspect of modeling may
be another source of behavioral variation.

6.7 Reinforcement of Modeling

Given that operant reinforcement and modeling can both modify the
behavioral repertoire, the joint operation of both should be a highly effective
method of altering behavior, and so it has proved. It is particularly suitable
for conditions of behavioral deficit. A behavioral deficit means that an
individual simply lacks a class of behavior common in other individuals. We
will present much information on the use of modeling with reinforcement to
resolve human behavioral problems in Chapter 9; the discussion here is to
address theoretical issues.
Behavioral deficits have a peculiar influence on the relationship between
the individual's behavior and the contingencies of reinforcement provided
by the society in which he or she lives. Normally, the incidence of a class of
behavior, for example, talking, is continuously modified by the social
environment. Someone who never speaks, however, fails to make contact
with these contingencies. Their situation is quite different from that of a low-
frequency talker, whose talking may have been suppressed by verbal
punishment, or may subsequently increase as a result of reinforcement. The
non-talker will be neither reinforced nor punished.
Behavioral deficits, then, represent a severe type of behavior problem.
Baer, Peterson, and Sherman (1967) attempted to alleviate this problem in
three children with learning difficulties (aged 9 to 12 years) with very large
deficits that included failure to imitate any behavior. The children were
taught a series of discriminated operants of this form:

As no imitative behavior occurred initially, shaping was used. This

involved assisting the participant, physically, to make the appropriate
sequence of actions, and then delivering food reinforcement. Sessions were
always conducted at meal times, and the amount of assistance was gradually
reduced.
After initial training, imitation of some of the model's demonstrated
responses were never reinforced and these responses thus formed an SΔ
class. Following SD – SΔ training, all imitation was extinguished, and
reinforcement was now delivered if no imitation occurred for a specified
period after the model's demonstration. (This is a DRO schedule, the
differential reinforcement of other behavior than the previously reinforced
response.) The results for a representative participant are shown in Figure
6.8. Reinforcement maintained a high level of SD responding, but also a high
level of SΔ responding. When the DRO schedule was introduced, both rates
declined gradually to zero. Responding to SD and SΔ recovered when
reinforcement for SD was reintroduced.

Figure 6.8 Reinforced imitative and nonreinforced imitative responding by a single child during a
sequence of different reinforcement conditions (Baer, Peterson, & Sherman, 1967). Details are given in
text.

Baer, Peterson, and Sherman's procedure had powerful effects: responding

to SD was maintained at a high level by reinforcement and suppressed by the
DRO contingency. Modeling was undoubtedly critical, as well, because
reinforcement alone could not account for the high levels of responding
shown by these participants. Remember that prior to the experiment, they
had a very limited behavioral repertoire. The procedure also generated a
high level of SD responding, and extended SD – SΔ training failed to suppress
responding to SΔ.
 The SΔ responding represents a "failure to discriminate" in operant
terminology, which might have resulted from the discrimination being
difficult because both SD and SΔ classes were demonstrated by the same
model, Bandura and Barab (1973) replicated this result with a single model,
but found that SΔ responding was suppressed if there was one model for SD
and a different model for SΔ. The fact of "discrimination failure" when a
single model is used is important, because it is a further demonstration of
the response acquisition effect; under appropriate conditions observers will
imitate the behavior of a model, even when there is no explicit
reinforcement for imitation.
There has been much debate as to the role of reinforcement and modeling
in language acquisition by children; it has even been claimed that these
strategies of "training by parents", which all parents engage in at a high level,
are not very relevant to children's acquisition of these crucial verbal
behavioral skills (Chomsky, 1959). However, Hailiday and Leslie (1986)
provided extensive evidence from a longitudinal study of mother-child
interaction that there are strong, but complex, relationships between
modeling of verbal behavior by mothers and the development of verbal
competence in children. For example, from early on (perhaps when the child
is 18 months old), the child imitates labels (names given to objects by the
mother), and the mother may then selectively imitate the child's utterance
by expanding it into a sentence. After weeks or months where this pattern of
interaction is typical, the child develops the capacity to produce complete
descriptive statements (we will see in the next section that these are called
tacts). As throughout this developmental sequence the mother will be
engaging in many other behaviors designed to interact with the child
(praising, smiling, maintaining eye contact etc.), there is every reason to
believe that modeling and reinforcement are key processes in this, as in
other, aspects of the child's development.

6.8 Verbal Behavior

 Chomsky's (1959) scepticism about a behavioral analysis approach to
language was expressed in a review of B.F. Skinner's (1957) book, Verbal
behavior. In that volume, Skinner set out a general approach that was so
radical that it took several decades before the scientific community was able
to take it seriously, and only recently has research from this perspective
begun to gain momentum.
We will only mention some of Skinner's key concepts here. The one that
linguists and others have found most surprising is that he provides a
functional, and not a structural, account of language. Talking is the most
obvious and important type of verbal behavior and it should be seen as the
emission of various types of operants which have different functions. For
example, a person might emit a mand (this term is derived from "demand")
which is reinforced by the removal of a cold draught from a door. That is its
function, its form might be to say "Shut the door!", or "It is draughty in here",
or even to gesture at the person standing nearest the door that they should
close it. Skinner saw this as strictly analogous to the various response
topographies that might occur when a rat presses a lever: a paw, the nose or
even the tail might be used, but these members of the operant response class
all have the common effect on the environment of depressing the lever.
Another type of verbal operant is the tact (a descriptive act) where a person
might say "What a beautiful day", or "It has turned out nice again", or the
person may simply smile with pleasure as they emerge from a building into
the sunshine. Sources of reinforcement for this type are not specified by the
operant itself, as they are with mands, but usually involve eliciting social
approval or conversation from other people.
Dialogue or conversation is crucial to Skinner's general conception of
verbal behavior, which he actually defined as behavior reinforced by the
behavior of other people. Key concepts here are the speaker and the listener,
who are both part of a verbal community. In a normal conversation, two
people repeatedly swap the roles of speaker and listener, or "take turns" and
a hypothetical example is given in Figure 6.9. As conversation progresses, an
utterance (an element of verbal behavior) by one person may act as the
discriminative stimulus for the next utterance by the other person, which
may in turn act both as a reinforcer for the previous utterance and a
discriminative stimulus for the next utterance by the first person. This
analysis is complex, but it is entirely consistent with the treatment of other
behavioral processes within behavioral analysis in that the function of a
feature of behavior or of the environment is not fixed, but depends on the
context in which it occurs.
Verbal behavior takes place within a verbal community. Being members
of a verbal community simply means being part of a group of people who
routinely talk to each and reinforce each others' verbal behavior. Most of us
are extremely sensitive to how our verbal behavior is reacted to by the
verbal community: our enjoyment of many social occasions, for example, is
critically dependent on the occurrence of "good" conversation. The social
practice of shunning, or "being sent to Coventry", where at school or work
no-one speaks or replies to the victim, is rightly seen as a severe and cruel
punishment.
What is the relationship between verbal behavior and language? Baum
(1994) suggests that while verbal behavior is actual human activity (and thus
an appropriate subject matter for psychology), language is an abstraction:
"The English language, as set of words and grammatical rules for combining
them, is a rough description of verbal behavior. It summarizes the way a lot
of people talk. It is rough because people often use poor English. Neither the
explanations in a dictionary nor the rules in a book of grammar exactly
coincide with the utterances of English speakers." (p. 111).
Throughout, we have said that processes of both variation and selection
are essential for a complete account of behavior. In the case of verbal
behavior, we have outlined some of the important selection processes, but
Figure 6.9 The behavior analytic account of dialog is like a tennis match with each person taking
turns as speaker and listener. In this example, Fred and Barney are discussing a tennis match.
Responses (verbal utterances) are in boxes, and each response acts as a stimulus for the other person.
These are labeled as discriminative stimuli (SD's), but they also have reinforcing properties. Note that
the first SD for Fred is a visual one. Barney's second response will act as further SD for Fred who is
about to say something else.

we have not said very much about "where verbal behavior comes from"
(although modeling is clearly an important source), and it is this question,
together with the fact that it appears to be a uniquely human activity, that
has often preoccupied the attention of psychologists.
Recent work on stimulus equivalence class formation, outlined in Chapter
4, has led Hayes and Hayes (1992) to suggest that this process underpins our
verbal skills. Their argument is best understood as applied to verbal
labelling, which itself can be seen as a basic aspect of verbal behavior. A key
event in their view is bidirectional training. This occurs when a child is
encouraged to say a name for an object, and is also reinforced for selecting
the object when hearing the name. A simple example will be when the child
is reinforced on some occasions for saying "dog" when the family pet
appears, and on other occasions for pointing to the same animal when asked
"Where is the dog?". This training, which is a conspicuous feature of child
rearing, may result in the dog and the spoken word "dog" becoming
members of the same stimulus equivalence class. As we saw in Chapter 4,
this means that, in a particular context, they are treated as being the same
even though they may be physically dissimilar. With our hypothetical child
who has undergone bidirectional training, someone may subsequently shout
"Dog!" and elicit the same behavior as if a real dog was leaping towards the
child. If the child then learns some French, a shout of "Chien!" when heard in
Paris may also produce exactly the same behavior.
It is not yet clear whether stimulus equivalence underpins verbal labelling
or vice versa, but it is revealing that humans do appear to be normally able
to do both, while extensive research has provided only unconvincing
evidence of either phenomenon in other species. Ever since the late-
nineteenth century origins of modern psychology, clear evidence for
differences in learning capacity between species has been sought but not
found. However, this recent work does appear to suggest a clear
discontinuity between humans and other species, even chimpanzees
(Dugdale & Lowe, 1990; see Leslie, 1993, for a discussion of some related
issues).
In Section 6.5, we provided a definition of rule-governed behavior as
follows: it is the general name for those occasions where verbal behavior, in
the form of a rule, is acquired either through verbal instruction or through
direct experience of some reinforcement contingencies, and then determines
other behavior. We later noted that while "having a concept" and "following a
verbal rule" are related they are not the same thing, because animals that do
not appear to have verbal abilities, such as pigeons, can show some evidence
of conceptual behavior, and humans can solve complex problems even on
occasions when they prove unable to verbalize the correct rule.
These complexities can be clarified by distinguishing between following
the rule, and stating the rule. Skinner (1969) defined a rule as a verbal
discriminative stimulus that points to a contingency, and for any
contingency it is possible to state a verbal rule but, as we have seen with
various types of examples, observation that behavior consistent with the
verbal rule is occurring does not prove that it is rule-governed; it may be
contingency-shaped. With verbally-competent humans, these two types of
influence on behavior interact in complex ways. A vehicle driver, for
example, cannot provide verbal statements about the adjustments he or she
makes to the controls of the car in response to changes in the road surface,
but he or she will be able to describe what they decided to do once they
realized that they had taken the wrong turning.
A further feature of human behavior is that verbal rules, or instructions,
exert powerful effects on behavior that may preclude the operation of
contingencies that would otherwise be effective. The presentation of a verbal
rule may restrict behavioral variation that would otherwise occur and result
in certain behavior being reinforced. Many older people in urban areas, for
example, have been given messages such as "You will be attacked if you go
out at night", or "Your home will be robbed". Under these influences, but
without suffering any crime themselves, they may then lead very restricted
lives with much time spent barricaded into their homes. Their behavior may
or may not be appropriate, depending on the local level of crime, but it has
not been shaped directly by the contingencies.
A general feature of human behavior is that it is more influenced by
short-term rather than long-term consequences or contingencies. Many
everyday phenomena fit in with this "rule of thumb": we eat sweets
(followed by short-term positive consequences) and fail to clean our teeth
adequately (avoiding short-term negative consequences) and thus incur the
long-term negative consequences of tooth decay and aversive dental
treatment, we stay up late having a good time at the party and are unable to
complete our work requirements the following day, and so on. Our tendency
to follow rules, rather than allowing contingencies to shape our behavior
can be seen as a further instance. Rule following is generally itself followed
by immediate positive social consequences, while the contingency pointed
by the rule may be very far off. An example of the two contingencies, the
"real" contingency and the contingency involving following the
corresponding rule, is shown in Figure 6.10. Although it may not always be
possible to identify reinforcing consequences for a particular instance of rule
following, we also engage in a great many social practices that offer
generalized support for rule-following behavior. These range from children's
games that reward rule following per se, to using negative labels (such as
"psychopath") for adults who fail to obey rules.

Figure 6.10 An example of rule following. The response receives short-term social reinforcement, and
also results in long-term benefit for the child.

6.9 Summary

This chapter examines a number of types of complex behavior, using the

same strategy of relating human behavior to that of other species, and
seeking to use the minimum number of behavioral processes, that
characterizes the previous five chapters.
Concept formation is a form of discrimination learning, and studies with
a number of species of the development of learning sets provide an
illustration of species similarities and differences in complex behavior. If
"having a concept" describes the situation where a given response is under
the control of a class of discriminative stimuli, then it is clear that stimulus
equivalence classes are also examples of concepts. Use of stimulus
equivalence classes by verbally-competent humans is an extremely powerful
strategy for modifying the behavioral repertoire, because the acquisition of a
new function for one member of the class transfers to all the other,
physically dissimilar, class members.
Experimental studies have shown that both humans and other species
(including pigeons) can establish complex polymorphous concepts, where a
positive exemplar has m out of n characteristics. These studies are important
because polymorphous concepts are formally very similar to natural
concepts (such as trees, or houses), and the studies show that verbal rule-
following is not necessary — even in humans — to acquire these concepts.
With human participants, it is possible to carry out concept formation
experiments and ask them to verbalize the concepts as they go through the
experiment. Rule-formation and rule-following is a highly effective problem
solving strategy for humans, and these studies illustrate the tactics adopted.
Modeling is an important behavioral process not discussed in previous
chapters, but crucial to the account of acquisition of behavior sequences that
will be given in later chapters. It provides a rapid mechanism for acquisition
of complex behavior. Experimental studies have shown that robust effects
can be obtained on children's behavior, particularly when aggressive
behavior is learnt by observing an adult model. It is possible that such
modeled behavior is maintained by conditioned reinforcement, but the
modeling procedure seems in any case to be an important source of "new"
behavior.
A common feature of people with developmental delay or learning
difficulties is that they do not imitate behavior readily. However, positive
reinforcement of showing behavioral similarity leads to enhanced modeling
in such individuals. It is also possible to show that reinforcement of
modeling occurs frequently in everyday mother-child interactions.
Recently, researchers in behavior analysis have developed Skinner's (1957)
suggestion as to how a functional account of language, or verbal behavior,
might proceed. This approach is radically different from the structural
approach characteristic of linguistics, but it is readily linked to the functional
account of behavior in general that is provided by behavior analysis. One
example of this is that the very common human behavior of rule following
(such as is specified by the rule "stop at the red light", for example) is
maintained by frequent social reinforcement which occurs in close
proximity to the rule following behavior, while the contingency described by
the rule (such as the possibility of a road crash when vehicles do not stop)
often operates only over long periods of time with occasional reinforcement.
The rule-following behavior is thus much more useful than direct interaction
with the environment.
It is striking that while the conditioning processes reviewed in earlier
chapters seem applicable to many species, including humans, both the use of
language and ability to form stimulus equivalence classes seem almost
exclusively human attributes. It may be that this is where a degree of
"discontinuity" between humans and other species is located.
Chapter 7
Assessing Behavior in Applied Settings
The next four chapters will describe how the research findings from the
experimental analysis of behavior can be translated into applied assessment
and intervention techniques. The first step in the process of conducting an
applied behavioral intervention is to clearly identify the behaviors that need
to be changed. These behaviors must be described in ways that can be
systematically observed and measured on a more or less continuous basis.
Additionally, the relationship between these behaviors and their
environmental determinants must be detailed, in this chapter the assessment
techniques used to identify a behavior and its environmental determinants
will be described.
Identifying the behavior to be changed is only the first step. The behavior
must also be measured over time in such a manner that the impact of the
intervention on the behavior can be causally evaluated. Applied behavior
analysts have designed a number of experimental methods that can be used
to examine the effectiveness of behavioral interventions on selected
behaviors. These research methods will be described in Chapter 8.
Following this, in Chapters 9 and 10 a series of applied behavioral
intervention techniques will be described that are derived from the operant
principles of reinforcement and punishment. These techniques can be used to
increase appropriate behavior or decrease inappropriate behavior. Applied
interventions often involve combinations of these intervention techniques to
decrease maladaptive behaviors while concurrently increasing adaptive
behaviors. Issues related to the selection of interventions based on prior
assessment of the target behavior will be discussed in these chapters.
7.1 A Model for Understanding and Guiding
Behavioral Assessment in Applied Settings

Behavioral assessment involves selecting and defining the behavior to be

changed. This behavior is typically referred to as the target behavior.
Additionally, the context or environment in which the behavior occurs must
also be clearly identified. Environmental conditions may be operationalized
as establishing operations (sometimes called setting events), antecedent
stimuli, and consequences or reinforcing stimuli. The relationship between
these environmental conditions and the behavior of interest is presented in
Figure 7.1. Information from assessment is essential prior to selecting
intervention strategies that may increase adaptive behavior or decrease
maladaptive behavior.

Figure 7.1 A model of the behavior and environmental conditions to be assessed. Note that here the
terms "Antecedent stimuli", "Behavior", and "Consequence stimuli" are used in ways that are exactly
equivalent to the terms "discriminative stimulus" or SD, "response" or R, and reinforcing stimulus or
S+, in Chapter 4. The terms used here give us the "ABC of behavior analysis".

In Chapter 2, we described a two-term relationship between an operant

response class and the consequent or reinforcing stimulus as a step towards
a definition of operant conditioning, in Chapter 4, we recognized the
limitations of that simple formula by adding in the antecedent or
discriminative stimulus to make the well-known three-term relationship, of
SD, R and S+, our definition. In Figure 7.1, there are four terms with the
addition of establishing operations. For reasons that are explained below,
this does not really make a "four-term relationship", but establishing
operations are none the less necessary conditions for operant conditioning to
occur. Establishing operations are social or biological conditions of satiation
or deprivation that may affect the evocative power of a discriminative
stimulus and/or the reinforcing power of a consequence (Carr & Smith, 1995;
Michael, 1982; 1993). For example, candies may be powerful reinforcers for
increasing appropriate behavior (such as cleaning up the toy room) with
some children, but the effectiveness of such a reinforcer may be related to
the level of food deprivation at any given point in time. Hence, contingent
candy (that is, presentations of candy made contingent upon appropriate
behavior) may produce high levels of room cleaning prior to dinner but low
levels following dinner. O'Reilly (1995) investigated a day-care situation
where a person with severe intellectual disabilities sometimes showed a
great deal of aggression. He demonstrated that this occurred on days
following loss of sleep during the previous night, and that sleep deprivation
was correlated with high levels of escapemaintained aggression during
demanding tasks. Sleep deprivation acted as an establishing operation to
enhance the aversiveness of demanding tasks and increase the power of
escape as a reinforcer. Establishing operations include all the social and
biological conditions necessary for the three-term relationship of SD, R and
S+ to be effective, and thus while of great importance, should not be
construed as a specific fourth term with respect to the other three.
Antecedent stimuli are those environmental conditions that occur prior to
the performance of a behavior and predict specific consequences. In other
words, behavior has been reinforced in the presence of these stimuli and
therefore these stimuli acquire a discriminative function. Chapter 4 gave a
detailed description of stimulus control and Chapter 9 will describe applied
interventions with this technology. Much of our everyday behavior is under
stimulus control. A knock at the door or a telephone ring predicts that
opening the door or answering the phone will reveal a person or a voice at
the other end. In our earlier example, the presence of a parent may predict
that cleaning the room will result in candy for the child. Cleaning the toy
room in the presence of the babysitter will not result in a candy reward and
therefore the room remains untidy. The presence of a parent is therefore a
discriminative stimulus for room cleaning.
Behavior refers to the responses of an individual or group. These
responses must be observable by at least one individual. Behaviors in our
previous examples include, picking up toys and placing them in appropriate
containers, hitting and pinching staff, picking up the phone, and answering
the door.
Consequence stimuli are those events that follow the performance of the
behavior. They are also contingent upon the performance of the behavior. In
other words, these consequences are only available to the person following
the performance of that behavior and are otherwise not available.
Contingent consequences can either increase (reinforce) or decrease (punish)
the probability of a behavior. Chapter 2 provided a detailed description of
the functional properties of positive reinforcement, and Chapter 5 described
negative reinforcement and punishment, Chapters 9 and 10 will describe
corresponding applied interventions with these processes.
In summary, a comprehensive behavioral assessment must provide
unambiguous and measurable information about the behavior to be
decreased or increased and the context in which the behavior occurs. The
context is operationalized in terms of how establishing operations,
antecedent stimuli, and consequence stimuli enter into a functional
relationship with the behavior of interest.

7.2 Selecting Target Behaviors

Prior to beginning an assessment it is important that the behavior identified

as in need of change is of social relevance for the client. It is usually self-
evident that the desired change in the target behavior will increase positive
reinforcement and minimize punishment for that person. On occasions,
however, the reasons for selecting a specific target behavior may not be
entirely clear or appropriate. For example, Taylor, O'Reilly, and Lancioni
(1996) assessed a child with autism who exhibited severe aggressive behavior
in the classroom. His teacher requested a behavioral program to decrease the
aggression. Following further observation it was noted that the child's
aggression only occurred when he was not engaged in academic activities.
The behavioral program eventually focused on teaching the teacher to
engage the student continuously in academic activities which resulted in
significant reductions in classroom aggression. This revised target behavior
eliminated the need for the use of punishment procedures with the child.
There are no hard and fast rules for selecting appropriate target behaviors.
It may be helpful for the behavior analyst to ask a number of questions
about the proposed target behaviors prior to a formal assessment. These
questions, coupled with a rationale for each, are presented below.

Will increasing and/or decreasing this behavior result in positive outcomes

for the person? It is important that a behavior program results in a positive
outcome for the individual. Developing a list of these potential outcomes
often helps to clarify and justify the development of a behavioral program.

Who will be the primary beneficiary of this program? This is especially

relevant when the referring agent is somebody other than the potential
client. In such cases it may be important to do an ecological assessment of
the client's environment (for example, the family home or the classroom).
Such ecological assessments may reveal that the primary motive for the
behavioral program may be to maximize reinforcers for the carers and not
for the client. In these cases alternative target behaviors should be selected.
Is the behavior appropriate or typical for somebody of that age? This is an
important consideration when selecting behaviors to decrease and increase.
For example, head-banging (i.e., rhythmic hitting of head against solid
stationary objects) is a behavior that is seen in approximately 15% of infants
up to 24 months of age (deLissovoy, 1964). The vast majority of these
children do not continue to head-bang into early childhood and do not
require intervention (Oliver, 1995). Extensive behavioral interventions are
typically warranted for those cases that do persist into later childhood.
Occasionally, teachers may choose rehabilitation goals for persons with
developmental disabilities based on developmental age and not on
chronological age. For example, toy-play with infant materials may be the
planned outcome for adults with developmental disabilities. Such goals are
not appropriate, because if they are achieved they will only serve to exclude
these people from activities with same-age non-handicapped peers in
normal life settings.

7.3 Defining the Target Behavior

Once there is agreement regarding the need for a behavioral intervention

the target behavior must be carefully defined. Initially, the presenting
behavior is typically defined in general terms such as personality
characteristics, and summary labels in the form of statements such as "I want
to lose weight", "My child is too aggressive", or "This student is withdrawn".
These global terms must be translated into operational definitions. An
operational definition is a description of the subject matter in terms of how it
will be measured. In applied behavioral analysis an operational definition is
a description of overt, observable behavior.
This is an essential step in any behavioral program for several reasons.
First, it clarifies to all stakeholders (that is, the client, their family, teachers
etc.) the precise nature of the behavior to be changed. If stakeholders
disagree with the focus of treatment, then new target behaviors may be
selected and unnecessary interventions may therefore be forestalled. Second,
it allows for ongoing evaluation of the target behavior throughout the
intervention process. If desired change is not occurring then the intervention
can be altered. Third, it allows for dissemination and replication of findings
within the scientific community.
Hawkins and Dobes (1975) provide three guidelines for developing
operational definitions of target behaviors:
 1. The definition should be objective, referring only to observable
characteristics of the behavior (and environment) and translating
any inferential terms (such as "expressing hostile feelings", "intended
to help", or "showing interest in") into more objective ones.
2. The definition should be clear in that it should be readable and
unambiguous so those experienced observers could read it and
readily paraphrase it accurately.
3. The definition should be complete, delineating the "boundaries" of
what is to be included as an instance of the response and what is to
be excluded, thereby directing the observers in all situations that
are likely to occur and leaving little to their judgement.

Thus, the operational definition should be objective, referring to

observable behaviors and environmental events. It should also be clear or
unambiguous to the extent that other observers couid accurately paraphrase
it. Finally, the definition should be complete and identify what should and
should not be included as an instance of the target behavior.
An example of an operational definition of behavior arising from the
statement "My child is too aggressive" might be, "Striking siblings in a
forceful manner with an open hand or closed fist but excluding touching
siblings with tips of fingers or with an open hand in a nonforceful manner."
This operational definition identifies the problematic behaviors in objective
terms and delineates examples of behavior to be included and excluded from
the definition. In the case of the withdrawn student in the examples cited at
the beginning of this section, it is most probable that the target of the
intervention will be to increase appropriate social interactions in the school
setting. One potential target behavior might be to increase verbal
interactions and might be defined as, "A verbal statement that begins a
conversation, changes a topic, or provides instruction to take some action".

Defining Complex Target Behaviors: Task Analysis

It is often the case that the focus of a behavioral intervention will be with
individual and discrete target behaviors such as those described in the last
section. In other instances, an intervention may be designed to develop a
complex sequence of behaviors. In such cases it is not possible to produce a
simple operational definition. Such complex behaviors must be broken down
into their component parts. Each component behavior must be discrete and
essential for completing the task sequence. The process by which a complex
sequence of behaviors is broken down and the outcome of such a process
(that is, the set of behaviors) is called a task analysis.
Developing a task analysis can be a complex affair. The first step consists
of identifying the essential behaviors involved in performing the task
sequence. This can be achieved by observing and recording the behaviors of
individuals who are skilled in performing that task. For example, Cuvo, Leaf,
and Borakove (1978) taught janitorial skills (sweep and mop the floor, clean
the stool, clean the mirror, etc.) to persons with intellectual disabilities. The
task analyses for these skills were developed by observing janitors perform
these tasks.
Alternatively, task analyses can be developed by consulting individuals
with expertise in a given area. These people can identify the important
behaviors and how they are to be performed. For example, O'Reilly and
Cuvo (1989) taught self-treatment of cold symptoms (identify symptoms and
over-the-counter medication to treat symptoms; recognize when to consult a
physician) to a woman who had suffered a severe brain injury due to cardiac
arrest. The task analysis was developed with input from a group of
physicians.
Finally, specialist texts may be consulted. For example, O'Reilly, Green,
and Braunling-McMorrow (1990) taught adolescents who suffered brain
injuries from vehicle accidents to amend potential hazards in their daily
living arrangements. Common home hazards that often led to injury were
identified from publications available from the American National Safety
Council. Task analyses were developed for each of these situations by
observing non-disabled adults dealing with these situations.
 Once the essential behaviors of a task are identified they must be broken
down into a series of discrete and trainable behaviors. The size or number of
behaviors in each step of the task analysis must be determined by the skill
level of the person to be taught. Individuals with low levels of functioning
will require a task to be broken into small component behaviors. A
summarized series of generic behaviors may be required for individuals with
higher levels of functioning. Once the task has been tailored to the person
then training is initiated to teach each individual component behavior until
the entire task sequence is performed correctly.
An example of a task analysis to teach grocery shopping skills to adults
with mild intellectual disabilities is illustrated below (Taylor & O'Reilly,
1997). The purpose of the intervention was to enhance independence for
these individuals in ordinary life settings. The task analysis was developed
by observing non-disabled individuals engaged in grocery shopping in local
community stores. The level of difficulty of each step of the task analysis was
determined by consulting staff who worked on a daily basis with these
individuals. These skills were then successfully trained in local grocery
stores through repeated practice, prompts and reinforcement. This example
clearly illustrates how a behavior that will enhance the quality of life for an
individual (through increasing independence), can be operationalized into a
series of objective behaviors (task analysis), and successfully taught to
individuals using applied behavioral techniques.
In another example of a task analysis, Friman, Finney, Glasscock, Weigel,
and Christophersen (1986) taught a group of adult males to examine
themselves for testicular cancer. Testicular cancer is one of the leading
causes of death in males between the ages of 15 to 40. Early identification
Table 7.1 Steps of the Supermarket Shopping Task Analysis (Taylor & O'Reilly, 1997)

Step Description

1. Walks from car to supermarket

Step Description

2. Enters the supermarket through the correct door

3. Lifts a basket
4. Looks at shopping list
5. Looks on shelves for item
6. Puts item in basket or picks up item
7. Looks at list for next item
8. Looks on shelves for item
9. Puts item in basket or picks up item
10. Checks list to see that both items are in the basket
11. Goes to correct checkout (i.e., express checkout)
12. Takes place in line
13. Behaves appropriately in line (i.e. moves forward when line moves)
14. Puts contents of basket on counter
15. Replaces basket
16. Pays for items using next dollar strategy
17. Waits for change
18. Packs sack
19. Picks up sack
20. Exits store through correct door
21. Returns to car

and medical treatment of this disease can lead to recovery. The behaviors
required for correct self-examination were identified through consultation
with urologists and various professional materials on testicular cancer. The
task analysis of testicular self-examination behaviors is presented in Table
7.2. The participants were then successfully taught to perform these
behaviors.
The development of a successful behavioral intervention rests initially on
the selection of an appropriate target behavior and the correct
operationalization of this behavior. The importance of this assessment
process cannot be overstated. Interventions are tailored to the type of
behavior to be changed. Also, the success of the intervention is measured by
continuous assessment of changes in the target behavior. These issues will be
discussed again in Chapters 8, 9 and 10.

7.4 Measuring and Recording Behaviors

Once the target behavior has been identified and operationalized the next
step is to select an appropriate measurement strategy for that behavior. The
measurement strategies used in applied behavior analysis provide a direct
assessment of the target behavior in the criterion or real-life setting before,
during, and after the implementation of treatment procedures. The
measurement procedures used in applied behavior analysis usually consist of
an assessment of discrete occurrences of the target response or the amount
of time the response occurs. It is important that the measurement procedure
selected be both sensitive and practical. A sensitive measurement system is
one that produces an accurate and complete picture of the target
Table 7.2 Task Analysis for Testicular Self-Examination (Friman, Finney, Glasscock, Weigel, &
Christopherson, 1986)

1. Gently pulls scrotum so that it hangs freely.

Uses fingers and thumbs of both hands to isolate and examine one
2.
testicle.
 Locates the soft tender mass (the epididymis and spermatic cord) on top
3. of and
extending behind the testicle.
Rotates the entire surface areas of the testicle between fingers and
4.
thumbs.
5. Uses fingers and thumbs to isolate and examine the other testicle.
6. Locates the soft tender mass on top of and extending behind the testicle.
7. Rotates the entire surface area of the testicle between fingers and thumbs.

behavior. For example, if the interest lies in increasing or decreasing the

duration of a behavior it is important that a measurement of duration of the
target response is used. Similarly, if the frequency of the behavior is of
interest then a frequency measurement system should be adopted. A
practical measurement system is one that is usable from the point of view of
the observer. Often, the applied behavior analyst must balance sensitivity
with practicality when choosing a measurement procedure. Whether a
measurement system is usable depends on the applied context. For example,
it would be difficult for a teacher with a normal classroom responsibility of
some 30 students to conduct duration measurements of "out-of-seat
behavior" (that is, time spent away from the seat the student should be
occupying) for an individual student. Such a context may require less time
consuming assessment protocol that may not be as sensitive to the behavior
of interest (such as momentary time sampling, discussed below). Some of the
most common measurement protocols used include frequency or event
recording, duration and latency, and time sampling methods.

Frequency or Event Recording

Frequency or event recording requires a tally or count of the number of

times that the target behavior occurs during a given period of time.
Frequency recording is most often used with discrete behaviors of a constant
duration. A discrete response is one that has a clear beginning and end.
Discrete responses allow the observer to separate each instance or
occurrence of the behavior. Each instance of the behavior should take a
similar amount of time to perform. If different instances of the behavior are
of different durations then an alternative measurement strategy that is
sensitive to the temporal dimension of the target behavior should be used.
For example, certain ongoing behaviors such as conversing with others
might not be suitable for assessment using frequency measures. If a student
plays with one peer for 10 seconds and another peer for 5 minutes then these
would be counted as two instances of talking. The temporal dimension of
these two instances of playing would be lost if a frequency count was used.
Frequency measures have been used to assess a variety of behaviors in
applied settings. For example, Stark, Knapp, Bowen, Powers, Jelalian, Evans,
Passero, Mulvihill, and Novell (1993) successfully taught parents to
implement a behavioral program to increase caloric intake for three
malnourished children with cystic fibrosis. One of the measures of the
programs effectiveness was the number of bites of food each child ate at
dinner. Other examples of behaviors measured using frequency protocol
include social skills (such as initiating conversations), aggression (verbal and
physical abuse), attendance (such as appointment keeping at pediatric
outpatient clinics).
Frequency measures can be expressed as the number of times a target
behavior occurred (for example, number of families that attended outpatient
clinic). Number should not be used as an expression if the observation times
themselves differ from session to session. In such instances rate of behavior
is a more appropriate expression. Rate of response can be calculated by
dividing the total frequency of the target response by the number of minutes
for that particular observation. Response rate per minute is therefore
comparable across observation sessions of different durations.
Frequency or event recording has a number of obvious advantages. First,
it is an easy recording system to use. It merely requires a tally of ongoing
behavior. Various recording devices such as wrist counters and hand-tally
digital counters are available that can facilitate recording Second, because
they are a direct measure of the amount of behavior, frequency or event
measures are sensitive to changes in behavior resulting from contingency
manipulation (Kazdin, 1994).

Duration and Latency Recording

Duration and latency are time-based methods of measurement. These

measurement systems are used when the temporal dimension of the
response is of interest. Measures of duration are particularly useful with
continuous behaviors or with discrete behaviors of such high rate that it
would be difficult to measure each response accurately using frequency or
event recording. Continuous behaviors such as free play or conversations are
behaviors that can occur for extended periods of time and usually happen
for different lengths of time during each occurrence. Some individuals with
severe behavior disorders emit high rates of discrete behaviors such as head
hitting, and eye poking. Counting each occurrence of such behavior would
be difficult and unreliable. One alternative approach is to count the amount
of time or duration the individual engages in such behavior.
Duration measures can be conducted using either a duration per
occurrence or a total duration procedure. For duration per occurrence, the
observer measures the duration of each instance of the behavior during an
observation session. A total duration procedure measures the total duration
of responding during an observation session. Duration per occurrence
provides a temporal and numerical assessment of behavior. For example,
Gaylord-Ross, Haring, Breen, and Pitts-Conway (1984) measured the
duration and number of social interactions between students in a school
setting. Such a protocol provides a measure of how many interactions each
student engaged in and how long these interactions were. As the purpose of
the intervention was to increase the quality and quantity of interactions
between students a duration per occurrence measure was more sensitive to
the goals of the program than frequency or total duration measures. De Luca
and Holborn (1992) used a total duration measure to examine the impact of a
variable-ratio reinforcement schedule with changing criteria on amount of
time spent pedaling stationary exercise bicycles with obese and non-obese
boys. The total amount of time spent pedaling during observation sessions
was of interest in this intervention. The use of a duration per occurrence
protocol would have provided additional and unnecessary information for
the purposes of this study. It is therefore important to consider the purpose
of the planned intervention (that is, which dimensions of the behavior are to
be increased or decreased) in addition to the nature of the target behavior
when selecting a measurement system.
Latency is an additional measure based on the time dimension of
responding. Instead of measuring the duration of a response when it occurs,
latency is a measure of the length of time between the presentation of an
initiating stimulus and the occurrence of the target response. Latency should
be used when the major issue is the length of time between an opportunity
to perform a behavior and the initiation of that behavior. For example,
latency can be used when an individual is too slow at following directions
(for example, beginning a classroom exercise, or complying with parental
requests). The main purpose of an intervention in such cases may be to
decrease the latency between the request and performance of the task.
Latency to responding may also be used as a measure when performing the
behavior can be dangerous to the individual concerned. For example,
O'Donoghue and O'Reilly (1996) examined the function of serious self-
destructive behavior for an adult with autism and developmental disabilities.
Self-injury was so severe (including tearing eyelids, and banging head on
hard surfaces) that the individual was physically restrained throughout the
day. During assessment procedures a latency protocol (amount of time from
the initiation of a task to engagement in the first episode of self-injury) was
used as it was dangerous and unethical to allow the individual to engage in
the problematic behavior for an extended period of time.
Typically, a stopwatch is used to record duration or latency during
observation sessions. For total duration the stopwatch is activated as the
behavior begins and is stopped as the behavior ends. This is repeated during
the observation session without resetting the stopwatch. A total duration is
then available at the end of the observation session. For latency, the
stopwatch is activated once the stimulus is presented and is stopped as the
target behavior occurs. Duration is usually expressed as the cumulative
duration the person engaged in the behavior during a session. If observation
session times differ across days then total duration should be reported as
percentage of time ([duration of target behavior/total time of observation
session] x 100 = %). Percentage of time allows for the direct comparison of
the target behavior across observation sessions of different durations.
Reporting practices are similar for latency measures. Duration per
occurrence is not affected by observation session length and is simply
reported or expressed as the duration for each occurrence of the behavior.

Interval Recording

Interval recording procedures are the most frequently used measurement

protocol in applied behavior analysis. Interval measures can be used with
discrete, continuous, and high rate behaviors. These procedures are used to
record the number of time intervals within an observation session that the
target behavior occurred. Each observation session is divided into brief time
intervals of equal size. The target behavior is recorded as occurring or not
occurring during each interval. Multiple occurrences of the target behavior
within each interval are not scored separately. However, multiple target
behaviors can be scored within each interval. Interval recording therefore
does not provide an estimate of frequency but of occurrence per interval.
Additionally, target behaviors for multiple individuals can be recorded
during an observation session. For example, if an observation session is 10
minutes long and each observation interval is 15 seconds, the session is
divided into forty 15 second units. The specific interval size should provide
enough time for the observer to accurately observe and record the behavior.
To facilitate accurate recording a data sheet is usually developed with a box
for each interval (see Figure 7.2). During the observation each box (interval)
is filled with a symbol to indicate whether the target behavior occurred or
did not occur. Data are subsequently reported as percentage of intervals in
which the target behavior occurred during each observation session (number
of intervals in which behavior occurred divided by total number of intervals
multiplied by 100). The data for Figure 7.2 show that the target behavior
occurred for 50% of the intervals ([8/16] x 100 = 50%).
Figure 7.3 presents a data sheet to record multiple behaviors for an
individual. In this case a symbol for each behavior is included in each
interval box. The observer circles each behavior that occurs during an
interval. This data sheet indicates that the student spent the majority of the
time out of his seat and talking with other students during the observation.
Each behavior (i.e., out of seat, talking to other students, talking to teacher)
is presented separately as percentage of intervals. A data sheet for recording
the behavior of multiple individuals is presented in Figure 7.4. When
collecting interval observations with multiple individuals an observer
usually focuses on one individual for each interval. For example, the first
individual is observed for the first 15 second interval followed by the second
person for the second interval. This sequence is continued until each person
is observed for one interval. The sequence is then repeated across
individuals.
There are two types of interval recording protocol. The most frequently
used procedure is called partial-interval recording. This protocol requires
Figure 7.2 Example of interval recording.

Figure 7.3 Example of interval recording using multiple behaviors.

Figure 7.4 Example of interval recording with multiple persons.

the observer to record the target behavior as present if it occurs at any time
during an observation interval. Alternatively, a whole-interval recording
procedure can be used. Whole-interval recording requires that the behavior
be present throughout the entire interval for it to be recorded as occurring.
The whole-interval measurement protocol is therefore more sensitive to the
duration of occurrence of the target behavior during an observation session.
Partial-interval procedures tend to overestimate the occurrence of the
behavior whereas whole-interval protocol tend to underestimate behavior.
Again, the type of interval protocol chosen will be determined by the nature
of the target behavior and the goals of the proposed intervention program.
For example, Allen, Loiben, Allen, and Stanley (1992) evaluated the
effectiveness of a dentist-implemented intervention (escape contingent on
brief periods of cooperative behavior) on levels of disruptive behavior for 4
children who were receiving restorative dental treatment. Body movement,
crying, moaning, and complaining were recorded for the children using a 15
second partial interval recording protocol. Lagomarcino, Reid, Ivancic, and
Faw (1984) evaluated the effectiveness of an intervention procedure
including stimulus prompts and contingent positive consequences to teach
dance skills to persons with severe developmental disabilities. Observation
protocol consisted of observing each of two dancers individually for one-
minute sessions. Appropriate dancing was measured using a 10-second
whole-interval procedure during the 1-minute observations.
An alternative interval measurement procedure is called momentary time
sampling. Momentary time sampling differs from the other interval protocol
in that target behaviors are recorded as occurring or not occurring
immediately after the specified time intervals. Recording devices (i.e., data
sheets) and protocol (i.e., observation sessions are divided into specified time
intervals) are similar to the other interval measurement systems.
Momentary time sampling is easy to use especially when and observer is
also involved in concurrent tasks. For example, teachers often use a
momentary time sampling procedure as it does not interfere with the
teaching routine. The end of an interval can be signaled by a device such as a
tape recorder. At that point the teacher observes the target student and
records whether or not the behavior of interest was occurring. The teacher
can then continue with their teaching duties until the end of the next
interval.
In summary, once a target behavior is operationalized it is necessary to
select an appropriate measurement system for that behavior. The target
behavior must be measured over time in order to provide an evaluation of
the behavior before, during, and after the intervention. Selecting a
measurement system for a target behavior requires consideration of a
number of factors. In particular, the measurement system must be sensitive
and practical. Measurement systems are typically based on the number of
occurrences or duration of the target behavior. The most frequently used
measurement systems have been outlined here (these are frequency,
duration, and interval recording). Specific variations of these measurement
procedures can be found in the behavioral literature (e.g., physiological
measures such as heart rate; permanent products of behavior such as amount
of weight lost) but all address either a frequency or duration dimension of
the target behavior.

7.5 Conducting Observations

The purpose of assessment is to identify the extent to which the target

behavior is performed before, during, and after the intervention. In addition
to operationally defining the target behavior and selecting an appropriate
measurement strategy, it is important to clarify when observations of the
behavior in the applied setting will be conducted. Observation sessions must
be conducted in a manner that will produce a representative sample of the
target behavior. Behavior typically fluctuates over time. Observations should
be conducted in a manner that will account for these fluctuations and
produce an accurate picture of the overall rate of the behavior. Additionally,
the strategy for conducting observations will also be influenced by the
overall goal of the proposed intervention, A number of factors should be
considered when deciding to conduct observations. First, the number of
times that observations are to be conducted should be considered. It is
preferable to conduct observations each day and during those periods of the
day when the target behavior is most probable. This is typically not feasible
because of time constraints on observers. Generally, the more observations
the better with at least one observation daily. Second, the length of time for
which each observation is to be conducted must be decided. It is preferable
to observe behavior for a period of time that will produce data that is
representative of performance for the period of interest. For example, if a
child is engaged in problem behavior throughout the school day it would be
preferable to observe for an extended period of time during the day rather
than conduct a brief observation at the beginning of the day. Finally, it is
important to consider when the observations should be conducted. Often the
behavior of interest will occur during a particular time period (for example,
bedtime tantrums, or aggression during lunch period at school).
Observations should therefore be conducted during these critical time
periods. If behavior occurs throughout the day then multiple observations
during each day are preferable.

7.6 Reliability of Assessment

Another essential criterion of an applied behavioral investigation is that the

target behavior be reliably assessed. Reliability generally means that two
observers can concurrently but independently observe the target behavior
and agree on its occurrence and nonoccurrence. Reliability or interobserver
agreement is therefore an assessment of the consistency and accuracy with
which the target behavior is measured before, during, and after the
intervention. High levels of interobserver agreement allow the therapist to
conclude that patterns of responding (e.g., percentage of intervals that the
target behavior occurs across days) reflect actual client performance. Low
levels of interobserver agreement may imply that patterns of client
responding reflect observation biases and not actual performance. Observer
bias typically occurs when an observers' definition of the target behavior
changes over time. For example, an observer may see improvements in the
target behavior during an intervention phase because he or she expects this
to occur. Interobserver reliability is therefore a check or control for observer
bias. There is no single rule about how often interobserver reliability should
be conducted during an applied behavioral intervention, it is generally
accepted that observations of the target behavior by another independent
observer should be conducted during baseline {or prior to intervention),
intervention, and follow-up phases (or after intervention). Interobserver
agreement measurement is typically required for a minimum of 20 percent
of all observations in research studies. An acceptable level of agreement
between observers typically ranges between 80 to 100 percent. An agreement
of less than 80 percent indicates that there is an unacceptable level of error
occurring with the recording protocol. Such low agreement can indicate that
the target behavior is not clearly defined or that observers are not
adequately trained to record the behavior. These potential biases should be
identified and remedied prior to conducting baseline observations of the
target behavior. This can be accomplished by conducting reliability
observations and checking agreement levels on the target behavior prior to
formal baseline observations.
The protocols for estimating agreement differ depending on the
measurement procedure used to assess the target behavior. Methods for
estimating frequency and interval reliability will be discussed as these
protocols can be adapted for all other measurement systems (e.g., duration).
If frequency of the target behavior is the measurement system used then
interobserver agreement is assessed using a percentage frequency agreement
between observers. This percentage agreement measures the degree to which
both observers agree regarding the occurrence of the target behavior.
Interobserver agreement is calculated by dividing the smaller frequency by
the larger frequency and multiplying by 100. For example, the number of
times a student hits other students may be a target for intervention in a
classroom. Two observers independently count the number of times the
student hits others during an observation session in the school. By the end of
the observation period one observer has counted 10 hits while the other
observer has counted 8 hits. Percentage agreement for this observation was
therefore 80 percent ([8/10] x 100). It is important to note that this form of
reliability reflects agreement on the total number of responses and not on
any specific response. It is impossible to determine whether observers agree
on each specific response. Such agreement estimates must therefore be
treated with caution as they may conceal disagreement on individual target
responses.
Interobserver agreement with interval recording methods is usually
calculated on the basis of the percentage of intervals in which two observers
agree on the occurrence of the target behavior. An agreement is scored if
both observers agree on the occurrence of the target behavior during the
same interval. A disagreement is scored if one observer records the behavior
as occurring during an interval and the other observer does not.
Interobserver agreement is calculated by dividing the number of intervals
which both observers agreed the behavior occurred (agreements) by the
number of intervals that they did not agree the behavior occurred
(disagreements) plus the number of agreements and multiplying by 100. For
example, if two observers recorded behavior for 20 10-second intervals and
agreed on the occurrence of the behavior for 15 intervals and disagreed on 5
intervals, overall agreement would be [15/(5 + 15)] x 100 = 75%. While this is
the generally accepted method for calculating interval agreement, some
investigators have questioned whether agreement should be confined to
intervals where both observers record an occurrence of the behavior.
Agreement can also be extended to intervals where both observers record a
nonoccurrence of the behavior. The inclusion of nonoccurrences as well as
occurrences in the calculation of interval reliability percentages inflates
reliability estimates beyond the level obtained when occurrences alone are
calculated. The more conservative estimate of interobserver agreement is to
use occurrence agreement percentages only.

7.7 Functional Assessment and Analysis of

Aberrant Behavior

At the beginning of this chapter a model was presented that identified the
important parameters to be considered when conducting an assessment of
behavior. In addition to operationalizing the target behavior, this model
emphasized an assessment of the environmental stimuli (both antecedent
and consequent stimuli) that entered into functional relationships with that
behavior. It is no accident that the majority of this chapter focuses on the
strategies used to develop a clear identification of the target behavior. Until
recently, applied behavior analysts have primarily been interested in
isolating target behaviors and selecting interventions to increase or decrease
the frequency of these behaviors. The behavior of applied behavior analysts
themselves (in terms of the interventions they have selected) seems to have
been controlled by the structure or topography of the target behaviors rather
than by the operant function of these behaviors. For example, the target
behavior might be "eye gouging", without reference to its function for the
individual. This approach contradicts a fundamental premise of behavioral
analysis which describes behavior primarily in terms of its function (see
Chapter 1). These points do not detract from the importance of
systematically identifying and operationalizing target behaviors. However,
an analysis of the environmental determinants of target behaviors from a
functional perspective has often been missing from the practice of
behavioral assessment. The assessment of severe aberrant behavior is one
notable exception to this. Over the last decade the majority of published
studies that have examined aberrant behavior have conducted a functional
assessment or analysis of the environmental determinants of target
behaviors and subsequently matched a treatment to maintaining
contingencies. It is therefore instructive to examine the assessment strategies
developed in this particular area of applied behavior analysis.
The term functional assessment has been used to describe a variety of
systematic procedures to determine antecedent and consequent variables
which occasion and maintain aberrant behaviors. Functional assessment
typically involves a process whereby target behaviors are defined by
interviewing significant others and are subsequently observed in naturalistic
contexts (in those contexts where the behavior has been described as being
problematic). This form of assessment reveals correlational information
regarding establishing/discriminative conditions and consequences for the
target behavior. Assessment procedures may also involve the systematic
manipulation of hypothesized controlling variables to empirically
demonstrate causal relationships. This latter assessment technique is
typically referred to as a functional analysis (Axelrod, 1987; Iwata, Dorsey,
Slifer, Bauman, & Richman, 1982).
A knowledge of controlling variables derived from such assessment
protocol assists in the development of effective treatment procedures in at
least three ways (Lennox & Miltenburger, 1989). First, assessment may
identify reinforcing consequences (positive or negative) contingent on target
behavior performance which can subsequently be eliminated or prevented
(Carr, Newsom, & Binkoff, 1980). This means that instead of the planned
intervention "inventing" new contingencies to modify problem target
behavior, it can change those that already control it. Second, an assessment
may identify motivational (Michael, 1982; 1993) and/or discriminative
(Skinner, 1935) conditions that evoke the target behavior, and by removing
or altering these conditions the behavior may be prevented (Dunlap, Kern-
Dunlap, Clarke, & Robbins, 1991). For example, if sleep deprivation leads to
inappropriate aggression, the aggression can be eliminated by ensuring that
suffcient sleep takes place (O'Reilly, 1995). Finally, such pre-intervention
assessments may allow the practitioner to identify more efficient and
socially appropriate responses to access similar consequences as the
problematic behaviors (Carr & Durand, 1985). That is, if the client engages in
the problem target behavior because it is their only way of obtaining
attention from caregivers, for example, that attention may be provided
contingent upon other, more acceptable, behavior.
The remainder of this chapter will outline specific examples of functional
assessment and functional analysis strategies, and examine their strengths
and weaknesses.

7.8 Functional Assessment

The major functional assessment protocols include behavioral interviews

and direct observation methods such as scatterplots and ABC assessments.

Behavioral Interview

Behavioral interviews rely on subjective verbal reports to identify the nature

of the aberrant behavior and the environmental conditions that are
controlling it (Cone, 1987). Those who are interviewed (such as parents,
teachers, and others) should be in daily contact with the client and therefore
be in a position to describe events as they have witnessed them in the past
and to draw conclusions about the causes of an individual's behavior. There
are three main objectives of a behavioral interview: 1) operationalization of
the behavior(s) – what is it?; 2) identification of those physical and
environmental factor(s) predictive of the aberrant behavior(s) - when does it
occur?; 3) identification of the potential functions of behavior(s) in terms of
their maintaining consequences– what reinforces it?
To achieve these outcomes a complete interview should include questions
which probe the informant about the topography of the behavior, the
situations in which it does and does not occur, and the typical reactions of
others in response to the aberrant behavior. In essence, the behavioral
interview attempts to review a large number of potential variables and
narrow the focus to those that appear to be of some importance in
generating and maintaining the undesirable behavior. A number of
behavioral rating scales, checklists, and questionnaires are commercially
available and can be used to guide the interview process. For example, one
of the most frequently used instruments is the Motivation Assessment Scale
(Durand, 1990) which provides a specific description of the targeted problem
behavior and attempts to isolate one of four possible reasons for this
behavior: positive reinforcement in the form of attention, positive
reinforcement through access to materials, negative reinforcement through
escape, or sensory reinforcement. Some examples of questions used in the
Motivation Assessment Scale are presented in Table 7.3. These questions
assess whether the aberrant behavior serves a sensory function (i.e.,
automatic positive or negative reinforcement); a negative reinforcement
function (i.e., escape from tasks); and a positive reinforcement function (i.e.,
access to attention) respectively.
Table 7.3 Examples of Questions Used in the Motivation Assessment Scale (Durand, 1990)
 Would the behavior occur continuously, over and over, if this person
1. was left
alone for long periods of time? (For example, several hours).
Does the behavior stop occurring shortly after (one to five minutes) you
14. stop
working or making demands on this person?
Does this person seem to do the behavior to get you to spend some time
15. with
him or her?

There are a number of advantages to the interview approach, including

ease of application, cost and efficiency (administration takes only a brief
period). On the reverse side of the coin, there are a number of inherent
difficulties. Such methods do not allow for direct access to the relevant
behaviors and their controlling variables and are therefore subject to a
variety of difficulties including faulty recollection of events, observer bias,
observer expectation etc. (Kazdin, 1994). As such, information gained
through these methods may provide unreliable estimates of behavior and
lead to invalid conclusions about its controlling variables.

Direct Observation Procedures

A more objective and systematic approach to assessment involves first hand

observation of an individual's behavior in environmental contexts that are
relevant to the problem. The individual is observed in their typical daily
routine in as many settings and across as much time per day as is possible
for a minimum period of 3-5 days (O'Neill, Horner, Albin, Storey, & Sprague,
1990). Notably, there is little, if any, control exerted over the environmental
conditions during assessment. Such direct observations should be based
upon information gleaned from the interview process (i.e., behaviors and
situations that have been identified as problematic are observed). The
process is usually carried out by those parents, teachers, and support staff
who already work with the individual and is conducted in a manner that
does not require extensive training on their part. Two general classes of
descriptive analyses have been forwarded in the literature and each will be
discussed.

The Antecedent – Behavior – Consequence (ABC) Assessment

This observation method attempts to evaluate the immediate antecedent and

consequent events surrounding the target behavior and assess the extent to
which these specific events may be related to the occurrence of behavior.
This assessment usually entails a narrative account of directly observed
behavior and temporally related environmental events (Bijou, Peterson, &
Ault, 1968).
Those working with the individual exhibiting the aberrant behavior write
brief descriptors of what occurs immediately prior to and following the
target behavior. Such accounts are usually recorded on an ABC or sequence
analysis chart (Sulzer-Azaroff & Meyer, 1977). Although the procedure is
relatively easy to learn, it requires extensive effort to implement (Pyles &
Bailey, 1990). Further, such a procedure often leads to subjective
interpretation of events rather than objective descriptions (Lerman & Iwata,
1993).
To overcome such difficulties a number of approaches have been
recommended. It is essential that observers are aware of the temporal
parameters involved in an ABC assessment to combat the temptation to
record global environmental events that are far removed from the target
behavior. In a practical measure to overcome this difficulty of subjective
interpretation, Pyles and Bailey (1990) developed the "inappropriate record
form" which lists already-specified preceding and consequential events
coupled with the problem behavior. Observers are therefore cued to record
certain antecedent and consequent events upon the occurrence of the target
behavior. A less formal measure is simply to train observers not to infer
motivation from an observation but to describe events clearly and accurately
(Lennox & Miltenburger, 1989).

Scatterplot Assessment

The most recently-developed and simplest direct observation method is the

scatterplot assessment which records temporal distributions of behavior
(Touchette, MacDonald, & Langer, 1985). Observers are trained to record the
time of day of the occurrence of each instance of the target behavior on a
grid that identifies time of day on the ordinate (usually in 30 min segments)
and consecutive days on the abscissa. As the behaviors are repeatedly
observed and plotted, correlations between particular times of day and
differential rates of behavior can become evident. This data allows for more
detailed observational analyses (such as ABC assessments) during those time
periods in which the behavior has been identified as most probable. An
example of a scatterplot data sheet used by staff to identify the temporal
distribution of "scratching other clients" by an adult with severe mental
disabilities in a group home is presented in Figure 7.5. This scatterplot shows
that the target behavior clusters around certain time periods during the day
when the client was required to engage in task related activities. These
results would imply that the aggressive scratching behavior might be
maintained by negative reinforcement contingencies (i.e., escape from
demanding activities).
Direct observation methods have a number of advantages. They allow
direct access to problem behavior in the natural environment and therefore
are more objective in that they reflect current behavior and not recall of past
observations. Like most procedures, direct observations have a number of
limitations. Relative to indirect methods such procedures are time
consuming. More important perhaps is that these procedures do not
necessarily reveal functional relationships (Iwata, Vollmer, & Zarcone, 1990).
For example, it may be difficult to identify the consequences of behavior
maintained by intermittent reinforcement schedules (Lerman & Iwata, 1993).
Figure 7.5 Example of a scatterplot grid over a five-day period.
7.9 Functional Analysis

Experimental analyses of behavior constitute the final means of conducting

an assessment of aberrant behavior. The most distinguishing feature of this
method of analysis lies in its direct and systematic manipulation of variables
that potentially maintain the aberrant behavior (Iwata et al., 1990). Of the
many assessment techniques to evolve from the literature in recent years,
functional or experimental analyses have perhaps been used most
frequently. This approach has been used successfully in the analysis and
treatment of such behavior problems as stereotypic behavior (Durand &
Carr, 1987; Sturmey, Carisen, Crisp, & Newton, 1988), disruption (Carr &
Durand, 1985), aggression (Slifer, Ivancic, Parrish, Page, & Burgio, 1986), pica
(Mace & Knight, 1986), and self-injurious behavior (O'Reilly, 1996).
This form of analysis is important for many reasons. First, it emphasizes
the importance of gaining information about the contingencies maintaining
behavior rather than merely describing the topographical features (e.g.,
biting or hitting). It also explains how topographically similar behaviors can
serve different functions for a given individual. For example, one individual
may engage in self-injurious behavior to gain access to attention and their
behavior may be maintained by attention functioning as positive
reinforcement. On the other hand, another individual's self-injury may be
negatively reinforced and serve to escape from an aversive situation. It is
through a realization of these different functions of topographically similar
behaviors that researchers have recognized the need to develop highly
individualized treatment programs that are tailored to the specific function
of aberrant behavior.
Methods of conducting such an in-depth analysis of the functions of
behavior are a relatively recent advance, with the degree of rigor and
sophistication of the different methods varying. The control necessary to
adequately demonstrate functional relationships in an experimental analysis
is often difficult to obtain in the natural environment. Functional
relationships are therefore often verified in an analogue setting which
approximates the natural environment. Once the conditions that control the
behavior are identified, these contingencies can then be manipulated in the
natural environment. Iwata et al., (1990) describe this model as involving at
least one condition (experimental) in which the variable of interest is present
and another condition (control) in which the variable is absent. These
conditions are then alternated in a multielement or reversal design while the
behavior of interest is observed. A complete description of these
experimental designs is found in Chapter 8.
There are two variations of this model that can be found in the literature.
One approach involves demonstration of the effects of a single hypothetical
controlling variable (such as attention from a care-giver) on a particular
behavior. An early example of this method was conducted by Lovaas and
Simmons (1969) in which a client who exhibited self-injury was exposed to
several conditions differing on the variable of attention (social deprivation,
non-contingent delivery of attention, and social attention contingent on
occurrences of self-injurious behavior), and demonstrated that self-injury
was higher during the contingent attention condition.
More recent research has shown that aberrant behavior may be multiply
controlled (that is, simultaneously influenced by a number of reinforcers)
and therefore a second model has developed in which several variables are
compared to determine behavioral function. Iwata et al., (1994) presented an
epidemiological analysis of 152 cases that used a multielement design format
to compare four analogue conditions to assess the function of self-injury.
These analogue conditions assessed the impact of positive reinforcement
(attention contingent on self-injury), negative reinforcement (escape from
demands contingent on self-injury), automatic reinforcement (placement in
a barren environment with no access to either attention or toys), and a
control (no attention for self-injury, no demands, play materials available
and attention contingent on the absence of self-injury). Their results showed
specific functions of these various sources of reinforcement for 145 of the
cases. Two hypothetical examples of analogue analyses for self-injury using
multielement designs are presented in Figure 7.6. For Graph 1 in the figure
there are higher levels of self-injury in the attention condition relative to the
other conditions. These results imply that self-injury for this individual is
maintained by social positive reinforcement. In Graph 2 we see higher levels
of self-injury in the demand condition relative to the other conditions. The
results in graph 2 imply that self-injury for this person is maintained by
escape from task demands or social negative reinforcement.
Among the strengths of an experimental functional analysis are its
objectivity and quantitative precision and its ability to analyze the effects of
several variables. It has also been noted that the control condition included
in an experimental analysis may indicate some temporary intervention
strategies that can be implemented until the treatment program is designed
and put into effect. Procedures to reduce aberrant behaviors will be
discussed in detail in Chapter 10.
Although providing more conclusive data, one potential disadvantage
with conducting such an assessment is that it may be difficult or impractical
Figure 7.6 Functional analysis results of self-injury for two individuals.

for use in many applied settings due to the stringent control necessary and
also the limitations of staff, time, and facilities (Lennox & Miltenburger,
1989). However, Iwata, et al., (1990) point out that "this criticism is
unwarranted because precisely the same requirements must be met in order
to implement most treatment programs with any degree of consistency" (p.
310). In recent years, Wacker and colleagues (see, for example, Northup,
Wacker, Sasso, Cigrand, Cook, & DeRaad, 1991) have shown how such
analyses of aberrant behavior may be successfully carried out during one 90-
minute outpatient clinic session. O'Reilly, O'Kane, Byrne, and Lancioni
(1996) used a mini-reversal design during a 60-rninute therapy session to
establish the antecedent variables of challenging behavior for a person with
severe brain injuries. This research overcomes the potential problem of an
extended experimental analysis delaying implementation of an effective
treatment.
Another potential disadvantage, which has been suggested by LaVigna
and Donnellan (1986), is that the analogue analysis may not be ecologically
valid (that is, it may not mirror exactly the variables operating in the natural
environment). This is a potentially serious problem, but it has been
overcome in studies where experimental analyses have been successfully
conducted in natural settings such as classrooms (Sasso & Reimers, 1988) and
outpatient clinics with parents present (Northup et al., 1991). Additionally,
Iwata et al., (1990) point out that a functional analysis does not reveal the
functional variables involved but merely tests those variables that have been
proposed through prior functional assessments. Hypothesized contingencies
must be systematically identified prior to an experimental analysis.
Therefore, all functional analyses must encompass additional information
from background sources to facilitate how best to construct the analysis (i.e.,
to identify which variables to manipulate).
Research on the functional assessment and analysis of aberrant behavior
has made a unique contribution to the behavioral assessment literature.
These assessment technologies emphasize an examination of the
environmental determinants of target behaviors. Interventions can therefore
be selected based on the function of the behavior. Traditionally, applied
behavior analysis assessment has focused on a detailed analysis of the target
behaviors at the expense of examining functional variables. This traditional
assessment approach results in the selection of intervention techniques that
must override current maintaining contingencies in order to produce
successful behavior change (Mace, 1994b). Implications for using such
assessment techniques on the selection of intervention strategies will be
discussed in detail in Chapters 9 and 10.

7.10 Summary

Applied behavioral assessment involves selecting and defining the behavior

to be changed. Additionally, it is important for behavior analysts to identify
the environmental conditions that influence the probability of the behavior
targeted for change. These environmental variables can occur prior to and
following the target behavior. A detailed knowledge of these contextual
influences on the target behavior will help the behavior analyst to select
interventions that may increase adaptive behavior or decrease maladaptive
behavior.
Behavioral assessment is a rigorous process involving a number of steps.
First, a socially relevant target behavior must be identified. Behaviors
selected for change must be of primary importance to the individual client.
Changes in the selected behaviors should maximize positive outcomes and
minimize negative outcomes for the client. Target behaviors must then be
operationalized to reveal a clear, complete, and objective description of the
behavior to be changed. This clarifies to all involved (for example, client,
family, therapist) the nature of the behavior to be changed, it also allows for
an ongoing evaluation of changes in the behavior throughout the treatment
process. Complex target behaviors can be broken down into a series of
discrete behaviors known as a task analysis.
Second, a measurement system is selected to provide a continuous
assessment of the target behavior before, during, and after the intervention.
The measurement system should be sensitive to the relevant dimensions of
the target behavior. It must also be possible to use the selected measurement
system in an unobtrusive manner within an applied context. Common
measures used include frequency, duration, latency, and interval protocol.
Third, observations must be conducted in such a manner as to yield a
representative sample of the target behavior. It is important to consider
when to observe, where to observe, and the length of time for each
observation. Additionally, interobserver reliability should be conducted
throughout the behavioral program. Agreement estimates provide an
assessment of the consistency and accuracy with which the target behavior
is measured.
Recent developments in the assessment and analysis of aberrant behavior
were discussed in the final sections of this chapter. Functional assessment
and functional analysis protocol examine the relationship between behavior
and its environmental determinants. Prior to using any of these assessment
techniques the target behavior must be systematically identified and
operationalized according to the criteria outlined earlier in the chapter.
Functional assessment protocols describe a set of techniques which include
interview and observational methods to identify environmental events that
evoke and maintain the aberrant responding. These functional assessment
techniques produce correlational information regarding the controlling
variables. Functional analysis protocols involve the systematic manipulation
of hypothesized causal variables and therefore make a causal analysis
possible. Whenever feasible, functional analyzes should be conducted in
natural settings, or using materials from natural settings, in order to produce
results that are externally valid. Interventions can then be tailored to the
function of the behavior identified through these assessments.
Chapter 8
Single-Case Experimental Designs
In Chapter 7 we outlined the protocols used to identify, operationalize, and
assess target behaviors over time. Applied behavior analysis is also
characterized by a series of experimental techniques known as single-case
designs. These experimental techniques are used to determine if changes in
the dependent variable or target behavior can be attributed to the
independent variable or treatment. Single-case research designs are therefore
used to examine whether treatment applications actually cause the desired
change in the target behavior. In other words, these experimental techniques
examine the functional relationships between changes in the environment
and changes in the target behavior. Single-case designs are also unique in
their ability to examine causally such functional relations with individual
cases (i.e., one person) in addition to groups of individuals. Applied behavior
analysts use several different types of single-case designs. These designs can
also be combined to tease out complex maintaining variables (Higgins-Hains
& Baer, 1989). Despite the variety of single-case designs, they are all based
on the same set of fundamental premises and techniques.

8.1 Internal and External Validity

All single-case methods are designed to eliminate threats to internal

validity. Internal validity refers to the extent to which a research method can
rule out alternative explanations for changes in the target behavior. The
application of a treatment does not occur in a vacuum. There are other
dynamic environmental conditions that are constantly changing and
influencing a person's behavior. These other environmental influences may
pose as alternative explanations for changes in the target behavior above and
beyond the treatment application, and are thus described as threats to
internal validity. Several categories of threats to internal validity have been
described in the literature (see Kazdin, 1982). History and maturation are
two such threats. History refers to any environmental event that occurs
concurrently with the experiment or intervention and could account for
similar results as those attributed to the intervention. History encapsulates a
myriad of possible idiosyncratic environmental influences for a given case
(for example, negative interactions with individuals, adverse environmental
conditions etc.). Maturation refers to any changes in the target behavior over
time that may result from processes within the person. These personal
processes may include the health of the individual, boredom, or aging. For
example, allergy symptoms have been shown to have a significant influence
on treatment applications (Kennedy & Meyer, 1996). Single-case research
methods are designed to rule out these and other threats to internal validity.
The process by which each design accomplishes this will be discussed in later
sections of this chapter.

External validity refers to the ability to extend the findings of an experiment

to other persons, settings, and clinical syndromes with confidence. Some
applied researchers have proposed that external validity should take
precedence over internal validity when designing applied research studies
(Kazdin, 1982). While such a proposition is probably incorrect, because
demonstrating internal validity is a necessary prerequisite for demonstrating
external validity, it emphasizes the importance of external validity in applied
research.
Aspects of the experimental preparation that may limit the generality of
findings are referred to as threats to external validity. There are numerous
threats to the external validity of an experiment (see Cook & Campbell,
1979; Kazdin, 1982). Two of these threats include generality across settings,
responses and time; and multiple treatment interference. This former threat
to external validity proposes that, for any experimental manipulation, the
results may be restricted to the particular target behaviors within the
immediate context of the intervention and during the time of intervention
only. Such threats to external validity can be minimized by using particular
research design options (such as multiple baseline designs, discussed below)
that can systematically examine these issues of generalization within the
context of a given experimental preparation. Multiple treatment interference
occurs when two or more treatments are evaluated with a given target
behavior. When treatments are compared there is always the possibility that
the effects of one treatment are confounded by experience with a previous
treatment. In other words, the sequence of treatment administration may
influence the performance of the individual. Strong conclusions about the
influence of any one treatment cannot be made from such an experimental
preparation. Extended single-case experimental preparations can be used to
tease the relative effects of two or more treatments (see Barlow & Hersen,
1984) but such research designs may be impractical in most applied settings
(Higgins-Hains & Baer, 1989).

8.2 Graphic Display

Single-case research designs typically use graphic display to present an

ongoing visual representation of each assessment session. Graphic display is
a simple visual method for organizing, interpreting, and communicating
findings in the field of applied behavior analysis. While many forms of
graphic display can be used the majority of applied research results are
presented in simple line graphs or frequency polygons. A line graph is a two
dimensional plane formed by the intersection of two perpendicular lines.
Each data point plotted on a line graph represents a relationship between the
two properties described by the intersecting lines. In applied behavior
analysis the line graph represents changes in the dependent variable (e.g.,
frequency, rate, or percentage of the target behavior per session) relative to a
specific point in time and/or treatment (independent) variable.
 An example of a line graph is presented in Figure 8.1. The major features
of this graph include the horizontal and vertical axes, condition change lines,
condition labels, data points and data paths. The horizontal axis represents
the passage of time (consecutive sessions) and the different levels of the
independent variable (baseline and intervention). The vertical axis represents
values of the dependent variable. The condition change lines represent that
point in time when the levels of the independent variable were
systematically changed. Condition labels are brief descriptions of the
experimental conditions in effect during each phase of the study. Each data
point represents the occurrence of the target behavior during a session under
a given experimental condition. Connecting the data points with a straight
line under a given experimental condition creates a data path. A data path
represents the relationship between the independent and dependent
variables and is of primary interest when interpreting graphed data (see
below).
The use of graphic display to examine functional relations has a number
of inherent benefits. First, as a judgmental aid, it is easy to use and easy to
learn (Michael, 1974). Second, it allows the therapist to have an ongoing
access to a complete record of the participant's behavior. Behavior change
can therefore be evaluated continuously. If the treatment is not proving
effective then the therapist can alter the treatment protocol and
subsequently evaluate these changes on an ongoing basis. Third, visual
analysis provides a stringent method for evaluating the effectiveness of
behavior change programs (Baer, 1977). Finally, graphic display provides an
objective assessment of the effectiveness of the independent variable. These
displays allow for independent judgements on the meaning and significance
of behavior change strategies.
Figure 8.1 Hypothetical example of a single-case design graph depicting the major features of graphic
display.

Interpreting Graphic Displays

The primary method of analysis with all single-case research designs is a

visual interpretation of graphic displays. There are several properties of
graphic displays that are important to consider when making a
determination of the effects of the treatment variable on the target behavior
or when deciding to change from one condition (e.g., baseline) to another
(e.g., treatment) during an applied behavioral intervention. These properties
include number of data points, overall stability of the data, data levels, and
data trends.
It is important to collect a sufficient number of data points in order to
provide a believable estimate of the performance of the target behavior
under a given experimental condition. There are no hard and fast rules about
the number of data points that should be collected under a given
experimental condition. Sidman (1960) suggests that at least three measures
of the target behavior should be collected per experimental condition. This is
an optimal suggestion if the data path is stable (see below) and the nature of
the target behavior allows for multiple assessments under baseline and
intervention conditions. For example, if the target behavior is dangerous to
the client or others (for example, when it involves aggression) it may be
unethical to conduct extended assessments under baseline conditions (that
is, when the treatment variable is not present).

Figure 8.2 Hypothetical example of a stable data path (Graph A) and variable data points (Graph B).

Stability refers to a lack of variability in the data under a given

experimental condition. In Figure 8.2 it is clear that Graph A presents a
stable data path whereas the data in Graph B are variable. It is unusual in
applied research to achieve prefect stability of data as illustrated in Graph A.
Tawney and Gast (1984) provide a general rule for determining stability of
data within experimental conditions. We may concluded that there is
stability if 80-90% of the data points within a condition fall within a 15%
range of the mean level of all data points for that particular experimental
condition. It is unusual for applied researchers to use such mathematical
formulae. If stability is not obvious from a visual examination of the data
then it may be prudent to identify those environmental stimuli that are
causing such variability in the data set. This further analysis may yield
additional functional variables that may need to be manipulated to achieve
successful intervention results.

Figure 8.3 Stable baseline data (Graph A) allow for a clear interpretation of the effectiveness of
treatment in the intervention phase. When baseline data are variable (Graph B) it becomes difficult to
evaluate the effects of the treatment in the intervention phase.

Stability of data within a given experimental condition is also important

because the data path serves a predictive function for interpreting data
within the subsequent experimental condition. A stable data path within a
given experimental condition allows the therapist to infer that if that
experimental condition was continued over time, a similar data pattern
would emerge (see Figure 8.3). The effects of the subsequent condition are
determined by comparing the observed data (i.e., the actual data obtained
when the experimental conditions were changed) with the predicted data
from the previous condition. Stability of predicted data therefore allows for
a clearer interpretation of the effect of subsequent experimental conditions
on the target behavior. In Figure 8.3 the predicted data paths for a stable data
set (Graph A) and variable data set (Graph B) are plotted. It is obvious that
the effects of the intervention can be more clearly interpreted by comparing
predicted with observed data for Graph A than for Graph B.
Figure 8.4 There is a clear change in level between the last data point of the baseline phase and the
first data point of the intervention phase in Graph A. There is no change in level between the baseline
and intervention in Graph B until the third data point of the intervention phase. This delayed change
in level when treatment is applied may mean that something other than the treatment caused a
change in the target behavior.

Level can be defined as the value of a behavioral measure or group of

measures on the vertical axis of a line graph. Level can be used to describe
overall performance within an experimental condition or between
experimental conditions. Typically, the levels of performance within and
between conditions are analyzed visually by the therapist. However, a mean
level can also be calculated for each condition. Stability and level are
inextricably linked in the visual analysis of data. If extreme variability exists
in the data paths then a visual examination of level within and between
conditions may be impossible. Level is also used to examine the difference
between the last data point of a condition and the first data point of the
following experimental condition. If there is an obvious level change in
behavior at that point in time when the new experimental condition is
implemented then the therapist can more confidently infer that the change
in behavior is due to a change in the experimental condition. In Figure 8.4
(Graph A) there is an obvious level change between conditions when the
intervention is implemented. In Graph B the level change during the
intervention phase does not occur until the third data point. It may be the
case for Graph B that something other than or in addition to the
intervention causes a level change in behavior from the third data point
onwards.
Trend can be defined as the overall direction taken by a data path. Trends
can be described as increasing, decreasing, or zero. A stable data path
represents a zero trend, increasing and decreasing trends can be problematic
for interpreting data. If, for example, a therapist wants to increase
responding, an increasing trend in the baseline data path may make
interpretation of the effects of the intervention difficult (see Figure 8.5,
Graph A). This logic also holds for decreasing trends (see Figure 8.5, Graph
B). It is advisable in such cases to withhold the intervention until the data
path stabilizes under baseline conditions or until the behavior reaches the
desired goal. In some applied situations it may be impractical (the presence
of the therapist may be time-limited) or unethical (the behavior may be
dangerous to self or others) to withhold treatment for extended periods. In
these situations experimental control may need to be sacrificed in order to
achieve the desired behavioral outcomes. Under some circumstances a trend
in data may not interfere with the interpretation of the subsequent
experimental condition. This is true for situations where the trend under a
given experimental condition is going in the opposite direction that would
be predicted when the subsequent experimental condition is implemented
(see Figure 8.5, Graph C).

8.3 Withdrawal or ABAB Designs

Withdrawal or ABAB designs represent a series of experimental

arrangements whereby selected conditions are systematically presented and
withdrawn over time. This design typically consists of two phases, a baseline
or A phase and an intervention or B phase that are replicated (hence the
ABAB notation). The design begins with an assessment of behavior under
baseline conditions. Once the target behavior stabilizes
Figure 8.5 An increasing or decreasing trend in baseline data paths can be problematic if the
subsequent intervention is designed to increase (Graph A) or decrease (Graph B) the target behavior
respectively. A trend in the baseline data path may not interfere with an interpretation of an
intervention effect if the treatment is designed to change the trend in the opposite direction (Graph C).

under baseline conditions the intervention condition is implemented. The

intervention condition is continued until the target behavior reaches a stable
level or diverges from the level predicted from the baseline data. At this
point the intervention is withdrawn and the baseline condition is replicated
until stability is achieved. Finally the intervention condition is once again
implemented. Experimental control is achieved when there is a visible
difference between the data paths in the A and B phases and this difference
is again achieved in the A and B phase replications.

Figure 8.6 Percentage of intervals of stereotypy during transition between work activities for a man
with autism. This ABAB design compared immediate requests with an advanced notice procedure to
change work tasks (Tustin, 1995).

Examples of the use of ABAB designs abound in the applied literature. In

a recent study, Tustin (1995) used a withdrawal design to compare the effects
of two methods of requesting activity change on the stereotypic behavior of
an adult with autism. Persons with autism tend to engage in stereotypic
behavior (e.g., body rocking, hand flapping) when asked to change from one
activity to another. An immediate request for change involved the work
supervisor presenting new materials, removing present materials, and
instructing the new task. An advanced notice request involved much the
same behavior by the work supervisor with the exception that the activities
for the new task were placed in view of the participant 2 minutes prior to
the request to change tasks. Stereotypy was measured using a partial
interval recording procedure, and the influence of the two requesting
conditions was examined over a 20-day period. The results of the
investigation are presented in Figure 8.6. The immediate request condition
produced a relatively stable pattern of responding during the first five days
of the assessment. The advanced notice request condition produced an
immediate reduction in stereotypy and stable responding over the next five
days. These results were again replicated in an immediate and advanced
notice condition. The results of the ABAB design clearly show the
effectiveness of the advanced notice requesting technique in reducing
stereotypy when transitioning between tasks for this participant.
In another example, Friman and Vollmer (1995) examined the effectiveness
of a urine alarm to treat chronic diurnal enuresis for a young female
diagnosed with depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Wetness was examined twice a day under baseline conditions (i.e., no
intervention in place) for a 5-week period. The participant was then fitted
with a moisture sensitive alarm for 4 weeks. The baseline and alarm
conditions were then replicated. The results of this study are presented in
Figure 8.7. During the initial baseline assessment the participant had wetting
accidents each day. Once the alarm intervention was implemented the
wetting accidents decreased dramatically to zero levels. When the alarm was
removed (second baseline condition) the number of wetting accidents
increased again but did not return to the same level observed during the
initial baseline condition. Once the alarm was reinstated the number of
accidents decreased to zero with maintenance of these results for up to 6
months.
Figure 8.7 Number of accident days per week for an adolescent girl with diurnal enuresis (Friman &
Vollmer, 1995).
Figure 8.8 The number of self-identified designated drivers per evening during weekend evenings in a
college campus bar. The mean number of self-identified designated drivers in each phase for the
design is also included in the graph (Brigham, Meier, & Goodner, 1995).

Finally, Brigham, Meier, and Goodner (1995) examined the influence of a

prompts-with-incentives program to increase designated drivers in a local
bar (that is, people who would not drink alcohol that night, and thus be fit to
drive). The intervention consisted of a series of posters displayed around the
bar that indicated the availability of free non-alcoholic beverages (beer,
wine, coffee, juice etc.) for those patrons who identified themselves as
designated drivers. These posters were not displayed during baseline
conditions. The dependent measure consisted of those bar patrons who
identified themselves as designated drivers to the bar staff (and received free
beverages) and subsequently drove a vehicle away from the bar. The
intervention was conducted on Friday and Saturday nights and used an
ABAB design to evaluate its effectiveness (see Figure 8.8). Overall, the
results of this study indicate that there is an increase in designated drivers
under the intervention conditions. However, these results are not as clear as
those of the other two studies described. For example, there is not a clear
visual differentiation or separation between the data paths under baseline
and intervention conditions. Additionally, there is no immediate level
change between the last data point of the second baseline phase and the first
data point of the second intervention phase. Data paths during both
intervention conditions did not achieve stability, however there is a data
trend in the direction expected by the intervention (the intervention is
expected to increase designated drivers). Based on these visual analyses of
the data, the positive effects of the intervention must be interpreted with
caution.

Variations of the Withdrawal Design

Withdrawal designs can be adapted to answer additional research questions

(other than the comparative effect of a baseline and an intervention on a
dependent variable) and to examine causality where the traditional design
strategy would be inappropriate. For example, the ABAB design has been
used to examine the influence of a baseline and intervention condition on
multiple and simultaneous data paths. Kern, Wacker, Mace, Falk, Dunlap,
and Kromrey (1995) evaluated the effects of a seif-evaluation program to
improve peer interactions of students with emotional and behavior
disorders. The experimental protocol used by Kern et al., (1995) included a
withdrawal design that simultaneously measured appropriate and
inappropriate interactions of the targeted students with their peers during
observation sessions.
Withdrawal designs can also be used to examine the effectiveness of more
than one treatment. Occasionally the initial treatment (in the B phase) may
fail to achieve sufficient change in the target behavior. In such situations an
alternative treatment may be examined. This type of design is typically
described as an ABABCBC design. Such a design incorporates a systematic
comparison of the first treatment with baseline (ABAB) and the first
treatment with the second treatment (BCBC). The results of such treatment
comparisons must be interpreted with caution as they do not rule out
sequence effects (that is, the effectiveness of C may be influenced by the fact
that it was preceded by B). Jason and Liotta (1982) used an ABABCBC
design to compare the effects of sign prompting alone and sign prompting
plus verbal prompting on the reduction of smoking at a university cafeteria.
Figure 8.9 shows the results of this study. The sign prompting alone did not
produce a significant change in the number of smokers or the number of
minutes smoked during observation sessions. When sign prompting was
combined with verbal prompting there was a significant reduction in the
target behaviors.
The sequence of A and B conditions in a withdrawal design can also be
reversed, to BABA, without compromising the experimental validity of this
Figure 8.9 An example of an ABABCBC design. This research examined the influence of two
interventions (sign prompting and sign plus verbal prompting) on minutes smoking and number of
smokers in a university cafeteria. The first intervention (sign prompting alone) was not successful (see
ABAB phases of the design). Sign prompting was then compared with sign plus verbal prompting (see
BCBC phases of the design) (Jason & Liotta, 1982).

design option. In other words, once the target behavior is clearly identified
the intervention can be implemented immediately. Once the data path
achieves stability in the B phase the intervention can then be withdrawn.
These phases can then be replicated. For applied intervention purposes the
design can be completed with a third replication of the intervention phase
(i.e., BABAB). Several authors have suggested such a design option for
behavior that is in need of immediate intervention (behavior that is of
danger to self or others) (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 1987; Tawney & Gast,
1984). However, this research protocol would be inappropriate in such cases
as it continues to require a return to pre-intervention conditions. Alternative
design strategies that do not require extended baseline assessments (such as
multielement designs) would be more efficient and ethically appropriate in
such cases.

Considerations when Selecting Withdrawal Designs

Withdrawal designs have been described as the most rigorous of the single-
case research options for ruling out threats to internal validity (Kazdin,
1994). The withdrawal design is a very effective means of examining the
effects of a treatment on selected target behaviors. There are several issues
that must be considered however, before selecting to use the withdrawal
design above one of the other design options. This design option
demonstrates experimental control by systematically applying and removing
the treatment variables. The purposeful withdrawal of treatment is seldom a
preferable option in clinical practice. There may therefore be ethical reasons
(as in the example of behavior that is dangerous to self or others) for not
using such a design option. Certain types of behaviors (e.g., social skills)
might be expected to maintain or at least to continue to be performed above
initial baseline levels after the intervention is withdrawn. If the target
behavior does not revert to the initial baseline levels with the withdrawal of
treatment (i.e., second A phase) then experimental control is lost. It is
therefore important to consider whether the target behavior would be
sensitive to the changing contingencies of an ABAB design. Again,
alternative designs can be chosen if this is a potential issue.

8.4 Multiple Baseline Designs

The multiple baseline design is an experimental preparation whereby the
independent variable is sequentially applied to a minimum of two levels of a
dependent variable. There are three types of multiple baseline design
described in the literature. The multiple baseline across behaviors design
examines behavior change across two or more behaviors of a particular
individual. The multiple baseline across settings design examines changes in
the same behavior of the same individual across two or more different
settings. Finally, the multiple baseline across subjects design examines
changes in the same behavior across two or more individuals. The multiple
baseline design can therefore examine the effects of a treatment variable
across multiple behaviors for an individual, across multiple settings for a
given behavior of an individual, and across multiple individuals for a given
behavior. It is essential that only one component of the dependent variable
(i.e., behaviors, settings, or persons) be systematically changed within the
context of an experiment. If, for example, the effects of an independent
variable were examined across different behaviors of different persons then
it would be unclear whether changes in the dependent variable were a
function of different individuals, different behaviors, or a combination of
both.
Experimental control is demonstrated by sequentially applying the
treatment variable across behaviors, settings, or persons. In a multiple
baseline across persons design, baseline data on a target behavior are
collected across two or more individuals. Once baseline reaches stability for
all individuals then the intervention is implemented with the first
individual. Baseline assessment is continued with the other individuals
while the intervention is implemented with the first individual. The behavior
of the first individual is expected to change while the other individuals
should continue to show stable baseline responding. The intervention is
continued with the first individual until the target behavior reaches a stable
level or diverges from the level predicted from the baseline data. At this
point the intervention is implemented with the second individual while the
third individual continues to remain under baseline conditions. This
procedure is continued until all individuals are exposed to the treatment
protocol. Experimental control is demonstrated if baseline responding
changes at that point in time when the treatment variable is applied to each
person. A minimum of two behaviors, persons, or settings are required to
demonstrate experimental control. Typically, three or more behaviors,
persons, or settings are used in a multiple baseline design.
A multiple baseline across persons design was used to examine the effects
of an instructional strategy to teach three children with autism to ask the
question "What's that?" when presented with novel stimuli during an
instructional task (Taylor & Harris, 1995). A time delay instructional
protocol was used to teach the response to the children when they were
presented with photographs of novel items. Photographs of novel items were
presented randomly during teaching sessions in which the children were
asked to name pictures of familiar items. The results of this investigation are
presented in Figure 8.10. During baseline conditions the children, for the
most part, did not ask the question when presented with novel photographs.
With the introduction of the instructional program the children rapidly
acquired the question asking skill. Each child did not begin to acquire the
question asking skill until the intervention was introduced. This example of
a multiple baseline design provides a clear demonstration of the effects of
the intervention on the acquisition of the skills by the students.
Figure 8.10 Percentage of correctly asking the question "What's that?" when pointing to a novel
stimulus across baseline and instruction phases of a multiple baseline design for three students with
autism (Taylor & Harris, 1995).

Jackson and Mathews (1995) used a multiple baseline design across

settings (that is, various grocery stores) to examine the effectiveness of a
public posting program on contributions to a senior citizens center. Grocery
store customers were given the opportunity to redeem coupons or to donate
the worth of the coupon to the senior center. The experimental condition
consisted of posting signs around the store that included visual and written
instructions and feedback on the value of coupons donated by customers the
previous week in that particular store. Figure 8.11 demonstrates the effects of
the public posting condition over baseline conditions across three stores. The
percentage and value of coupons donated are plotted separately. The results
of this public posting intervention are unclear. Baseline data did not achieve
stability prior to the intervention in any of the three stores. As a result it
would be difficult to predict what performance would be like if baseline
assessment had continued and the intervention had not been implemented.
Additionally, there are no clear level changes between baseline and
intervention conditions across the three stores. These results seem to
implicate that the intervention had little effect on shoppers behavior above
and beyond baseline conditions. This study also demonstrates an interesting
variation of the multiple baseline across settings design. There is no control
exerted over the number or identity of the individuals who purchase items
in each store during any given assessment period. This variation of a
multiple baseline across settings design is frequently used in community
behavior analysis applications (Greene, Winett, Van Houten, Geller, & Iwata,
1987).
In an example of a multiple baseline design across behaviors, Rasing and
Duker (1992) examined the effects of a teaching protocol to train social skills
to children with severe and profound hearing loss. The intervention was
implemented across two classrooms (consisting of 4 and 5 children
respectively). Experimental control was demonstrated using a multiple
baseline design across social skills for each classroom. The teaching strategy
consisted of modeling, role-play, corrective feedback for incorrect
responding, and positive reinforcement for correct responding. The social
skills taught included turn waiting during conversations, initiating
interactions with others, and interacting with others. The mean percentage
of intervals of appropriate and inappropriate instances of the target
behaviors for each class was recorded during observation sessions. The
results of the intervention for Class 2 are presented in Figure 8.12. These
results indicate a reduction of inappropriate instances of all three target
behaviors with the introduction of the intervention. The effects of the
intervention for appropriate instances of the behaviors are less definitive.
For turn waiting, the intervention produced a clear level change in
responding for the class, however, differences between baseline and
Figure 8.11 The effects of a public posting intervention across three stores on the percentage of
coupons (designated by the open squares in the graphs) and value of coupons (designated by the
closed dots in the graphs) per week that were donated to a local senior citizens center (Jackson &
Mathews, 1995).

intervention for the other two target behaviors are less dramatic. Overall,
the results of this intervention must be viewed with caution. Stable baselines
were not established for appropriate instances of initiating interactions and
interacting with others prior to introducing the intervention with the class.
This violates one of the fundamental properties of single-case research
design logic, as mentioned previously.
Figure 8.12 Percentage of intervals in which appropriate and inappropriate turn waiting, initiating
interactions, and interacting with others was observed for a class of students with severe/profound
hearing loss (Rasing & Duker, 1992).

Considerations when Selecting Multiple Baseline Designs

This design demonstrates experimental control by sequentially applying the

independent variable across multiple baselines (persons, behaviors, or
settings). A confident interpretation of the effects of the independent
variable can be obtained if there are visible changes in the data paths when
and only when the independent variable is applied across the separate
baselines. The multiple baseline design therefore does not require a
withdrawal of treatment in order to demonstrate experimental control. This
design option should be considered when it is expected that a withdrawal of
treatment might not result in a return of behavior to previous baseline
levels. Multiple baseline designs are often employed to examine the
effectiveness of teaching strategies on the acquisition of skills as such skills
are expected to maintain once instruction is withdrawn (Cuvo, 1979). The
multiple baseline design would not be an appropriate option for behaviors
that are in need of rapid elimination (such as behaviors that are dangerous
to self or others) as measurement of responding prior to intervention is
required.

8.5 Changing Criterion Designs

The changing criterion design is used to increase or decrease the rate of

responding of a behavior that is already in the repertoire of the individual.
As the design has such a specific application it is seldom reported in the
literature. This design demonstrates experimental control by showing that
the target behavior achieves and stabilizes at a series of predetermined
criteria of responding.
 A baseline level of responding is initially established for the target
behavior. Once behavior has stabilized under baseline conditions the
experimenter establishes a criterion of responding that is more stringent
than baseline levels of responding. The participant must achieve this
criterion in order to access reinforcement. Once behavior stabilizes at this
criterion an alternative criterion for responding is set and so on. The nature
of the behavior must be of such that it requires multiple changes in criteria
to be made before the desired rate of responding is achieved. There are no
strict rules for calculating the magnitude of criterion change from one phase
to the next. A general rule of thumb is that the criterion change should be
small enough to be achievable but not so small that it will be exceeded. If
responding exceeds or does not achieve the criterion level then experimental
control is lost. Experimental control can also be enhanced if criteria are
made less stringent from time to time during the intervention phase and the
target behavior reverses to these criteria. A withdrawal design logic can
therefore be incorporated within a changing criterion design without the
need for the behavior to return to original baseline levels.
Bates, Renzaglia and Clees (1980) used a changing criterion design to
examine the effectiveness of reinforcement contingencies to increase the
work productivity of three adults with severe and profound developmental
disabilities. One participant was taught to self-administer a penny following
completion of two work units. The number of pennies needed to access a
snack during break period were identified for the participant prior to each
work period. The rate of work units per minute was measured for each work
period. The criteria of work units per minute was systematically increased
across fourteen phases during the intervention (i.e., the participant needed
to earn more pennies in order to access a snack item). The results for this
participant are illustrated in Figure 8.13. Overall, the patterns of participant
responding stabilized around the criteria established by the experimenter.
Interestingly, responding began to exceed the established criteria,
particularly in the last three phases of the design. These data in the final
phases of the design seem to indicate that a more stringent criterion for
reinforcement should have been established at that point in order to regain
experimental control.

Considerations when Selecting Changing Criterion Designs

The changing criterion design has a very specific application. The behaviors
selected for change must already be in the repertoire of the individual. It
must also be possible and appropriate to increase or decrease these behaviors
in incremental steps. Cooper, Heron, and Heward (1987) note that this design
is often mistakenly recommended for use when shaping new behaviors. A
shaping program focuses on gradually changing the topography of behavior
over time whereas the changing criterion design is suitable for examining
changes in the level of responding of an already established behavior. It can
be difficult to determine responding criteria for future phases of the design.
If responding exceeds or does not reach the criterion within a phase then
experimental control is lost for that phase of the design. In such instances it
may be prudent to reverse the criterion to a level that had previously
established stable responding. Experimental control can thus be re-
established and a more sensitive criterion can be calculated for the following
phase.
Figure 8.13 Use of a changing criterion design to systematically increase work units per minute for
workers with developmenta disabilities (Bates, Renzaglia, & Clees, 1980).

8.6 Alternating Treatment Designs

The alternating treatment design is used to compare the effects of two or

more contingencies or treatments on a target behavior. All treatment
comparisons are implemented during a single phase of the design.
Treatments are rapidly implemented in a random or semi-random order.
Other potential extraneous variables such as time of day or therapist are
held constant across the treatments in order to control their influence.
Experimental control is demonstrated if there is a clear visible differentiation
between treatments. If there is no clear difference between treatments it may
be that each selected treatment is equally successful or that there is some
extraneous factor influencing the results (e.g., carryover effects). Baseline
levels of responding are sometimes assessed prior to the alternating
treatment phase of the design. A prior baseline phase is not necessary in
order to establish experimental control. On some occasions a baseline
condition is implemented as part of the alternating treatments phase of the
design in order to examine rate of responding without treatment.
Alternating treatment designs are frequently used to assess the
contingencies that maintain responding and to examine the comparative
effectiveness of various treatment options.
Kennedy and Souza (1995) used an alternating treatment design to
examine the contingencies that maintained severe eye poking for a young
man with profound developmental disabilities. The duration of eye poking
was measured across four conditions. Each condition was implemented
during 10-minute sessions in a random order across days. In the no-attention
condition the participant was seated at a table and received no social
interactions. During the attention condition the therapist sat next to the
participant and provided 10 seconds of social comments contingent on eye
poking. During the demand condition the participant was taught to perform
a domestic task. If the participant engaged in eye poking the task was
removed for 15 seconds (negative reinforcement). In the recreation condition
various magazines were provided and the participant was praised every 15
seconds in the absence of eye poking. The results of this analysis are
presented in Figure 8.14. Eye poking only occurred during the no attention
condition. The results of this intervention imply that eye poking served an
automatic or self-stimulatory function for the participant.
In another example, Smith, Iwata, and Shore (1995) combined an
alternating treatments design with a multiple baseline design to compare the
effectiveness of participant-selected versus experimenter-selected reinforcers
on the performance of four individuals with profound disabilities. A series of
items were initially identified as reinforcing for the participants (e.g., mirror,
light, music etc.). Participants were required to perform a free operant task
(closing a microswitch or placing small blocks in a plastic bucket) during
trials. Task performance under baseline conditions (in multiple baseline
across participants format) was measured prior to the comparison phase of
the design. In the experimenter selected reinforcer condition the therapist
delivered a reinforcing item on a fixed-ratio (FR) 5 schedule. In the subject
selected reinforcer condition the participant was allowed to choose from an
array of reinforcing items on an FR 5 schedule. The experimenter and
subject selected reinforcer conditions were compared in the alternating
treatments phase of the design. The results of this experiment are shown in
Figure 8.15. The results of the multiple baseline design show stable
responding or decreasing trends prior to the reinforcement conditions. There
is an increase in responding with the implementation of the reinforcement
contingencies for the first three participants. Variability in responding under
baseline conditions for participant 4 make data difficult to interpret for that
participant. The results of the alternating treatments design phase
demonstrates that there is little difference in responding across the two
reinforcement conditions for all four participants.

Figure 8.14 Total seconds of eye poking during four assessment conditions presented in an alternating
treatments design (Kennedy & Souza, 1995).
Figure 8.15 The effects of experimenter-selected versus subject-selected reinforcers on responses per
minute for four individuals with developmental disabilities (Smith, Iwata, & Shore, 1995).

Considerations when Selecting Alternating Treatment Designs

Alternating treatment designs allow for the comparative assessment of

various treatments or contingencies within one experimental phase. It is
therefore more efficient than reversal or multiple baseline designs for
examining the effectiveness of one or more treatments as it does not require
multiple phases or withdrawals of treatment. Additionally, the alternating
treatment design does not require a baseline assessment prior to
intervention nor a reversal to baseline levels during the evaluation of
treatment. If responding under baseline is of interest to the therapist then a
baseline condition can be included and assessed as a treatment within the
alternating treatments phase of the design. This design can be a useful
protocol for examining the comparative effectiveness of different treatments
to reduce dangerous behaviors. The alternating treatment design produces
relatively rapid results and does not invoke ethical concerns regarding
extended baseline assessments for behaviors such as self-injury or
aggression.

8.7 Summary

The experimental methods used by applied behavior analysts to evaluate the

effects of interventions on target behaviors have been described in this
chapter. These experimental designs can clarify the effects of the
intervention by ruling out alternative explanations for changes in the target
behavior. In other words, single-case experimental designs are used to
identify the functional relationship between the intervention and the target
behavior. Additionally, single-case designs can be used to examine the
generalizability of interventions across persons, settings, and behaviors.
Single-case research designs typically use graphic display to present an
ongoing visual presentation of the target behavior over time. The
effectiveness of the intervention is evaluated by visually comparing the
target behavior when the intervention is not available (baseline phase) and
when it is applied (intervention phase). The target behavior should be fairly
stable prior to implementing or removing the intervention. This allows for a
clearer prediction of what the behavior would be like if these experimental
conditions remained in place. It also allows for a clearer comparison
between predicted and actual performance under the subsequent
experimental phase. Variability or trends in data paths can temper any firm
conclusions about the effectiveness of the intervention.
Several of the most frequently used design options were presented. The
withdrawal or ABAB design consists of an A phase (baseline) and B phase
(intervention) that are replicated. Experimental control is demonstrated if
there is a visible difference in the data paths of the A and B phases and this
difference is again demonstrated in the A and B phase replications. The
multiple baseline design can examine the effects of an intervention across
multiple persons, settings, or behaviors. The intervention is applied
sequentially across multiple baselines, and experimental control is
demonstrated if baseline responding changes at that point in time when the
treatment variable is applied to each baseline. The changing criterion design
is specifically used to examine incremental changes in the level of the target
behavior over time. Experimental control is demonstrated if the level of
responding matches the established criteria for responding during each
phase of the design. Finally, the alternating treatments design is used to
compare the effects of multiple interventions on the target behavior.
Treatments are rapidly implemented in a random or semi-random order.
Experimental control is demonstrated if there is a visible differentiation
between treatments.
Selection of a research design is determined by the applied question of
interest, constraints of the applied setting, nature of the target behavior and
so on. The applied behavior analyst must find an appropriate balance
between the need for experimental control and the constraints of the applied
setting. For example, the ABAB design demonstrates the most powerful
experimental control. However, this design may be difficult to implement in
many instances for therapists or parents may be unwilling to withdraw or
withhold treatments for extended periods of time. In such cases a multiple
baseline design or alternating treatment design should be selected.
Chapter 9
Increasing Adaptive Behavior in
Applied Settings
Many behavioral interventions are designed to increase adaptive responding
in clients. In such cases, individuals may possess appropriate behavioral
repertoires but not perform them frequently. For example, an individual who
is described as being socially withdrawn may possess the appropriate social
skills for initiating interactions with others but may not perform these skills
when in the presence of other people. In a similar vein, community
behavioral interventions often seek to increase adaptive community
behaviors, such as healthy lifestyles, use of safe working and leisure
environments etc. In other instances, individuals may not possess the
targeted skills. For example, people with developmental disabilities
sometimes exhibit deficits in various social, daily-living, and academic skills.
In these cases behavioral techniques can be used to establish or teach these
new skills. This chapter will examine a variety of behavioral strategies, based
on the principles of reinforcement, that can be used to increase adaptive
responding in applied settings. Shaping and chaining techniques that can be
used to establish new behaviors or complex sets of behaviors will also be
examined. In addition to increasing the frequency of behaviors or
establishing new behaviors, it is equally important that these gains are
maintained over time, and, in many cases, can be demonstrated across
different settings other than the treatment setting. The power or validity of a
behavioral intervention is not only measured by its ability to increase
behaviors; a behavioral intervention must produce behaviors that can
generalize across persons, settings, and time. Strategies that can be used to
program generalized responding will be discussed. Finally, the use of
negative reinforcement, which produces increases in behavior to avoid or
escape stimuli, in applied settings will be examined.

9.1 Increasing Adaptive Behavior Using Positive

Reinforcement

The functional properties of operant reinforcement have been described in

Chapters 2, 3, and 4. The use of positive reinforcement strategies in applied
settings will be described in this section, with negative reinforcement
strategies described in a subsequent section.
Positive reinforcement is the most frequently used intervention by applied
behavior analysts. To recap, it can be defined as the contingent application of
consequences that increase the probability of behaviors. The process of
positive reinforcement requires several necessary conditions. First, a
consequence must be contingent on responding. Second, the response must
increase in probability when the consequence is made contingent on
responding. Finally, the application of the consequence must be a necessary
and sufficient condition to explain the increase in probability of responding.
The reinforcing effectiveness of particular consequences may be
idiosyncratic across individuals. Reinforcers may also vary in effectiveness
for a particular individual over time. These variations in the effectiveness of
consequences to act as reinforcers can be explained by factors including the
learning history of the individual and establishing operations, such as the
level of deprivation that an individual experiences for a particular
consequence at any given point in time. Crucial steps prior to implementing
an intervention based on the principles of positive reinforcement are to
identify consequences that will act as reinforcers, and the conditions under
which these consequences will be effective.
9.2 Selecting Reinforcers

There are several assessment approaches that can be used when selecting a
reinforcing consequence to increase a target behavior. Reinforcer assessment
procedures, or protocols, differ in terms of their empirical rigor. The easiest,
and least rigorous, procedure is simply to ask the clients what they prefer.
For example, students may state that they prefer free time in class, recess,
group work etc. However, reflections on the reliability of what people say
about themselves suggests that such statements of preference may not
predict that such stimuli or activities will act as reinforcers, and this is
supported by empirical studies (see Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 1987). A more
systematic approach to reinforcer selection is to observe the individual in
their natural environment over a period of time. Such observations can
produce information on activities or events that might subsequently be used
as reinforcing consequences. As with the functional assessment techniques
detailed in Chapter 7, this approach to identifying possible reinforcers
provides only indirect or correlational information regarding reinforcing
consequences.
Empirical methods to assess the reinforcing effectiveness of various
stimuli and activities have also been devised. For example, Pace, Ivancic,
Edwards, Iwata, and Page (1985) developed a two-step process to identify
reinforcers for persons with profound disabilities. Clients were
systematically exposed to several stimuli (such as a vibrator, a fan, or a
rocking chair). Approach behaviors such as orienting towards the item and
manipulating the item were used to measure preference for particular items.
This preference protocol was validated by demonstrating that those stimuli
that were frequently approached acted as more powerful reinforcers than the
stimuli that were not frequently approached. In an interesting extension of
the Pace et al. (1985), study Fisher, Piazza, Bowman, Hagopian, Owens, and
Slevin (1992) compared the preference protocol mentioned above with a
forced-choice assessment protocol for individuals with profound
developmental disabilities. In the later study, participants were initially
exposed to 16 stimuli and approach behavior was measured. Subsequently,
during the forced-choice assessment, each of the same 16 stimuli were
presented in pairs (with each stimulus paired with every other stimulus), and
participants were given access to the first stimulus approached. Results of
the forced-choice assessment indicated fewer items as highly preferred.
Finally, participants were given the opportunity to choose between stimuli
that were identified by the preference protocol and forced-choice
assessments as highly preferred and stimuli that were identified as highly
preferred by the preference protocol only. (Incidentally, all stimuli that were
identified as highly preferred in the forced-choice assessment were also
identified as highly preferred by the preference protocol.) The results of this
concurrent operants assessment with four participants are presented in
Figure 9.1. These results indicate that the forced-choice assessment protocol
better predicted stimuli that resulted in higher levels of responding when
presented in a concurrent operants paradigm.
Allowing participants to choose between alternative stimuli seems to
produce a more sensitive assessment of the potential reinforcing
effectiveness of stimuli above and beyond merely observing approach and
manipulation of stimuli. These results have been further supported by more
recent research (Paclawskyj & Vollmer, 1995).
Applied researchers have also developed systematic protocols to examine
the reinforcing effectiveness of various activities, Foster-Johnson, Ferro, and
Dunlap (1994) examined the use of a systematic protocol to identify
reinforcing classroom activities for students with emotional and behavioral
disorders. The experimenters presented a series of regular classroom
activities (including coin and number identification). Student
Figure 9.1 Percentage of time that four participants engaged or manipulated items that were identified
as preferred in the forced-choice assessment and preference assessment (identified as high-high data
set in the graph) versus stimuli that were identified as highly preferred in the preference assessment
only (identified as Sp-high data set in the graph). This comparative assessment is presented in the
middle phase (described as Concurrent Operants phase in the graph) for each participant (Fisher,
Piazza, Bowman, Hagopian, Owens, & Slevin, 1992).
preference for each classroom activity was evaluated in terms of: (a) the
extent to which the student manipulated the classroom activities without
instructor prompting, (b) the degree of student resistance when the materials
were removed and, (c) student initiations towards the materials when they
were moved a short distance away. Results of this assessment for three
students demonstrated a variety of definite preferences for particular
classroom activities. Following this preference assessment the experimenters
presented preferred and nonpreferred activities in an ABAB design for the
three students. Desirable (e.g., following instructions, appropriate
vocalizations) and problem (e.g., off task, noncompliance) behaviors were
measured across the phases of the design. The results of this experiment are
presented in Figure 9.2. Overall, the results show that the students engaged
Figure 9.2 Percentage of intervals of problem and desirable classroom behavior for three students
with emotional and behavioral problems under preferred and nonpreferred curricular activities
(Foster-Johnson, Ferro, & Dunlap, 1994).
in low levels of problem behavior and high levels of desirable behavior
during preferred classroom activities relative to non-preferred classroom
activities. While this experiment does not demonstrate that preferred
activities acted as reinforcers, it does provide an interesting applied
extension — that engagement in preferred curricular activities can produce
increases in appropriate and decreases of inappropriate responding with
such students. The systematic presentation of preferred activities has also
been shown to reduce self-injurious behavior for individuals with
developmental disabilities (Ringdahl, Vollmer, Marcus, & Roane, 1997).

Figure 9.3 Daily mean percentage (N = 10) of participation in exercises and games and the exercise
session length during baseline and group contingency phases. Participation is scaled on the left
ordinate, and exercise session length on the right ordinate (Allen & lwata, 1980).

Allen and Iwata (1980) adopted the Premack Principle, explained in

Chapter 2, to examine the reinforcing effectiveness of a high probability
activity (game participation) when made contingent on performance of a
low probability activity (exercise performance) for 10 individuals with
mental retardation. Participants were required to perform 5 physical
exercises before they could participate in game activity. Figure 9.3 shows the
mean percentage of participation in exercise, game activities, and length of
exercise sessions. These data suggest increases in the low probability
behavior and little change in the high probability behavior when the
Premack contingency was in effect. This example demonstrates how the
Premack Principle may be used to identify the reinforcing effectiveness of
activities in applied settings (but note the restrictions on the Premack
principle, also outlined in Chapter 2) .
The first essential step in any reinforcement-based program is to identify
consequences that are reinforcing for a particular individual. Many of the
methods used to identify reinforcing consequences have been outlined in
this section. Interview and observation techniques provide general or
correlational information regarding reinforcing consequences. If possible, it
is preferable to verify empirically the reinforcing effectiveness of
consequences prior to implementing an intervention. Various preference and
forced-choice assessment protocols have been described which are designed
to assess the reinforcing value of stimuli or events. Ultimately, the
reinforcing effectiveness of a contingent consequence can only be
determined by causally examining its influence on the probability of the
target behavior.

9.3 Optimizing Reinforcer Effectiveness

Aside from the application of a contingent consequence of known

reinforcing value there are several other factors that should be considered
when implementing a reinforcement program. These factors include: delay
of reinforcement, schedules of reinforcement, establishing operations,
amount of reinforcer, and the use of generalized conditioned reinforcers.

Delay of Reinforcement
The power of a reinforcing consequence can be influenced by the delay
between performance of the target behavior and access to the reinforcer. In
general, the greater the delay between behavior and consequence the less
effective the reinforcer will be (Mazur, 1997). In applications, reinforcement
should therefore be delivered immediately following the target behavior.
This rule is particularly true when introducing a new reinforcement-based
program or, relatedly, when attempting to establish a new behavior for an
individual. If there is a delay between the target behavior and delivery of the
reinforcer then a different behavior which is performed after the target
behavior may be reinforced. For example, verbal praise is often used to
increase appropriate play activities such as sharing with children. A child
may engage in sharing and then return to playing alone. If verbal praise is
delayed following an instance of sharing then the more immediate behavior
to the verbal praise (e.g., playing alone) may actually be reinforced. Once the
contingency between the target behavior and reinforcing consequence has
been established then the delay may be systematically lengthened.

Schedules of Reinforcement

The wealth of experimental research demonstrating the various patterns of

responding under different schedules of reinforcement was briefly described
in Chapter 3. Although some differences are found between humans and
other species in laboratory studies (see Section 3.15), other aspects of these
experimental findings are of particular significance when implementing
positive reinforcement programs in applied settings. Schedules of
reinforcement detail which instance of the response will be reinforced. When
beginning a program each occurrence of a target behavior should be
reinforced. This continuous reinforcement schedule (FR1) is recommended in
the initial stages as it produces the most rapid increase in responding. Once
the behavior has reached desired levels then the schedule of reinforcement
should be made more intermittent. Programming behavior on an
intermittent schedule of reinforcement is one tactic for guarding against
rapid extinction of the target behavior once the behavior change program is
removed. As discussed in Section 3.14, this strategy has been successfully
adopted in a number of applied studies (Kazdin & Polster, 1973; Kazdin,
1994; Nation & Woods, 1980; Tierney & Smith, 1988).

Establishing Operations

Responding is influenced by the level of satiation or deprivation that the

person experiences with regard to a reinforcer. It is not unusual to observe
fluctuations in response strength, even when discriminative and reinforcing
conditions are held constant (Carr, 1994), In other words, the behavior
analyst may identify an effective reinforcer, but such consequences may
produce desired levels of responding on some occasions and not on others.
Such variations in responding can be attributed to various third variables
such as establishing operations (see Chapters 2, 5, and 7). Behavior analysts
have typically attempted to deal with fluctuations in the power of
reinforcers by programming consequences that produce high and persistent
levels of responding. Such strategies as incorporating generalized
conditioned reinforcers into a reinforcement program (discussed in next
section) and establishing intermittent schedules of reinforcement are
recommended in these instances. More recently, applied behavior analysts
have begun to examine the functional properties of environmental variables
that produce fluctuation in response strength when discriminative and
reinforcement stimuli are held constant. This research is important in that it
identifies environmental conditions under which a given reinforcing
consequence may be more or less effective. Through an understanding of
these contextual influences on the power of reinforcement the behavior
analyst may be able to identify optimal times and conditions to conduct
training.
Vollmer and Iwata (1991) examined the influence of satiation and
deprivation conditions on primary, conditioned, and sensory reinforcing
stimuli for five individuals with profound developmental disabilities. The
behavior assessed consisted of the simple task of placing blocks in a
container. Food was used as a primary reinforcer, and the effects of satiation
and deprivation were assessed with three of the participants. This was
achieved by presenting the task 30 minutes prior to lunch (deprivation) and
15 minutes following lunch (satiation). The satiation condition was also
preceded with 10 minutes of free access to food. Food items were presented
on a fixed-ratio schedule during sessions. No food was presented during
baseline conditions. The effects of the satiation and deprivation conditions
for the three participants are presented in Figure 9.4. Rates of responding
were higher under conditions of deprivation. These results were replicated
with music and social contact as reinforcers under satiation and deprivation
conditions, showing that these "non-biological" reinforcers are affected by
establishing operations in a similar manner.
The results of Vollmer and Iwata (1991) clearly demonstrate the influence
of satiation and deprivation on effectiveness of a range of reinforcers.
Behavior analysts should take advantage of natural levels of deprivation for
reinforcers when implementing reinforcement-based programs.

Amount of Reinforcer

The amount of a reinforcer that an individual receives over the course of a

given training session can also affect performance. While it is generally
Figure 9.4 Responses per minute for three participants when no food (reinforcement) was presented
(baseline conditions in the graph) and when food was presented contingent on responding under
satiation and deprivation conditions (Vollmer & Iwata, 1991).
believed that the greater the amount of reinforcement the more probable the
target response will be, this is contradicted by the response-deprivation
principle introduced in Chapter 2 (Allison & Timberlake, 1974, and see
Leslie, 1996, Chapter 4 for a brief formal statement of the principle). For a
reinforcer to be effective, the individual must remain deprived of it during
the session, and if the amount delivered is too great the deprivation will be
reduced too much. This is an example of the influence of establishing
operations within training sessions. This form of satiation may be more
pronounced for primary reinforcers such as food. Secondary reinforcers such
as social attention and generalized conditioned reinforcers such as money
may be more resistant to satiation within training sessions. If responding
wanes during a training session and this phenomenon is evident for many
training sessions the behavior analyst may want to reduce the amount of
reinforcement available for responding. This may introduce a mild level of
deprivation throughout training and thereby enhance the reinforcing
effectiveness of the consequence.

9.4 Token Economies

The token economy is an applied example of the use of a generalized

conditioned reinforcer to control behavior (See Chapter 2 for a description of
conditioned reinforcement). Tokens typically consist of coins, check marks,
stars, or "smiley faces". In and of themselves these tokens have no inherent
reinforcing value, but within the token economy system they can be used to
purchase back-up reinforcers. Back-up reinforcers are consequences of
known reinforcing value to those participating in the token system. Back-up
reinforcers can consist of anything from food and other consumables to
activities and outings. Each back-up reinforcer can be purchased by a
specific number of tokens. Because tokens can allow the participant to access
various reinforcers they are defined as generalized conditioned reinforcers.
 The participant is required to perform certain target behaviors at
predefined levels in order to receive a particular number of tokens. The
target behaviors and the number of tokens associated with each target
behavior are clearly identified prior to the implementation of the program.
Additionally, the participant must be capable of earning the number of
tokens to access each one of the back-up reinforcers. Certain inappropriate
behaviors can also be associated with the removal of a predefined number of
tokens. It is important however, not to create a situation where the
participant ends up with a negative number of tokens. Under these
conditions, the tokens may lose their reinforcing value as they are not paired
with access to back-up reinforcers.
When beginning a token system it is important to clarify to participants
the contingencies that will operate. This can be done by explaining to
participants the target behaviors required, the number of tokens that can be
earned for each target behavior, and the token cost of each back-up
reinforcer. These conditions may have to be modeled for participants who do
not understand such verbal descriptions.
Token economy systems have proved successful in increasing appropriate
behavior for many populations (developmentally disabled, psychiatric,
children etc.) and across many settings (hospitals, institutions, the home
etc.). In one of the seminal evaluations of the token economy system, Allyon
and Azrin (1965) developed such a system to increase appropriate
responding in hospitalized psychiatric patients. High frequency activities
such as going for walks, privacy, and religious services were identified as
back-up reinforcers for participants. Participants earned tokens from ward
staff for engaging in a number of targeted work activities around the
hospital. The findings of this intervention are presented in Figure 9.5. In this
study, the token system was implemented for an entire ward of 44 clients.
The effectiveness of the token system was evaluated using a BAB design. In
the reversal or A phase, access to tokens and reinforcers was noncontingent
on the target work activities. When the token system was made contingent
on performance there was a dramatic increase in work activity in both B
phases.
 As illustrated above, the token economy system is a powerful procedure
for increasing appropriate responding in individuals. The use of tokens as a
generalized conditioned reinforcer has a number of inherent advantages
over using single conditioned or primary reinforcers within a reinforcement
program. First, because the participant has access to a set of back-up
reinforcers the problem of satiation on any one reinforcer is reduced. Also,
additional back-up reinforcers can be identified and added to the token
economy during the intervention. Second, because of the nature of tokens
themselves they can be presented immediately following the performance of
the target behavior. This overcomes the potential problem of delaying access
to reinforcers. Third, token delivery does not interfere with ongoing
activities. Some reinforcers such as food and preferred activities may be
difficult to deliver as they may interfere with responding in the current
context. Tokens can be exchanged at a later and more appropriate time in
order to access such consequences as activities and food etc. It is important
to guard against theft of tokens by other participants.
Those who administer the system should keep an ongoing account of
Figure 9.5 Total number of hours each day a group of 44 clients participated in rehabilitative activities
under conditions of reinforcement with tokens (first phase), independent or non-contingent
presentations of tokens (second phase), and reinstatement of reinforcement with tokens (third phase)
(Ayllon & Azrin, 1965).
the number of tokens that each participant possesses. Staff must also be
trained to administer the token system consistently. In fact, a token system
can be seen as an intervention to change the behavior of those who work
with the participants, as well as that of the "participants". For example, a
token system can be used to establish positive interactions between parents
and their children. The use of a token system in such instances can help
parents focus on positive behaviors of children and to systematically
reinforce those positive behaviors. Similarly in psychiatric contexts, staff
must be aware they should attend to positive behavior and not selectively
respond to disruptive behavior by clients.
In any case, a token system should be monitored periodically to ensure
that the system is administered consistently and correctly. In some instances
it may be appropriate to remove the token system eventually. This can be
difficult to achieve and might result in a return of behavior to baseline levels.
Suggestions that have been made for removing a token system include
pairing the tokens with a more natural reinforcer, such as verbal praise,
while gradually fading the number of back-up reinforcers, and reducing the
number of tokens required to access the remaining back-up reinforcers.

9.5 Interim Summary: Selecting Reinforcers and

Implementing a Reinforcement Program

Behavior change programs based on the principles of positive reinforcement

are the most frequently used intervention strategies by applied behavior
analysts. These programs are used to increase adaptive responding for
clients. At the simplest level, such interventions require the contingent
application of a consequence of known reinforcing value. However, several
other factors need to be considered in order to maximize the effectiveness of
such programs.
Before beginning a behavior change program, it is important to identify a
reinforcer that will be effective in the context in which it will be applied.
Rather than relying on previous practice, or simply asking the participants
for their preferred reinforcers (and neither of these options may be
practicable in some cases), it is better to use an empirical method of
reinforcer assessment. Various preference and forced-choice assessment
protocols have been developed which are designed to assess the reinforcing
value of stimuli. Ultimately, the reinforcing effectiveness of a contingent
consequence can only be determined by its influence on the probability of
the target behavior.
When beginning a reinforcement program it is important to provide a rich
schedule of reinforcement and to immediately reinforce responding when it
occurs. This enhances the discriminability of the contingencies that are in
effect which can result in a rapid increase in the target behavior. These
guidelines may ruie out certain types of reinforcers such as activities or food
as it may not be possible to deliver such consequences immediately. The
relationship between behavior and its consequences is not a static one. The
power of reinforcing consequences can be affected by the momentary levels
of satiation and deprivation that the client experiences with regard to a
particular consequence. Behavior analysts should, where possible, structure
intervention sessions to take advantage of mild deprivation states (for
example, using food as a reinforcer immediately prior to lunch and not
immediately after lunch, and using smaller rather than larger portions of
food) in order to maximize the power of reinforcers. Once the target
behavior achieves a stable level of responding, the schedule of reinforcement
should be thinned in order to enhance maintenance of responding in the
natural environment when the intervention is withdrawn. Other strategies
that can be used to promote maintenance and generalization of target
behaviors will be discussed later in this chapter. One of the most effective
strategies used to increase behavior is the token economy system. In this
tokens, which have been established as generalized conditioned reinforcers,
are made contingent upon target behaviors. Such systems, when
appropriately implemented, are typically resistant to satiation and overcome
the problems with delayed administration of certain types of reinforcers.
9.6 Using Reinforcement to Decrease Maladaptive
Behavior

One of the major purposes of many reinforcement-based techniques is to

decrease maladaptive behavior. These techniques could well be described in
Chapter 10 (as techniques to decrease behavior) but because they are based
on the principles of positive reinforcement they are included here. There are
at least five positive reinforcement strategies that can be used to decrease
maladaptive behavior. All these strategies are based on the fundamental
premise that if behavior other than maladaptive responding is reinforced
there should be a decrease in maladaptive behavior. These techniques are
therefore described as differential reinforcement strategies because selected
responses or levels of responding are reinforced while other responses are
not. Before describing these particular strategies it is vital to realize that
many of the techniques discussed previously in this chapter and in Chapter 7
are an essential part of these differential reinforcement techniques.
First, it is essential to identify the reinforcers that are maintaining the
maladaptive behavior. Differential reinforcement is based on two principles
of learning — extinction and reinforcement (the applied uses of extinction
are discussed in detail in Chapter 10). The reinforcers that maintain the
aberrant behavior must therefore be withheld from that behavior, and can
be delivered contingent on other more appropriate responses (or contingent
on lower levels of maladaptive responding after a predetermined period of
time). The behavior analyst should therefore conduct a functional analysis of
the maladaptive behavior prior to developing the intervention. Second,
reinforcing stimuli must be selected and applied contingent on appropriate
responding. These reinforcing consequences should be systematically
identified through preference assessments. Alternatively, the reinforcers that
previously maintained aberrant responding can be used to increase adaptive
responding. Additionally, the behavior analyst should incorporate the
techniques described earlier in the chapter for maximizing reinforcer
effectiveness (including immediate reinforcement, use of an initially rich
schedule of reinforcement etc.).

Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible and Alternative

Behavior

Differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior (DRI) is a technique

whereby reinforcement is delivered contingent on the occurrence of a
behavior that is topographically incompatible with the targeted maladaptive
behavior. The increase in frequency of the incompatible behavior results in a
decrease in the frequency of the maladaptive behavior as both behaviors
cannot be performed simultaneously. Deitz, Repp, & Deitz (1976) used a DRI
intervention to decrease episodes of in-class sleeping for a student with mild
disabilities. The intervention consisted of teacher-delivered praise for
appropriate academic activity approximately every 5 minutes. Academic
performance is directly incompatible with sleeping. The effectiveness of the
intervention was evaluated using an ABAB design. The results of this
intervention are presented in Figure 9.6 and demonstrate the effectiveness of
the DRI intervention.
Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) is a similar
protocol to DRI. In this case however the behavior chosen for reinforcement
is not topographically incompatible with the maladaptive behavior. The
DRA protocol is based on the premise that increasing the frequency of
alternative behaviors will decrease the frequency of the undesired behavior.
For example, reinforcing academic activity may decrease maladaptive
behavior in the classroom such as talking out, leaving ones seat etc. DRA is a
frequently used protocol in applied practice.
Figure 9.6 Episodes of sleeping in class under baseline and DRI (differential reinforcement of
academic performance) contingencies (Deitz, Repp, & Deitz, 1976).

Differential Reinforcement of Functionally Equivalent

Behavior

As discussed in Chapter 7, functional analysis technologies have equipped

applied behavior analysts with methodologies to examine the operant
function of challenging behavior. A functional analysis is an important
prerequisite for any differential reinforcement program. Functional analysis
identifies the reinforcing stimuli for the maladaptive behavior which need to
be withheld. Additionally, a functional analysis can allow the behavior
analyst to tailor an intervention to the function of the behavior. For
example, a functional analysis may demonstrate that a person engages in
hand biting to access attention from staff. This information allows the
behavior analyst to identify an alternative behavior (such as raising of a
hand) that the person can be taught to use to access the same reinforcer (in
this case, staff attention). This alternative behavior is therefore functionally
equivalent to the challenging behavior. The differential reinforcement
program therefore consists of withholding the reinforcer for the maladaptive
behavior and making the same reinforcer available for the functionally
equivalent behavior. There has been a proliferation of research describing
such tactics in recent years (see Reichle & Wacker, 1993). This type of
intervention is also often described as functional communication training
(Carr & Durand, 1985).
An interesting example of the use of a functional analysis that
incorporates the systematic examination of differential reinforcement of
functionally equivalent behavior was proposed by Derby, Wacker, Sasso,
Steege, Northup, Cigrand, and Asmus (1992). This assessment consists of two
separate phases. In the first phase of the analysis, both the challenging
behavior and an appropriate alternative behavior are assessed under
analogue analysis conditions (see Figure 9.7). If the challenging behavior
occurs under any of the analogue analysis conditions then this condition is
replicated. In Figure 9.7, the challenging behavior occurs under the attention
condition and this condition is subsequently replicated. It can be concluded
from the first phase of the analysis that self-injurious behavior (SIB) is
maintained by access to attention. In the second phase or contingency
reversal the reinforcer (i.e., attention) is withheld for SIB and made
contingent on the appropriate response. There is a dramatic increase in the
appropriate response (i.e., manding) with a significant decrease in SIB. This
condition is subsequently replicated. The protocol proposed by Derby et al.
(1992) combines a brief assessment of the function of the maladaptive
behavior with a preliminary assessment of the potential effectiveness of an
intervention involving the differential reinforcement of functionally
equivalent behavior.

Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior

Differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) is a protocol whereby

reinforcement is provided for the nonoccurrence of the target behavior over
a specified interval of time. DRO is often described as omission training
because reinforcement is delivered for omission (non-production) rather
than commission (production) of the behavior (Cooper, Heron, & Heward,
1987). A DRO schedule provides reinforcement for all behaviors other than
the targeted maladaptive behaviors: the focus of this procedure is thus on
decreasing maladaptive behaviors, and no provision is made for increasing
appropriate alternative behaviors.

Figure 9.7 Hypothetical example of a brief functional analysis. The initial assessment identified that
SIB was maintained by attention. The contingency reversal phase demonstrated that attention could
be used as a reinforcer to increase appropriate responding (i.e., manding) (Derby, Wacker, Sasso,
Steege, Northup, Cigrand, & Asmus, 1992).

In order to apply a DRO procedure the behavior analyst must first

identify a time interval during which the behavior should not occur. It is
critical to identify a time interval in which the client is currently capable of
not displaying the maladaptive behavior. For example, it would be
inappropriate to set the interval at 1 hour (when the requirement would be
that the client must not display the behavior for 1 hour in order to access
reinforcement) if the client currently displays the behavior 100 times per
hour. In this example, the client would probably never access the reinforcing
contingencies. The time interval must be sensitive to the current rate of
responding. These intervals can be gradually and systematically increased
during treatment. Second, any appropriate behavior that occurs at the end of
the interval is reinforced if the target behavior was not performed. Finally, if
the maladaptive behavior occurs during an interval then the interval is reset
(i.e., there is a return to the beginning of the interval).
There are a large number of demonstrations of the DRO protocol in the
applied literature. Many researchers describe successful applications of the
procedure (e.g., Poling & Ryan, 1982; Repp, Dietz, & Speir, 1975) while others
have demonstrated that the procedure did not produce reductions in
maladaptive behavior (e.g., Foxx & Azrin, 1973; Meyers, 1975). More
recently, researchers have begun to examine the functional properties of the
DRO protocol. For example, Mazaleski, Iwata, Vollmer, Zarcone, and Smith
(1993) conducted a component analysis of the reinforcement and extinction
components of DRO contingencies when applied to individuals with
attention-maintained self-injury. These researchers demonstrated that the
active variable of a DRO was extinction and not reinforcement for clients
with attention-maintained maladaptive behavior.
The results for one of the participants are presented in Figure 9.8. Phases 1
and 3 demonstrate that the behavior occurred at high rates when attention
was contingent on responding. In Phase 2, a DRO schedule with music as the
reinforcer for nonoccurrence of self-injury (while attention is witheld for
self-injury) effectively reduced SIB. Phases 4 and 6 demonstrated that the
extinction component alone (withholding attention for self-injury) produced
comparable reductions in self-injury as did the DRO schedule of Phase 2. In
Phase 5 the reinforcement component of the DRO schedule (music) was
examined alone while attention continued to be contingent on self-injury.
The results of Phase 5 demonstrate that the DRO music condition without
extinction did not reduce the challenging behavior.
The results of Mazaleski et al. (1993) clearly demonstrate the continued
need to examine the functional properties of DRO contingencies. It may be
that in previous studies only the extinction condition embedded within the
DRO schedule was effective in changing behavior.

Differential Reinforcement of Low Rates of Responding

Differential reinforcement of low rates of responding (DRL) is a protocol

that provides reinforcement for decreases in the level of responding or for
increases in the inter-response time (IRT) of the maladaptive behaviors (see
Chapter 3 for a definition of this schedule in basic research). This is a
particularly effective treatment if the overall goal is to reduce responding
and not eliminate it. For example, Favell, McGimpsey, and Jones (1980) used
a DRL procedure to decrease rapid eating in four individuals with severe
disabilities. Inter-response times between food bites were prompted,
reinforced, and systematically increased. The results of this intervention are
presented in Figure 9.9, The frequency of eating was decreased from an
average of 10 to 12 bites per 30 seconds to 3 to 4 bites per 30 seconds using
this DRL protocol. The DRL protocol has a very specific use — to decrease
but not eliminate behavior. Often, behaviors such as talking out, or leaving
one's seat in class are appropriate, but not at high frequencies. DRL is very
useful in establishing appropriate levels of such responding.
Figure 9.8 The rate of self-injury for Brenda. Phases 1 and 3 indicate that SIB was maintained by
contingent attention. In phase 2 a traditional DRO treatment was implemented (music contingent on
nonoccurrence of SIB and attention withheld for SIB). Phases 4 and 6 demonstrate that extinction
alone (attention withheld contingent on SIB) produced similiar results to the DRO intervention. In
Phase 5 the DRO music contingency remained in place while SIB continued to access attention. These
results demonstrate that extinction of attention was the active treatment variable in this DRO
intervention. A DRO attention condition in the final phase (attention contingent on no occurrences of
SIB) successfully reduced SIB (Mazaleski, Iwata, Vollmer, Zarcone, & Smith, 1993).
Figure 9.9 Rate of eating across four participants under baseline and treatment conditions. Open data
points represent data for one meal. Solid data points represent an average for two daily meals (Favell,
McGimpsey, & Jones, 1980).
Noncontingent Reinforcement

As described in Chapter 3, the noncontingent delivery of a reinforcing

stimulus (NCR) can result in a rapid reduction in operant responding.
Recently, researchers have examined the use of NCR as a technique to
reduce challenging behavior in applied settings. Initial results demonstrate
that NCR can be an effective strategy to eliminate maladaptive behavior
maintained by positive reinforcement (Hagopian, Fisher, & Legacy, 1994;
Vollmer, Iwata, Zarcone, Smith, & Mazaleski, 1993) and negative
reinforcement (Vollmer, Marcus, & Ringdahl, 1995). In each of these studies,
a functional analysis was first conducted to identify the operant function of
the maladaptive behavior. Access to the identified reinforcers was then
provided independent of the behavior on a time-based schedule. This
resulted in rapid and significant reductions of the maladaptive behavior. The
schedule of NCR was then gradually thinned, that is, the frequency of
reinforcement was gradually reduced.
In an interesting example of this work, Hagopian et al. (1994) compared
the effectiveness of a dense versus iean schedule of NCR on the reduction of
destructive behavior in quadruplets with developmental disabilities. The
particular research question examined whether it was necessary to begin
noncontingent reinforcement on a dense schedule (FT 10 s) and then fade to
a lean schedule (FT 5 min), or whether treatment would be as effective using
a lean schedule from the outset. The results of this investigation are
presented in Figure 9.10. The intervention was introduced across the
quadruplets in a multiple baseline design. Lean and dense schedules were
compared using an alternating treatments design logic in the second phase
of the design. The results showed that the dense schedule of NCR was more
effective, at the onset, in reducing the challenging behavior (see alternating
treatments phase of the design). The dense schedule was then successfully
thinned from FT 10 s to FT 5 min (see final phase of the figure). These
findings suggest that NCR may require a dense schedule initially, and that
systematic fading can increase the effectiveness of a lean schedule.
 While the findings are preliminary, this research on the use of NCR
techniques provides an exciting new avenue for further applied
investigations. In fact, recent findings suggest that NCR using arbitrary
reinforcers (stimuli that were reinforcing to the client but did not maintain
the aberrant behavior) can effectively reduce maladaptive behavior where
the reinforcers for maladaptive behavior have not been identified (Fischer,
Iwata, & Mazaleski, 1997). Noncontingent delivery of reinforcing stimuli
would seem to be an efficient and easy to use intervention. Further research
should examine whether such techniques can produce long-term reductions
in challenging behavior. Additionally, research is needed to clarify the
functional properties of NCR techniques.
Figure 9.10 A comparison of a lean (FT 5 min) versus dense (FT 10 s) schedule of noncontingent
reinforcement on destructive responses per minute with quadruplets. The dense schedule produced a
more rapid reduction in the aberrant behavior and was subsequently implemented following a second
baseline condition. Arrows indicate fading of the schedule and treatment generalization (Tx. Gen.)
(Hagopian, Fisher, & Legacy, 1994).

9.7 Establishing New Behavioral Repertoires

Up to this point of the chapter, strategies to increase or decrease the current

frequency of responding have been discussed. As discussed in Chapter 6,
behavioral strategies can also be used to establish or develop new behaviors,
either specific individual skills or complex sequences of skills. In the next
four sections, details of these strategies will be given. The strategies
discussed in these sections of the chapter and those outlined previously are
not mutually exclusive. For example, once a new behavior is performed it is
important to continue to reinforce that behavior in order to increase the
probability of the individual performing that behavior in the future.
This section includes a description of a number of instructional prompting
strategies to establish new behavior. In the next section, the methods of
removing these once the new behavior is established are described. In the
following section, the use of differential reinforcement to shape new
behavior will be discussed. Finally, chaining techniques, which are used to
establish multiple and complex skill repertoires will be outlined.

Instructional Prompting Strategies

Prompts are antecedent cues that are used to evoke the desired response.
These antecedent cues are typically supplementary stimuli that will be
removed once the target behavior is performed appropriately in the presence
of the natural discriminative stimuli. Prompts are of two general types.
Response prompts are cues which describe or demonstrate the new desired
response. Stimulus prompts are cues which highlight the natural
discriminative stimuli in the environment and therefore increase the
probability of correct responding. There are several types of response
prompts including verbal, modeling, picture, and physical prompts.

Verbal response prompts are the most commonly and widely used
instructional prompts in educational and applied settings. These prompts can
be oral or written in nature. The critical feature of these prompts is that they
function as supplementary cues to evoke the desired behavior. Verbal
prompts are often classified as direct or indirect. An indirect verbal prompt
is used to cue the person that some behavior needs to be performed, but it
does not describe what the target behavior is. For example, "What do you
need to do next?" is an indirect verbal prompt for it indicates that the person
needs to perform but it does not indicate what the person needs to do. A
direct verbal prompt specifies the behavior that the person should perform.
For example, "Open your book." clearly identifies what needs to be
performed. Written instructions can also be used to prompt performance. For
example, Cuvo, Davis, O'Reilly, Mooney, and Crowley (1992) taught
individuals with mild intellectual disabilities to use written descriptions of
domestic tasks (such as cleaning household appliances) as prompts. These
written descriptions of how to perform the task combined with positive and
corrective feedback from the therapist following performance resulted in
rapid acquisition of the targeted domestic skills. Performance remained at
high levels when the written prompts were removed.

A picture response prompt is a visual representation of the behavior to be

performed. Behaviors can be illustrated using drawings, photographs,
paintings etc. Picture prompts can be used to illustrate single behaviors or
many pictures can be used to ilustrate complete sequences of behaviors.
Picture prompt systems have been used to teach complex daily living and
vocational skills to people with intellectual disabilities. Connis (1979) used
picture sequences to teach people with moderate intellectual disabilities to
change work tasks independently. The workers were first taught to use
photographs to sequence daily work tasks, and then to change work tasks
independently throughout the working day. Similarly, Sowers, Rusch,
Connis, and Cummings (1980) taught individuals with intellectual
disabilities to use picture cues of clock faces to leave and return from lunch
and work breaks. Johnson and Cuvo (1981) taught meal preparation skills to
rehabilitation clients using picture prompt sequences.

A modeling response prompt involves the therapist or teacher demonstrating

the desired behavior so that it can be imitated by the person. Modeling can
be a very effective response prompt as it allows the therapist to show the
person what is to be performed. A description of the functional properties of
modeling was presented in Chapter 6. Modeling is frequently used in applied
interventions to promote appropriate responding. For example, O'Reilly and
Glynn (1995) used a modeling protocol to teach social skills to two students
who were described as socially withdrawn. Targeted social skills were
identified through consultation with the teacher and observation of the
students during class. These social skills were then taught to the students on
an individual basis in a room removed from the classroom. During
intervention the therapist first modeled the social skills. The participants
then imitated the modeled social skills and received feedback on their
performance from the therapist. This intervention produced an increase in
appropriate social responding in school settings for the participants.

Physical response prompts produce correct responding by manually guiding

the person through the appropriate response. Physical prompting is
obviously a very intrusive way to teach somebody to respond correctly.
However, in cases where the response is very difficult for the learner to
perform it may be the only option. Physical prompting can consist of
manually guiding the person through the entire sequence of steps of a task.
For example in teaching toothbrushing to a child with severe disabilities the
therapist may place his hands on top of the child's and guide the child to:
open the toothpaste, reach for the toothbrush, place toothpaste on the
toothbrush, replace the cap on the toothpaste etc. However, in many cases of
physical prompting reported in the literature the manual guidance is only
partial (for an example, see Horner & Keilitz, 1975). This form of partial
physical guidance is often referred to as shadowing. When shadowing the
therapist guides the student's movements by keeping his hands a few inches
away from the student, and physically guiding the student only when
necessary.

Stimulus prompts are additional stimuli that are used to highlight the
natural discriminative stimulus or the stimulus that is to become the
discriminative stimulus with training. They are used to increase the
evocative effectiveness of the discriminative stimulus. Stimulus prompts can
be used in conjunction with response prompts when teaching new skills to
people. Several types of stimulus prompts have been used (Cooper, Heron &
Heward, 1987; Snell, 1983). For example, the salient component of a
compound stimulus might be artificially highlighted. When teaching cooking
skills to persons with intellectual disabilities the therapist may attach a cue
to the temperature dial of the oven that indicates the appropriate oven
temperature for the meal. The participant need only attend to the artificial
cue and not the range of temperatures on the dial when setting the oven.
Another example of a stimulus cue is a point prompt. The therapist may
point to the relevant stimulus during training. In teaching time a teacher
may ask "What time is it?" and then point to the hour hand and minute hand
on the clock.

9.8 Fading Response and Stimulus Prompts

Response and stimulus prompts are supplementary or additional

instructional procedures that must eventually be removed. The goal of any
instructional program is that the participant will eventually be able to
perform the skills independent of these additional prompts. In other words,
the natural discriminative stimuli must eventually come to control
responding. Once the participant performs the new skill at an appropriate
level for a predetermined period of time, the prompting conditions are then
gradually faded. Fading is a stimulus discrimination procedure in which the
discriminative stimuli for the response are gradually changed so that they
become increasingly similar to the natural discriminative stimuli. In other
words, fading is a gradual process by which stimulus control is transferred
from the prompts to the natural stimulus in a manner that reduces the
probability of error responses in the presence of the natural stimulus. Fading
is therefore sometimes called errorless discrimination or errorless learning
(Terrace, 1963).
Minimising error responses during instruction and fading is highly
desirable for a number of reasons. First, if an incorrect response occurs it
tends to be repeated and must be unlearned. This can substantially delay the
overall goals of a training program. Second, incorrect responses result in
corrective feedback from the therapist and the withholding of reinforcement.
These conditions can result in inappropriate behaviors such as aggression on
the part of the participant. A number of techniques can be used to
systematically fade response and stimulus prompts. These techniques are
described in the following sections.

Fading of Response Prompts

Response prompts are usually not used individually but are incorporated
within a sequence of response prompts. Response prompts differ in their
capacity to evoke correct responding. Physical prompts are the most
effective as they virtually ensure responding. Modeling and picture prompts
would be the next effective because they involve demonstrations of the
behavior to be performed. Verbal prompts would be the least effective as
they require the participant to be able to perform the skill when verbally
requested. Response prompts can be presented in a least-to-most effective or
most-to-least effective sequence when teaching new skills. Least-to-most
prompting is a prompt fading sequence that has been used to teach a large
variety of skills. The participant is given the opportunity to perform a
response with a minimum amount of assistance during each training trial. If
the participant does not respond appropriately with minimal assistance, then
more intrusive response prompts are systematically introduced. Typically,
the natural discriminative stimulus for the response is presented. The
participant is given a predetermined period of time (usually a number of
seconds) to perform the response. If the response does not occur or the
participant begins to make an incorrect response during this time period
then the least intrusive response prompt is implemented (e.g., direct verbal
prompt). Again, the participant is given the predetermined interval to
respond correctly. If the participant does not respond or begins to respond
incorrectly then the next most intrusive prompt is delivered (e.g., modeling
prompt). The least intrusive prompt (e.g., verbal prompt) is almost always
paired with the more intrusive prompts during instruction (e.g., physical
prompt). This is done in order to pair the least intrusive prompt with correct
responding and reinforcement so that it will eventually control the targeted
response.
Richman, Reiss, Bauman, and Bailey (1984) used a least-to-most
instructional strategy to teach menstrual care to women with moderate and
severe intellectual disabilities. A series of task analyses were initially
developed for menstrual care (see Table 9.1). Each step of this task analysis
was taught using a least-to-most prompt sequence. The prompting hierarchy
consisted of direct verbal, model, and physical guidance. For instance, a
direct verbal prompt would consist of the therapist stating that particular
step of the task analysis (e.g., "Pull down your underwear and sit on the
toilet."). A latency of 5 seconds was used between the presentation of the
natural discriminative stimulus for each step of the task analysis and the
first response prompt. The authors noted that participants responded
appropriately with direct verbal prompts throughout the study. Model or
physical prompts were not necessary to evoke behavior. The intervention
was evaluated using a multiple baseline design across participants. The
results indicated that the training package was successful in teaching the
skills and the women continued to perform the skills during naturally
occurring menses up to five months following termination of the
intervention.

Most-to-least prompt sequences employ the alternative logic to the least-to-

most prompt strategy. With most-to-least prompts the most intrusive prompt
Table 9.1 Task Analysis for Changing Underwear (Richman, Reiss, Bauman, & Bailey, 1984).

1. Client walks into bathroom and closes the door.

2. Pulls down underwear below knees and sits on toilet.
3. Pulls up underwear and outerclothes.
4. Walks out of bathroom.
Obtains box containing underwear, sanitary napkin, plastic bag, and
5. paper
bag.
6. Walks into bathroom and closes door.
Washes complete surface of hands and fingers with soap and water so
7. no dirt
or residue remains visible on area, dries, throws paper towel in trash.
8. Brings box to stall, pulls down underwear below knees and sits on toilet.
9. Removes soiled underwear.
10. Places soiled underwear in plastic bag.
Wipes vaginal area at least once to remove residual blood and drops
11. paper in
toilet.
12. Puts on clean pair of underwear.
13. Pulls tab off clean sanitary napkin.
14. Disposes of strip in trashcan.
15. Fastens sticky side of sanitary napkin lengthwise in underwear and
presses
 into place.
16. Pulls up underwear and outerclothes.
17. Flushes toilet.
18. Washes hands as in Step 7.
Exits bathroom putting soiled underwear in laundry bag and plastic bag
19. in
trash.
20. Places box in bedroom cabinet for storage.

is employed initially, gradually faded to the least intrusive prompt, and

eventually to the natural discriminative stimulus. Many most-to-least
procedures that have been reported begin with a physical prompt (Wolery &
Gast, 1984). The participant is physically guided through the response
sequence for a predetermined number of trials. The natural discriminative
stimuli are always present during training trials. Following physical prompts
the participant may be shadowed (i.e., next most intrusive response prompt)
by the therapist through the response sequence. If the participant begins to
err or does not respond for a predetermined time period on a particular
response then the therapist can intervene with the previous prompt level
(i.e., physical prompt) and complete that component of the response. Once
the participant has performed the responses without error under the current
prompt system for a predetermined number of trials then the next level of
less intrusive prompt is initiated. This procedure continues until the
participant performs the behavior under the control of the natural
discriminative stimuli.

The time delay instructional protocol differs from the most-to-least and
least-to-most strategies in that the instructional prompt remains the same
throughout training but the delay between presentation of the natural
discriminative stimulus and the response prompt is gradually increased over
time. During training, a response prompt that is capable of evoking the
target response is initially selected. At the beginning of training the natural
discriminative stimulus and the response prompt are delivered
simultaneously (zero-second delay). This gives the participant the
opportunity to respond without error. This format is continued for a
predetermined number of response trials. Trials are then introduced in which
the prompt is delayed. This gives the participant the opportunity to respond
independently in the presence of the discriminative stimulus. If the
participant does not respond or begins to err during this delay then the
therapist prompts the appropriate response. Finally, all correct responses are
reinforced. Figure 9.11 presents a very clever representation of this
instructional protocol by Grant and Evans (1994).
There are two basic time delay procedures — progressive and constant
delay. In a progressive time delay protocol the delay between the
discriminative stimulus and the response prompt is made longer over trials.
In a constant time delay program the delay remains the same throughout
instructional trials. Once the participant continues to respond correctly prior
to the prompt and in the presence of the discriminative stimulus then the
prompting strategy can be removed.
Halle, Baer, and Spradlin (1981) used a time delay protocol to teach
language skills to students with moderate and severe developmental
disabilities. Prior to the intervention the authors observed classroom
activities to identify natural situations across the day where appropriate
verbal requests could be taught to these children. Table 9.2 presents a list of
these classroom situations identified for Experiment 1 of the study. Each of
these situations identify the natural discriminative stimuli and appropriate
responses within the classroom. The teachers were then taught to use a time
delay protocol to teach requesting in these classroom situations. When the
natural discriminative stimulus occurred the teacher attended to the student
but did not interact for five seconds (5 seconds constant time delay). If the
student made the appropriate request within the five seconds they could
access the activity or item. If the student did not make the appropriate
request within five seconds then the teacher modeled the request and the
student imitated the request. The student then accessed the item or activity
following the imitated request. This intervention was implemented in a
multiple baseline design fashion across six students. The results of this study
are presented in Figure 9.12. Prior to the intervention the teachers did not
use the delay procedure and the students rarely engaged in any form of
requesting. When the teachers were taught to use the time delay procedure
there was a dramatic increase in the teachers use of the delay protocol, and
in the student's use of requests.

Figure 9.11 Delayed prompting. In delayed prompting at first the prompt "It is a bunny" is given
immediately after the stimulus is presented. Gradually the delay is increased until the response "It is a
bunny" comes to occur before the prompt is given, demonstrating transfer of stimulus control from
prompt to S+ (Grant & Evans, 1994).

Table 9.2 Classroom Activities in which Language was Increased and Teaching Strategies Used (Halle,
Baer, & Spradlin, 1981).
Activities:

Free play, the first activity of the day, was an unstructured

time.
Usually a teacher and an aide supervised the activity of four to
Free Play. six
children. For free play, the children were taken to another
room that
contained games, puzzles, toys, and gross motor objects.
Snacks were served in the regular classroom midway through
the
morning. The children were seated at two tables and the
teachers and
Snack Time.
aides dispensed the snacks to the children. Usually three adults
supervised about 11 children. Snack time also included a
toileting
routine and preparation for recess.
Lunch was served in the regular classroom at 11:30 a.m. under
Lunch Time. the
same conditions that prevailed at Snack Time.

Free Play

Opportunity Baseline Conditions Intervention

Gross Examples of these are As during baseline, the teacher

Motor scooter approached the children when
Toys boards, trampolines, and they
very were on a gross motor object.
large plastic balls that She
children climb into. would even put her hands on the
Teachers sometimes invited object, but before she moved the
children to play on the gross object she delayed. Furthermore,
motor toys; at other times often the teacher stopped the
 children chose to play with moving object and delayed
them. Often when a child again,
got in the large ball or waiting for a request like, "Spin"
stepped or "Push, please."
on the scooter board, the
teacher spun the ball or
pushed the scooter. No voca
lizations were required and
they rarely occurred.

Snack Time

Teachers with juice in hand

Teachers with a cup of juice
approached children whose
in
hands
hand approached children,
were raised and delayed when
who were seated at the table
they
Juice and whose hands were
were in close proximity to a
raised. They dispensed this
particular child. Anticipated
snack to the children in
responses were "Juice, please" or
either
"I
of two ways: 1) by asking,
want juice."

"What do you want?" and

when the children
answered,
the juice was provided; or
2) by simply giving the
juice to the children with no
speech requirement.
Zip or Before going out to recess, If a teacher observed a child in
Button children often required need
 assistance with zipping or of help or when a child cued a
buttoning their coats. The teacher, the teacher approached
teachers provided the the
needed assistance with no child, kneeled down, and
contingency. Teachers some- delayed.
times observed the child's Sometimes a teacher grasped the
difficulty and at other times two sides of the zipper and
the teacher's attention was waited
solicited by nonvocal means for a vocal request.
(e.g., the child approaching
teacher and pointing to the
zipper).

Lunch Time

The lunch opportunity was

The teachers delayed with the
the
tray in
same as juice at Snack Time,
hand waiting for a vocal
Lunch except the teachers
initiation
approached
like "Lunch, please" or Tray,
with an entire tray of food
please."
instead of one item.

Fading of Stimulus Prompts

Stimulus prompts can also be faded systematically. The goal of such

procedures is to evoke the target response in the presence of the natural
discriminative stimulus. In stimulus fading an exaggerated or highlighted
dimension of the natural discriminative stimulus is systematically removed
or included during training. In Figure 9.13 we see an example of stimulus
fading in math education. In this example, the stimulus prompt is gradually
faded out. Additional stimulus prompts are also often superimposed on the
natural discriminative stimuli and faded during instruction. In other words,
Figure 9.12 Daily percentages of opportunities used by teachers to delay and by children to initiate,
before (baseline) and after (intervention) teachers programmed delays with each of the six children.
Points connected by solid lines represent percentages of teacher delays; shaded areas represent
percentages of child vocal initiations. Space between points and shaded area represent teacher delays
during which children either did not vocalize or did not make an appropriate vocal initiation.
Numbers along abcissa represent number of daily opportunities or denominators used to calculate
daily percentages (Halle, Baer, & Spradlin, 1981).

Figure 9.13 An example of stimulus fading in which the stimulus prompt is gradually faded out.

two specific classes of stimuli are used to prompt the target response. In one
example of fading superimposed stimuli the extraneous stimuli are gradually
faded out. We see an example of this in Figure 9.14.
Figure 9.14 An example of stimulus fading in which additional stimulus prompts are superimposed on
the natural discriminative stimuli and gradually faded during instruction.

Finally, stimulus shaping is a stimulus prompting strategy in which the

topography of the stimulus is changed. Again, it is necessary to select an
initial stimulus that will prompt the correct response. The shape of the
stimulus prompt is then changed gradually so that the person continues to
respond correctly. An example of stimulus shaping to teach word
identification is presented in Figure 9.15.
9.9 Shaping

Shaping involves the differential reinforcement of successive approximations

to the final or goal response. As discussed in Chapter 2, this procedure is
particularly valuable when the component behaviors of a target response are
not currently in the repertoire of the individual. Shaping can also be used to
increase a quantitative dimension of an already existing response. A shaping
program is often implemented in combination with the various stimulus and
response prompt strategies that have previously been outlined.

Figure 9.15 An example of stimulus shaping to teach word identification.

 Shaping involves two basic processes. First, responses that resemble the
final response, or include components of the final response, are reinforced by
the therapist. Second, as responses occur that are more similar to the target
response these are reinforced while the original (less similar) responses are
no longer reinforced. The process of reinforcing successive approximations
to the target response while extinguishing earlier responses continues until
the target response occurs. At this point in the intervention the target
response alone is reinforced. Shaping is an important strategy for teaching
behaviors that cannot easily be learned through the use of response and
stimulus prompts alone.
Examples of shaping are common in everyday situations. For instance,
when infants begin to babble this behavior is enthusiastically reinforced by
parents. As time progresses the parents attend to vocalizations that more
closely approximate words and now ignore babbling, initially the tennis
coach may prompt and reinforce merely getting the ball over the net with a
novice. Over time the coach will eventually require appropriate stance and
stroke from the student.
Shaping is a particularly effective applied strategy for developing social
and language responses. For example, children with autism often do not
possess rudimentary social or language skills. To develop eye contact with
another person the therapist may begin by reinforcing general orientation of
the child with autism towards the other person. The therapist may then
reinforce facial orientation towards the other person. Eventually, the
therapist will only reinforce eye contact with the other person. The final goal
of the program may then be to shape eye contact over the period of an entire
interaction with another person. Longer and longer periods of eye contact
may therefore be reinforced. This particular example demonstrates the two
uses of shaping. First, successive approximations to a final topography were
shaped (i.e., general orientation, facial orientation, and finally making eye
contact). Second, a quantitative dimension of the final topography was
shaped (i.e, the duration of eye contact across an interaction was shaped).
In a now classic study, Isaacs, Thomas, and Goldiamond (1960) shaped
verbal behavior in a person diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia who had
not spoken for nine years. Initially, any form of lip movement was
reinforced by the therapist. Once this behavior was established then lip
movement with sound emission was differentially reinforced. This was
followed by differential reinforcement of vocalizations. Finally the patient
received a reinforcer only after he verbally requested it. At this stage the
patient began to converse with people. In another early example of shaping,
Jackson and Wallace (1974) increased voice volume to appropriate levels for
a young girl with developmental disabilities who was diagnosed as being
severely withdrawn. During the intervention the girl was required to wear a
microphone while speaking. Voice volume was automatically registered
through the microphone. When the girl spoke at the targeted voice volume
for that session she received token reinforcers which she exchanged for items
following the session. The criterion voice volume for receipt of tokens was
systematically increased across trials. The girl gradually increased her voice
volume to normative levels. This is another example of a shaping program
that was used to increase a quantitative dimension (in this case, volume) of
an already existing response.
Shaping programs are sometimes difficult to develop and implement for a
number of reasons. It is often difficult for the therapist to identify an initial
behavior within the person's repertoire to begin the shaping process and
thus move towards a new behavioral topography. The initial behavior
selected should in some way be related to the terminal behavior. The
previous example by Isaacs et al. (1960) clearly illustrates this. In this
example lip movements were selected to begin the shaping process. Lip
movements were selected because they were functionally related to the
terminal response. Relatedly, the therapist should develop a clear operational
definition of the target or terminal response (see Chapter 7 for guidelines on
developing operational definitions of target behaviors). It is important for
the therapist to know what behavior is to be shaped before selecting an
initial behavior to begin the shaping process. Once the initial behavior is
established, the therapist must further select a dimension of this initial target
behavior that will be reinforced. The dimension to be reinforced must begin,
in some way, to approximate the terminal target behavior more closely.
Again, in the Isaacs et al. (1960) study, lip movements with verbalizations
were then reinforced while lip movements alone were extinguished. These
shaping steps to the terminal target behavior should be large enough to
ensure efficient training but should not be so large as to be unattainable by
the participant. If the next shaping step is too large the participant will begin
to err in performance. If this occurs the therapist should re-establishing
responding at an earlier step and then identify a smaller step towards the
terminal target behavior for subsequent shaping. As mentioned earlier,
response and stimulus prompts can be incorporated in to the shaping process
in order to evoke initial behaviors to be shaped.

9.10 Chaining

Chaining is a process whereby a series of discrete behaviors are linked

together to achieve some reinforcing outcome. Many everyday tasks consist
of a sequence or chain of several responses. The final response of this
sequence produces some form of reinforcement and this reinforcement
signals the end of the chain. Each discrete behavior in the chain acts as a
conditioned reinforcer for the previous step and simultaneously acts as a
discriminative stimulus for the upcoming step. (As noted in Chapter 2, a
stimulus that is discriminative or predicts that responding will be reinforced
also gains reinforcing value itself through pairing with a reinforcer.) For
example, in brushing teeth, accessing the toothbrush and toothpaste is the
first response, this acts as a discriminative stimulus for putting the
toothpaste on the toothbrush, which in turn is a discriminative stimulus for
brushing teeth. Brushing teeth is a discriminative stimulus for rinsing teeth,
which is a discriminative stimulus for restoring the environment (i.e.,
putting away materials and turning off the faucet). Eventually, the stimulus-
response chain ends in the desired outcome of clean teeth.
Chains can include few responses and can be accomplished over a
relatively brief period of time, for example making and consuming a snack
may take 30 minutes. Chains can also include a large number of responses
and may be accomplished over an extended period of time. For example, the
chain of behaviors involved in getting a university degree are typically
accomplished over a number of years and involve such diverse behaviors as
studying, attending classes, taking exams, working nights to fund university
fees etc. In fact, this example could be conceptualized as a series of clusters
of smaller chains (i.e., chains of behaviors are involved in studying and
taking classes etc.) which are themselves chained together to form a larger
chain. A chain is therefore often a valuable means by which to understand
how a long series of complex responses are maintained in individuals.
The ability to identify and teach chains is an important skill for the
behavior analyst. For example, when working with people with
developmental disabilities, much of the effort of the behavior analyst
involves developing and teaching curricula to promote independence. Daily-
living skills such as grooming and meal preparation are broken down into
teachable component behaviors. In other words, the first step of the teaching
process is to develop a task analysis of the behaviors involved in the chain
(for a description of how to develop a task analysis, see Chapter 7). The next
step is to select prompting procedures and reinforcing consequences that
will be used to teach each component behavior of the chain. Finally, the
therapist must choose a strategy by which to link each discrete behavior
together during training so that each behavior is a conditioned reinforcer for
the previous response and a discriminative stimulus for the subsequent
response. The strategies used to develop a behavioral chain during training
include forward chaining, backward chaining and total task chaining.
In forward chaining, training begins with the first step of the task.
Training continues on this first step until a predetermined criterion of
responding is achieved. At this point the participant is then trained on the
first and second steps of the chain. Once the training criterion is achieved
with these two steps then the third step is included in training and so on.
Each successive step trained involves cumulative practice on all previous
steps. One of the advantages of forward chaining is that it involves massed
practice of the earlier steps of the chain. The earlier links of a behavioral
chain are often the first behaviors to begin to deteriorate following training.
This phenomenon occurs because these early links are furthest removed
from the reinforcement contingencies at the end of the chain.
In an example of forward chaining, Wilson, Reid, Phillips, and Burgio
(1984) taught mealtime activities to four individuals with profound
developmental disabilities. Mealtime activities were analyzed into three
separate chains (pre-meal, meal, and post-meal), and these chains were
eventually chained together. Each step of the chain was taught using
physical guidance and reinforcers (edibles and praise) for correct
responding. Once the participant demonstrated a step of the chain
independently on two consecutive trials then the following step was added
to the training sequence. Once the first chain (pre-meal skills) was mastered
then the second chain (meal time) was introduced and so on. The results of
this study are presented in Figure 9.16 and demonstrate that the forward
chaining procedure produced maintenance of many of these skills following
training.
When using a backward chaining procedure, the therapist begins with
training the final step of the task sequence. Reinforcement is delivered once
the participant performs the last step appropriately. When the participant
achieves criterion responding on the final step of the task analysis then the
second last step of the chain is added to the training. Once the last two steps
of the chain are completed to criterion then the third last step is added to the
training sequence and so on. All previously learned steps are cumulatively
practiced during each training trial. Those steps of the chain
Figure 9.16 Percentage of independent mealtime skills for four individuals with profound
developmental disabilities (Wilson, Reid, Phillips, & Burgio, 1984).

that are not being currently trained are completed by the therapist prior to
each training trial.
Backward chaining protocols may be particularly useful for teaching skills
to individuals who have difficulty maintaining extended periods of on-task
behavior. Initial backward training trials are brief and end with the
completion of the task. This allows the participant to escape the task and
access the reinforcer almost immediately. As subsequent steps of the task are
gradually added increased on-task behavior is shaped for the participant.
O'Reilly (1995) used a backward chaining procedure as part of an
intervention strategy to teach vocational skills to an individual with severe
developmental disabilities who exhibited high rates of escape-maintained
aggression. For example, when teaching floor sweeping, the therapist
removed the brush and dust pan from the closet, swept the entire floor area,
swept the materials into the dust pan, brought the dust pan to the trash can
and emptied it. The therapist then taught the participant to complete the last
step of the floor sweeping task (which was putting the sweeping materials
back in to the closet) using a least-to most prompting procedure. When the
participant successfully completed that step of the task he was allowed
access to the reinforcer, which was to sit and listen to music for brief period
of time. Once criterion was reached for the last step of the task, then the
participant was taught to carry out the last two steps of the task, which were
to empty the trash in to the trash can and then replace the cleaning
materials. This intervention strategy resulted in increased levels of skill
performance while aggression was almost totally eliminated.
With a total task chaining method, the participant is given the
opportunity to perform each step of the task analysis during a training trial.
The therapist initially selects a series of prompts and reinforcers for training.
During training the task or chain is presented in the natural sequence in
which the discrete behaviors are performed. Training continues until the
participant is able to perform all steps of the task to a predetermined
criterion. One of the major advantages of this chaining procedure is that the
participant has the opportunity to practice the entire sequence of responding
during each training trial. This may promote more efficient mastery of the
task (Spooner, 1984). One of the disadvantages of this procedure is that
training trials may be more extended than with forward or backward
chaining, as the participant must perform all steps of the task during each
trial. This may be particularly true during early training trials when the
participant may not be competent in the majority of steps of the chain. This
becomes less and less of a problem as the participant's mastery increases
over training trials.
In an example of a total task presentation procedure, Zencius, Davis, and
Cuvo (1990) taught complex money management skills to rehabilitation
clients. Clients were taught to: write checks (to receive cash and pay bills),
make deposits (coins, currency, checks, and combinations) and reconcile
checking account statements. Each of these units (e.g., write checks, make
deposits) were developed into task analyses. The task analysis for making
deposits is presented in Table 9.3. Participants were taught the skills with
modeling, written instructions, and performance feedback. Participants
received instruction on the steps of at least one entire task analysis (e.g.,
making deposits) during a training trial. This instructional protocol resulted
in rapid acquisition of these complex behavioral chains for the participants.

9.11 Topographical Changes in Responding During

Extinction

As described in Chapter 3, one of the fundamental properties of the

extinction process is that changes occur in the topography of the response
when it is placed on extinction, A number of researchers have taken
Table 9.3 Task Analysis for Completing Deposit Slips (Zencius, Davis, & Cuvo, 1990)
1. Endorse
2. Fill in name
3. Fill in account number
4. Fill in day, month, and year
5. Fill in currency
6. Fill in coin
7. Fill in check number and amount
8. Fill in total
9. Subtract cash received
10. Fill in net deposit
11. Record date in checkbook ledger
12. Describe in ledger
13. Record amount under deposit
14. Record amount under balance
15. Add amount to balance

advantage of this to teach variability in responding to individuals with

limited behavioral repertoires. For example Lalli, Zanolli, and Wohn (1994)
used an intervention strategy that included extinction plus reinforcement of
novel topographies to teach variability in toy play to two children with mild
intellectual disabilities. Participants were taught a limited number of play
behaviors with a doll, stuffed animal, and airplane. During subsequent play
sessions the therapist initially praised the existing play topography and then
placed that topography on extinction. Novel topographies of toy play were
then reinforced during the session. Praise had been identified as a reinforcer
for toy play with both children prior to the intervention. This intervention
resulted in the induction of untrained topographies for both children across
the different toys. The cumulative number of untrained play topographies
across the toys for both children are presented in Figure 9.17.

9.12 Programming Generalization of Newly

Acquired Skills

Figure 9.17 Cumulative number of untrained play topographies across toys for two children (Lalli,
Zanolli, & Wohn, 1994).

Increasing or establishing new behaviors for individuals is a small victory if

these gains do not maintain following the removal of intervention or are not
performed in settings other than those settings in which they are taught. An
effective behavioral intervention must therefore do more than change
behavior, it must produce behavior that has generality. Baer, Wolf, and
Risley (1968) describe behavior as having generality:
 ... if it proves durable over time, if it appears in a wide variety of possible environments, or if it

spreads to a wide variety of related behaviors, (p.96).

It should be noted here that the description of generalization above differs

somewhat from the definition of generalization outlined in Chapter 5. In the
basic experimental paradigm, generalization can be defined as a lack of
stimulus control over responding. In other words, discrimination training is
an active process with generalization being no more than a demonstration of
a lack of tight stimulus control. The applied definition of generalization is in
some ways functionally different from the basic definition. Generalization in
applied behavior analysis can be defined as:
... the occurrence of relevant behavior under different, nontraining conditions (i.e., across subjects,
settings, people, behaviors, and/or time) without the scheduling of the same events in those
conditions as had been scheduled in the training conditions. Thus, generalization may be claimed

when no extratraining manipulations are needed for extratraining changes; or may be claimed
when some extra manipulations are necessary, but their cost or extent is clearly less than that of

the direct intervention. Generalization will not be claimed when similar events are necessary for
similar effects across conditions. (Stokes & Baer, 1977; p. 350).

Stokes and Baer (1977) outlined a series of intervention strategies that

could be incorporated into behavioral interventions to promote
generalization of newly established behaviors across settings, persons,
behaviors and time. These strategies for programming generalization
continue to be researched and refined (Chandler, Lubeck, & Fowler, 1992;
Horner, Dunlap, & Koegel, 1988). Some of these strategies include:
introduction to natural maintaining contingencies; programming of common
stimuli; training sufficient exemplars; and mediation of generalization.

Introduction to natural maintaining contingencies.

When selecting a behavior to teach or increase it is important to establish

that this behavior will produce reinforcing consequences in the
postintervention environment. Behaviors that do not produce reinforcement
outside of the intervention setting will not maintain once the intervention is
removed. Baer and Wolf (1970) define the maintenance and generalization of
such behaviors in terms of trapping. Once the behavior is established in the
training setting and subsequently exposed to the natural maintaining
contingencies, it becomes trapped by those natural contingencies. This
strategy of programming generalization emphasizes the importance of
selecting target behaviors prior to intervention that will produce
reinforcement for the individual (see Chapter 7). In some instances
reinforcement may currently be unavailable or dormant in the post
intervention environment. In such a situation the therapist may teach the
participant to recruit reinforcement in that environment when participants
have performed the target behavior. For example, Stokes, Fowler, and Baer
(1978) taught preschool children appropriate classroom skills such as
working consistently and quietly. In addition the researchers taught the
children to evaluate the quality of their work and to cue the teacher to
deliver reinforcement for quality performance ("How is this work? Have I
been working carefully?"). Selecting a target behavior that will result in
reinforcement when the intervention is removed is of fundamental
importance when developing any applied intervention program to teach new
behavior.

Programming of common stimuli

Generalization to other settings is more likely to occur if salient

discriminative stimuli that are present in the training setting are also present
in the generalization settings. This can be accomplished by incorporating
stimuli from the criterion environments (where generalization is expected to
occur) in to the training environment. For example, O'Reilly and Glynn
(1995) used peer confederates to train social skills to students who were
diagnosed as socially withdrawn. Students were taught such classroom
social skills as: to ask for help when unable to complete written exercises; to
indicate to the teacher when they had completed exercises. Social skills
training was conducted in a room removed from the classroom setting. Peer
confederates were selected from the same classroom as the participants.
These peers role-played the appropriate social skills with the participants
during training. Peers were subsequently present in the classroom where
participants were required to generalize the social skills. Peers therefore
acted as a common stimulus between training and classroom generalization
settings.

Training of sufficient exemplars

Another strategy to promote generalization of new responses is to train

several examples of the response during the acquisition phase of training.
For successful generalization to occur, the response topography must change
as a function of changes in salient discriminative stimuli across settings (i.e.,
stimulus and response generalization). The therapist must therefore include a
sufficient number of training examples during the training phase in order to
expose the participant to the relevant response and stimulus variations that
will be encountered in the natural environment. Prior to selection of training
examples, the therapist must first identify those environments in which the
target response will be expected to occur. The therapist must then identify
the significant variations in the topography of the response that will need to
be performed across these different settings. Finally, the therapist must
identify those stimuli that will be discriminative for responding across the
different environments. At this point the therapist can select a sub-group of
teaching examples for training that sample the variety of response and
stimulus variation in the natural environment. Training on this sub-group of
examples should produce generalized responding to all untrained examples.
This protocol for identifying the sufficient number of training examples to be
used in training is described as general case programming (Horner, Sprague,
& Wilcox, 1982). General case programming has proved to be an effective
strategy for teaching generalized independent living skills such a vending
machine usage to persons with severe disabilities (Sprague & Horner, 1984).
Mediation of generalization

Stokes arid Baer (1977) describe the process of mediated generalization as

".......establishing a response as part of the learning that is likely to be used
in other problems as well, and will constitute sufficient commonality
between the original learning and the new problem to result in
generalization." (p. 361). In other words, participants are taught a set of
responses which are additional to the targeted skill, and these additional
responses serve as discriminative stimuli to be used by participants across
settings. One of the most frequently used mediation strategies is self-
instructional training (Meichenbaum & Goodman, 1971). Self-instructional
training typically involves teaching the participant to verbally state the
required response, perform that response, and finally acknowledge to
themselves that they have performed the response. These instructions can
therefore act as a salient common stimulus that can be used in any
generalization setting once taught in the training setting. In a recent
example of self-instructional training, Hughes, Harmer, Killian, and Niarhos
(1995) used a combination of multiple-exemplar training and self-
instructional training to teach generalized conversational skills to high
school students with developmental disabilities. Four participants were
taught to initiate conversations and to respond to initiations from others.
These initiations and responses were trained across multiple school settings
and with multiple peers. In addition, participants were taught a series of
self-instructional statements to be used during social interactions. The self-
instruction protocol consisted of four statements: (a) stating the problem ("I
should talk"), stating the response ("I need to look and talk"), evaluating the
response ("I talked"), and self-acknowledgement ("I did a good job"). All the
participants used the self-instruction steps across school settings and novel
social partners. The rate of social initiations per minute across training and
generalization settings under baseline, training, and maintenance conditions
are presented in Figure 9.18. The results demonstrate that participants
engaged in few social interactions prior to training. All participants rapidly
reached the range of expected levels of social initiation in training and
generalization settings once the multiple-exemplar self-instruction training
package was implemented. Treatment gains were maintained for up to
eleven months for two of the participants.
The strategies discussed in this section provide examples of instructional
protocols that can be incorporated during training in order to maximize
generalization outcomes. Techniques to promote generalization of behavior
over time (i.e., fade to intermittent reinforcement schedules; use generalized
conditioned reinforcers) have also been discussed in various sections
throughout this chapter. Finally, it is important to note that it is probably
preferable to include as many strategies as possible to promote
generalization of responding during training. Research findings suggest the
more generalization strategies that are included in training the greater the
chances of achieving generalized responding. A move to the routine use of
multiple-exemplar training would be a major improvement in behavior
analysis programs.
Figure 9.18 Conversational initiations per minute by participants to partners with and without
disabilities across school settings. The banded areas in the graphs indicate range of expected
performance based upon social comparison data (Hughes, Harmer, Killian, & Niarhos, 1995).

9.13 Negative Reinforcement

 Negative reinforcement is a principle of behavior that has received a
significant amount of interest in the field of applied behavior analysis in
recent years (Carr & Durand, 1985; Durand & Carr, 1991). Negative
reinforcement is defined as an increase in the probability of responding
contingent on the withdrawal, prevention, or removal of stimulation (as
discussed in Chapter 5, and see Hineline, 1977; Iwata, 1987). Behaviors that
prevent stimulation are typically described as avoidance behaviors as they
prevent the person from coming in to contact with the stimuli. Behaviors
that remove ongoing stimulation are typically described as escape behaviors
as they allow the person to escape ongoing stimulation. Implied in this
definition is that the potential or ongoing stimulation is aversive, and that
the person engages in the behavior to avoid or escape aversive stimulation.

As discussed in Chapter 5, many everyday behaviors may be maintained

by negative reinforcement. Opening an umbrella reduces the probability of
getting wet. Performing the tasks required of a job reduces the probability of
being fired. Brushing and getting your teeth checked regularly reduces the
probability of a toothache. These examples do not preclude the possibility
that positively reinforcing contingencies also exist in such situations (for
example, a person may brush their teeth because they often receive positive
comments from others about what beautiful teeth they have). The question
as to whether a behavior is positively or negatively reinforced in any
particular situation is ultimately an empirical one which functional analysis,
as described in Chapter 7, may reveal.
Many aberrant behaviors such as self-injury and aggression are
maintained by negative reinforcing contingencies. In a recent
epidemiological analysis of the contingencies maintaining SIB in persons
with developmental disabilities, Iwata et al. (1994) demonstrated that
negative reinforcement was implicated for the majority of cases assessed.
When negative reinforcing contingencies maintain such aberrant behavior
the therapist may select to teach the person a socially appropriate alternative
behavior that can access the same reinforcing contingencies. For example, if
the person engages in aggression in order to escape a work task, this person
may be taught to ask for a break (alternative response). In other words the
person is taught a functionally equivalent appropriate behavior to access the
same consequences (see the account of differential reinforcement of
functionally equivalent behavior earlier in Section 9.6). The alternative
appropriate response now becomes part of the same functional response
class as the aberrant behavior (because both aberrant and appropriate
behaviors lead to the same consequence).
When teaching alternative behaviors, it is important for the therapist to
recognize that such behaviors must be more efficient than the existing
aberrant behaviors for accessing the desired consequences. The alternative
response must produce the desired consequence more immediately than the
existing response. The alternative response must also take less effort on the
part of the participant to perform than the existing response. If the
alternative response is not more efficient than the existing response then the
alternative response will fail to maintain over time (Horner & Day, 1991).
This recent work on the treatment of negatively reinforced aberrant
behavior again highlights the advantages of using pre-intervention
functional analyses to identify maintaining contingencies. In these situations
the maintaining contingencies can be used to increase appropriate
alternative behaviors.

9.14 Overall Summary

A summary of the wealth of strategies available to the behavior analyst to

increase appropriate responding in applied settings has been outlined in this
chapter. The behavior analyst is typically required to increase behavior that
is already in the repertoire of an individual, or to establish new behavior for
an individual. Interventions based on the principles of positive
reinforcement are the most frequently used protocols. Prior to implementing
an intervention based on positive reinforcement it is important to identify
consequences that are of reinforcing value for a participant. Reinforcers can
be identified through interview, observation, or systematically with
preference and choice assessment protocol. Reinforcement programs can also
be made more effective by such factors as: taking advantage of natural levels
of deprivation for a reinforcer during training sessions; reinforcing
immediately; using a rich schedule of reinforcement initially to establish
new behaviors and then gradually thinning the schedule of reinforcement to
ensure maintenance of responding; and using generalized conditioned
reinforcers whenever possible.
Reinforcement strategies can also be used to decrease maladaptive
behavior. These techniques are typically described as differential
reinforcement strategies because selected responses or levels of responding
are reinforced while other behaviors are placed on extinction. Before
selecting one of these techniques it is essential to conduct a functional
analysis of the maladaptive behavior. A functional analysis identifies the
contingencies maintaining the maladaptive behavior. This allows the
therapist to withhold the reinforcers for the maladaptive behavior and make
them contingent on alternative adaptive behaviors.
Behavioral strategies can also be used to establish new behaviors for an
individual. These strategies can be used to develop specific individual skills
or complex sequences of skills. A variety of stimulus and response
prompting strategies are typically employed to evoke the target response.
These prompting strategies are systematically faded to produce responding
under the control of the natural discriminative stimuli. New behaviors can
also be developed or shaped through differential reinforcement of successive
approximations to the targeted response. Chaining is a process whereby a
complex series of discrete skills are linked together in order to achieve a
reinforcing outcome. Chaining involves the teaching of a new and often
complex sequence of behaviors.
Generalization of behavior does not occur automatically. It must be
actively programmed during training. An applied behavioral intervention
cannot be deemed successful unless it produces meaningful change outside
of the intervention context for an extended period of time. Applied behavior
analysts have identified several strategies that produce generalized
responding for participants. As many of these techniques as possible should
be incorporated in to a training program.
Many behaviors in everyday settings are maintained by negative
reinforcement contingencies. Recent applied research has focused on
aberrant behaviors that are maintained by such contingencies. Many of
these applied intervention techniques for escape-maintained aberrant
behavior take advantage of the maintaining contingencies to teach socially
appropriate, functionally equivalent, escape behaviors.
Chapter 10
Decreasing Maladaptive Behavior in
Applied Settings
In many applied and clinical situations the behavior analyst is faced with
the task of decreasing behaviors that may be maladaptive for the client. In
such situations there should of course be a very clear rationale for the need
to reduce behaviors. Maladaptive behaviors may be generally defined as
behaviors that result in some form of negative outcome for the person or for
others. For example, a child's aggression towards other classroom students
may result in physical harm to those students, or harm to the aggressive
child through retaliation. The aggressive child might also be removed from
the classroom setting, thereby losing access to appropriate educational
opportunities. Again, the behavior analyst must conduct a rigorous
assessment of the function of the behavior and establish a firm rationale for
reducing such behavior prior to any intervention (see Chapter 7).
It is rare to see behavior change programs that are designed exclusively to
reduce maladaptive behaviors. Typically, interventions consist of a
combination of strategies designed to decrease maladaptive responding
while simultaneously increasing appropriate responding. Many of these
strategies were described in Chapter 9. These programs ideally consist of a
three-stage process. This includes: a) a functional analysis to identify the
maintaining contingencies; b) elimination of those maintaining
contingencies for the aberrant behavior (through extinction); and c)
presentation of the reinforcer that previously maintained the aberrant
behavior, but is now contingent upon appropriate alternative behaviors
(Reichle & Wacker, 1993). Such programs thus include the use of positive
reinforcement to enhance appropriate behavior. However, in some situations
it may simply not be possible to use this three-stage process to develop
interventions to reduce maladaptive behavior. For example, in some cases a
functional analysis may not be successful in revealing maintaining
contingencies, and if these contingencies remain unknown then it is
technically impossible to place the behavior on extinction. In such
circumstances, punishment strategies may be required to achieve behavior
change (Lerman, Iwata, Shore, & DeLeon, 1997). In other circumstances,
although the function of the maladaptive behavior is clear, it may not be
possible or desirable to replace the maladaptive behavior with alternative
behaviors. For example, if a child's night time wakings are maintained by
parent attention (that is, the parent enters the child's bedroom and comforts
the child when crying begins or continues), then the intervention of choice
may be to place the child's crying on extinction (that is, the parent should no
longer enter the child's bedroom contingent upon crying). In this situation it
would not be appropriate to replace the child's crying with a functionally
equivalent alternative behavior.
Because functional analysis combined with positive reinforcement
strategies may not be sufficient to deal with all behavioral problems, it is
important that the behavior analyst be familiar with behavioral techniques
that can be used to reduce maladaptive behavior. Additionally, it is essential
that the behavior analyst be familiar with the basic principles of behavior
from which these technologies are derived. In Chapters 3 and 5, the
fundamental properties of extinction and punishment as identified in basic
research were described. While both extinction and punishment result in an
overall reduction in responding, there are other characteristics of responding
when behavior is either punished or placed on extinction (such as the
extinction burst, or the possibility of avoidance behavior following the
introduction of punishment). The behavior analyst must be aware of all
characteristics of these behavior reduction strategies in order to implement
such strategies efficiently and effectively.
In this chapter the use of extinction and punishment procedures in applied
settings will be described. Some of the general ethical issues surrounding the
use of these techniques (particularly the use of consequences that may be
described as aversive in treatment strategies) were reviewed in Chapter 5,
and specific issues are dealt with in the present chapter. In the final chapter,
these issues will be related to the human rights of individuals in treatment.
Suffice it to say at this point that aversive consequences should be
considered as a treatment of last resort and only administered under strict
guidelines.

10.1 Decreasing Behavior Using Extinction

Extinction was defined in Chapter 3 as a procedure in which the

contingency between the reinforcer and response is removed. The eventual
outcome of this process is a reduction of the rate of the behavior towards its
operant level. Other properties of behavior during the extinction process
include topographical changes in responding, extinction bursts,
extinctioninduced aggression, and spontaneous recovery. We noted in
Chapter 9 that researchers have taken advantage of topographical changes in
responding under extinction conditions to teach novel behaviors, and the
other behavioral effects of extinction will be discussed in this section.
As noted in Chapter 3, extinction can be accomplished in two ways. First,
the reinforcer can be removed or eliminated completely. Second, the
reinforcer can be delivered but in a noncontingent manner. While both of
these procedures effectively extinguish behavior there may be distinct
applied advantages for using noncontingent delivery of reinforcing stimuli
rather than eliminating the reinforcer entirely in many instances. This will
be discussed in detail later in this section. Obviously, for extinction to be
effective, the reinforcer for the maladaptive behavior must be clearly
identified prior to the intervention. Recent research has identified the
importance of using functional analysis methodologies to identify the
operant function of behavior prior to implementing extinction, and this
research will be described in Section 10.2.
Extinction Burst

An extinction burst has been defined as a transitory increase in responding

almost immediately after shift to an extinction procedure when reinforcers
are no longer forthcoming for that response. This effect has been reported in
several applied behavior analysis studies (for example, Iwata, Pace, Kalsher,
Cowdery, & Cataldo, 1990). In an early example, Neisworth and Moore
(1972) trained parents to ignore the asthmatic behavior of their child. In this
particular example of extinction, the reinforcer was eliminated completely.
The child's asthmatic behavior, which consisted of coughing, wheezing, and
gasping, usually occurred in the evenings around bedtime. During the
extinction procedure, the parents did not attend to his asthmatic attacks
once the boy was put to bed. Additionally, the boy received a monetary
reward contingent on reductions in asthmatic behavior. The duration of
coughing and wheezing was measured once the child was placed in bed. The
results of the intervention are displayed in Figure 10.1. The effectiveness of
this intervention was evaluated using a reversal design. It is clear from the
data that there is an immediate increase in the duration of asthmatic
behavior once the intervention is implemented. Asthmatic behavior then
decreases dramatically under the intervention condition. A return to
baseline results in an increase in asthmatic behavior and once again we see
an extinction burst when the intervention is applied for the second time. The
second extinction phase also seems to demonstrate another fundamental
property of extinction. In this second phase the extinction process is more
rapid and contains fewer responses (see Chapter 3 for experimental studies
of this effect). However, this additional interpretation of the second
extinction phase must be viewed with caution, as the target behavior was
not allowed to return to original baseline levels of responding in the second
baseline phase. This illustrates an ethical concern often present in applied
studies; in this case, considerations of the boy's health led to modification of
the procedure used.
Figure 10.1 Duration of asthmatic responding at bedtime during baseline and extinction phases
(Neisworth & Moore, 1972).

The occurrence of the extinction burst has been put forward as one of the
major drawbacks for using extinction as a sole therapeutic intervention in
applied contexts (see, for example, Kazdin, 1994). It may be difficult for staff
or parents to tolerate an initial increase in responding no matter how benign
the undesirable behavior might be. There would be obvious ethical problems
with using extinction in cases where the behavior was of danger to the client
or others. Additionally, parents or staff may interpret the increase in
intensity of the behavior as a failure of the behavioral program and may
therefore revert to reinforcing the behavior. This may in effect shape the
targeted behavior into a more intense form of aberrant behavior. However,
the extinction burst may not be as common as previously implied in
introductory text books on applied behavior analysis (for example, Cooper,
Heron, & Heward, 1987). in fact there are not large numbers of applied
demonstrations of the extinction burst. Lerman and Iwata (1995)
systematically examined the prevalence of the extinction burst in a sample
of 113 sets of extinction data. They found that increases in frequency of
behavior when extinction was applied occurred in only 24% of the cases
studied. In a subsequent analysis of the basic and applied research literature
on extinction, Lerman and Iwata (1996) concluded that continued research is
needed to directly examine the functional properties of the extinction burst.
It was noted in Chapter 3 that the extinction burst seems to be associated
with one particular operation of extinction. The extinction burst seems to
occur when the reinforcer is no longer available, and not under the
alternative extinction operation where the contingency between the
behavior and the reinforcer is broken but the reinforcer continues to be
delivered in a noncontingent manner, in Chapter 9 we noted that the
noncontingent delivery of reinforcing stimuli (NCR) can be an effective
method to rapidly decrease aberrant behavior. During NCR interventions,
reinforcement is typically delivered on a fixed-time schedule and is not
influenced by the client's behavior. The formal definition of a fixed-time
schedule of reinforcement is one in which the reinforcer is delivered after a
fixed period of time, regardless of whether or not a response occurs, delivery
of the reinforcer is thus not contingent on the behavior. It is instructive to
compare the effects of eliminating the reinforcer for the target behavior (as
demonstrated above in Neisworth & Moore, 1972) with delivering the
reinforcer noncontingently. Figure 10.2 illustrates the effects of delivering
attention noncontingently for self-injurious behavior that is maintained by
attention (Vollmer, Iwata, Zarcone, Smith, & Mazaleski, 1993). Self-injury for
Brenda consisted of banging her head on solid stationary objects and hitting
her head with her fist. A functional analysis identified social attention as the
maintaining contingency for self-injury. Attention was then delivered on a
fixed time schedule. Self-injury was measured as number of responses per
minute and NCR was evaluated using
Figure 10.2 Responses per minute of self-injurious behavior during baseline when attention is
delivered contingent on self-injurious behavior and during NCR intervention (phase 2 in the graph)
when attention is delivered noncontingently (Vollmer, Iwata, Zarcone, Smith, & Mazaleski, 1993).

an ABAB design (with a DRO intervention implemented in the final B

phase). The results of the NCR intervention demonstrate an almost
immediate elimination of self-injurious behavior. No extinction burst or
gradual reduction in self-injurious behavior occurred. Vollmer et al. (1993)
subsequently hypothesized that NCR produces such dramatic reductions for
two possible reasons. First, the contingency between responding and the
reinforcer is removed (that is, extinction is in effect). Second, the person
continues to have access to the reinforcer on a relatively rich (although
noncontingent) schedule which may result in satiation. Noncontingent
delivery of reinforcing stimuli may therefore act as a form of extinction and
as an abolishing operation: while levels of deprivation can establish a
stimulus as a reinforcer, or increase the power of a stimulus as a reinforcer,
the opposite operation is also equally possible. Satiation with a stimulus can
abolish that stimulus as a reinforcer, at least for the time being. In other
words, a rich schedule of noncontingent delivery of a reinforcer may abolish
that stimulus as a reinforcer, in addition to breaking the contingency
between the response and the reinforcing stimulus. This provides two
mechanisms by which the procedure can be effective in eliminating
unwanted behavior, without creating any of the ethical problems that can
arise when access to a highly-preferred reinforcer is restricted.

Gradual Reduction in Behavior and Spontaneous Recovery

The elimination of a reinforcer for a behavior often results in a gradual

decrease in responding until the behavior ceases to occur. The rate of this
gradual reduction in responding can be attributed to prior history of
reinforcement for that response. There is ample basic research to
demonstrate that intermittent schedules of reinforcement can increase
resistance to extinction (Mackintosh, 1974, and see Chapter 3). However,
little systematic applied research has demonstrated a functional relationship
between history of conditioning and resistance to extinction (see Lerman &
Iwata, 1996, for a review of relevant studies).
In applied studies, this gradual reduction in responding may be
particularly problematic when the target behavior is dangerous to self and
others. Additionally, many aberrant behaviors may have a long history of
intermittent reinforcement prior to the application of extinction. This may
result in persistence of responding under extinction conditions. In an early
and often-cited example of the use of an extinction protocol with severe
aberrant behavior, Lovaas and Simmons (1969) systematically removed all
attention contingent upon head-banging for a child with severe disabilities.
Extinction was the sole treatment used in this particular case. The child was
placed alone in a room and was unobtrusively observed over an extended
period of time. The authors concluded that extinction eventually occurred
but only after an extensive amount of self-injury had occurred.
To allow a child to engage in such destructive behavior for extended time
periods is generally agreed to be inappropriate, and this study is sometimes
used as an example to caution therapists against using extinction as a sole
intervention with such behavior disorders. It is important for behavior
analysts to consider the results of basic and applied research which
demonstrates this gradual reduction in responding during extinction under
more controlled experimental conditions. This phenomenon is readily
demonstrated in the laboratory, as illustrated in Chapter 3, but has rarely
been systematically observed in applied settings.
Another behavioral phenomenon associated with the process of
eliminating reinforcement is that of spontaneous recovery. As noted in
Chapter 3, spontaneous recovery means that there is a temporary
reemergence of the behavior under the extinction condition. Under
experimental conditions, the recovery of responding is typically not as
strong as original responding prior to the extinction program. The danger
with spontaneous recovery during applied interventions is that the behavior
may be unwittingly reinforced by those caregivers who are implementing
the extinction program. Reinforcement during spontaneous recovery could
place the behavior on an intermittent schedule of reinforcement and thus
make it more difficult to eliminate.
Spontaneous recovery is clearly illustrated in an applied intervention to
decrease nighttime waking in young children through extinction (France &
Hudson, 1990). Nighttime waking, which occurs with approximately 20
percent of children, can cause severe disruption for parents. In this study the
parents of seven children were trained to ignore nighttime wakings.
Nighttime waking was operationally defined as sustained noise for more
than 1 minute from the onset of sleep until an agreed upon waking time for
the child the next morning. The effectiveness of the intervention was
examined using a multiple baseline design across children (see Figure 10.3).
The frequency of night wakings each week was plotted during baseline,
intervention, and follow up assessments. These results clearly illustrate
gradual decreases in the frequency of night wakings once the intervention
was implemented. Additionally, there are clear instances of spontaneous
recovery with all children during the intervention phase.
Extinction-Induced Aggression

One of the most frequently described side effects of placing behavior on

extinction is the occurrence of extinction-induced aggression. Breaking the
contingency between behavior and reinforcement seems to constitute an
aversive event which results in aggression and other forms of agitated
behavior (Lerman & Iwata, 1996), and there is ample evidence from
experimental studies to document this effect (see Chapter 3).
The occurrence of aggression under extinction conditions is sometimes
cited as one of the reasons for not recommending the use of extinction as the
sole treatment in applied settings (e.g., LaVigna & Donnellan. 1986).
Unfortunately, little applied research to date has documented such side
effects of extinction. In fact, some studies have shown that such agitated side
effects may not occur in many cases where extinction is applied. For
example, Iwata, Pace, Kalsher, Cowdery, and Cataldo (1990) examined the
influence of extinction on self-injurious behavior that produced escape from
tasks for seven individuals with developmental disabilities. Extinction
consisted of not allowing participants to escape from demanding situations
contingent upon self-injurious behavior; a procedure which is commonly
described as escape extinction. Iwata et al. (1990) found that brief extinction
bursts occurred, but no agitated side effects were reported.
Figure 10.3 Frequency of night wakings for seven children under an extinction intervention. The large
solid dots represent nights in which the infant was ill. Some level of spontaneous recovery is evident
with all children (France & Hudson, 1990).

This is not to say that extinction-induced aggression has not been

reported in applied research. For example, Goh and Iwata (1994) carried out
a rigorous assessment of extinction-induced aggression for a man with
severe disabilities who engaged in self-injurious behavior in order to escape
from demanding tasks. During the extinction condition, self-injurious
behavior did not result in escape from tasks. An evaluation of the escape
extinction intervention was conducted using a withdrawal design (see
Figure 10.4). In the baseline phases of the design, self-injurious behavior
produced escape from demanding tasks. In addition to examining self-
injurious behavior under baseline and extinction conditions, the authors also
examined aggression under these experimental conditions (aggression is
plotted separately in Figure 10.4). This data set demonstrates some of the
fundamental properties of extinction such as the extinction burst, a gradual
reduction of behavior during extinction, and a more rapid extinction process
during the second application of extinction. Additionally, the presence of
aggression is also clearly documented when the extinction process is
implemented on both occasions.
Extinction-induced aggression seems to occur occasionally when
extinction is implemented as the sole intervention. The applied behavior
analyst should seriously consider the implications of such a possibility when
planning to implement an extinction program. Those who will implement
the program must be aware and prepared for the potential occurrence of
aggression. If there was a potential danger of serious aggressive outbursts
(for example, when working with an adult client with a history of aggressive
behavior) then the use of extinction alone may not be a practical choice of
treatment.

Figure 10.4 Rate of self-injurious behavior (upper panel) and aggressive responses (lower panel) for an
individual under baseline and extinction intervention (Goh & Iwata, 1994).
Response Effort

It was noted in Chapter 3 that resistance to extinction can be influenced by

the effortfulness of responding, if responding requires more physical effort
during extinction, then extinction will occur more rapidly. While this
phenomenon may have significant applied implications for enhancing the
efficiency and effectiveness of interventions using extinction it has not
received a significant amount of attention in the applied behavior analysis
literature (Friman & Poling, 1995; Lerman & Iwata, 1996). Response effort
has been systematically manipulated in several recent applied studies
(Horner & Day, 1991; Shore, Iwata, DeLeon, Kahng, & Smith, 1997; Van
Houten, 1993). During these studies extinction was not in effect for the
target responses. However, an examination of the influence of response
effort in some of these studies is instructive and may present avenues for
future research involving the manipulation of effort under extinction
conditions within applied contexts.
Figure 10.5 The number of face slaps per minute when wrist weights were on and when they were off
(Van Houten, 1993).

Van Houten (1993) evaluated the influence of an intervention which

consisted of placing wrist weights (1.5 lbs each) on a boy who self-injured.
The boy was diagnosed with severe developmental disabilities and engaged
in high rates of face slapping. The effects of wrist weights on the number of
self-injurious face slaps were initially evaluated using a withdrawal design
(See Figure 10.5). The wrist weight condition eliminated face slapping.
Additionally, Van Houten (1993) also reported that the boy continued to
engage in adaptive toy play under the wrist weight condition. Wrist weights
therefore eliminated self-injurious behavior (SIB) but did not interfere with
adaptive behavior for the boy. These results seem to indicate that the wrist
weights eliminated hand-to-head SIB by increasing the effortfulness of
responding.
Shore et al. (1997) examined the influence of response effort on reinforcer
substitutabiIity for three individuals with SIB. Functional analyses prior to
the intervention indicated that SIB appeared to be maintained by automatic
reinforcement for all three individuals. Following the functional analysis a
preference assessment (see Chapter 9 for a description of preference
assessment protocol) was conducted to identify highly preferred leisure
stimuli for these individuals (i.e, vibrating massager, plastic rings, and a
small plastic tube). The effortfulness of manipulating these preferred stimuli
was then systematically evaluated and the results of this evaluation are
presented in Figure 10.6. When the leisure materials were not available then
all three individuals engaged in high levels of SIB (see baseline phase of each
graph). When the participants had free access to the leisure materials (phase
2 of the graphs) then SIB was almost completely eliminated and all
participants engaged in high levels of manipulation of the leisure materials
(described as object manipulation in the graphs). The leisure objects were
then secured by a piece of string to a work top or table. The effortfulness of
responding or accessing the leisure materials (i.e., by bending over the table)
was systematically examined by varying the length of string. The remaining
phases of the graphs illustrate the influence of varying the length of string
and thereby the effortfulness of manipulating the leisure objects. Overall, the
results demonstrate that as the effortfulness of manipulating the leisure
objects increased there were decreases in object manipulation with
corresponding increases in SIB.
Both of these research examples demonstrate that effortfulness is a
potentially important variable to examine in applied settings. These studies
showed that increases in response effort could eliminate SIB (Van Houten,
1993) and result in changes in response allocation (Shore et al., 1997). To
date, no study has examined the influence of changes in response effort for
behavior that is placed on extinction in applied settings. If increasing the
effortfulness of responding can result in a more rapid reduction of behavior
when extinction is in effect then the empirical examination of such
techniques in applied contexts warrant scrutiny.
Figure 10.6 Percentage of intervals containing SIB and object manipulation during baseline (BL) and
across effort (string-length) conditions for three participants. Numbers above each condition indicate
length of the string attached to an object (top number) and proportion of string length while the
participant was seated in an upright position (bottom number) (Shore, Iwata, DeLeon, Kahng, &
Smith, 1997).

10.2 Matching Extinction Protocol to Maintaining

Contingencies

For extinction to occur, the contingency between responding and

reinforcement must be removed. One of the first important steps prior to
implementing an extinction program is to identify what reinforcers are
maintaining the targeted behavior. Functional assessment or analysis
techniques should therefore be used prior to implementing an extinction
program in order to identify maintaining contingencies. In fact, the
extinction protocol used in a subsequent intervention will be determined by
the function of the behavior to be extinguished. Many texts which discuss
applied behavior analysis interventions have described the application of
extinction in terms of ignoring the target behavior when it occurs (e.g.,
LaVigna & Donnellan, 1986). This implies that the behavior is maintained by
attention from those who are doing the ignoring. We have already described
several examples of extinction protocol with behavior maintained by social
positive reinforcement (i.e., attention from others) and social negative
reinforcement (i.e., escape from demanding instructional situations) earlier
in this chapter. The extinction procedures described earlier in these studies
differed depending on the functional properties of the behavior to be
extinguished. For example, with behavior maintained by social positive
reinforcement, the reinforcer was either removed (through ignoring
occurrences of the behavior) or delivered noncontingently (on a fixed-time
schedule). For behavior maintained by social negative reinforcement an
escape extinction protocol was implemented whereby the individual was no
longer allowed to escape from ongoing activities contingent upon the target
behavior. Additionally, the contingency between the target behavior and
escape can be broken by allowing the individual to escape from ongoing
activities on a fixed-time schedule (Vollmer, Marcus, & Ringdahl, 1995).
Extinction protocol can therefore differ dramatically depending on the
maintaining contingency for the target behavior.
In fact, if the function of the target behavior is not identified prior to the
intervention, the behavior analyst could unwittingly select an "extinction
intervention" that may actually reinforce the behavior. For example, a
student may leave his desk in order to escape instructional interactions with
the teacher (i.e., the behavior is negatively reinforced by escape from tasks).
The teacher typically admonishes the student when he leaves his desk at
inappropriate times. The teacher might then infer that the student's
inappropriate out of seat behavior is maintained by teacher attention (i.e., is
positively reinforced by attention from the teacher). Under this false
assumption the teacher may opt to place the behavior on extinction by
ignoring out of seat behavior. In this particular situation the teacher's use of
"extinction" may actually result in an increase in out of seat behavior. It
would have been more appropriate for the teacher to implement an escape
extinction protocol whereby the student was not allowed to escape ongoing
academic activities.
In some instances of SIB with individuals with developmental disabilities
the aberrant behavior may be maintained by automatic or sensory
consequences, it is hypothesised that the self-injurious response directly
produces the stimulation that acts as the reinforcer for responding with
these individuals. Automatic reinforcement of SIB is usually concluded
when levels of SIB are not sensitive to changes in social contingencies and/or
S!B occurs when the individual is alone. Extinction interventions designed to
eliminate behavior maintained by social positive or social negative
reinforcement will have little effect on automatically reinforced responding.
Extinction protocol for SIB that is automatically reinforced usually consists
of techniques designed to eliminate stimulation that is directly produced by
the response (Rincover, 1978). These extinction protocol are described as
sensory extinction.
Iwata, Pace, Cowdery, and Miltenburger (1994) examined the influence of
various extinction protocol on SIB (head hitting) that was maintained by
automatic reinforcement for a boy with severe developmental disabilities.
The results of this intervention are presented in Figure 10.7. A functional
analysis initially demonstrated undifferentiated levels of SIB across
attention, alone, play, and demand analogue analysis conditions (see the
four baseline data sets in the figure). These analogue analysis results allowed
for the conclusion that the behavior was maintained by automatic
reinforcement. The effects of sensory extinction was then examined in the
alone condition (see first leg of the graph). Sensory extinction was achieved
by placing a padded seizure helmet on the boy for the entire length of the
session or contingent upon episodes of SIB in a session. The sensory
extinction protocol produced dramatic reductions in SIB. Next, the sensory
extinction protocol were compared with an escape extinction protocol (see
second leg of the design). Again sensory extinction produced reductions in
SIB but escape extinction had no effect on responding. The sensory
extinction protocol was then compared with planned ignoring of SIB (see
third leg of the design). Ignoring SIB produced no effect whereas sensory
extinction reduced SIB. These results are a rigorous demonstration of the
Figure 10.7 Percentage of intervals of SIB maintained by sensory consequences. Various hypothesized
maintaining variables were removed (sensory extinction in panel 1, escape extinction in panel 2, and
planned ignoring in panel 3 of the graph). The behavior decreased only in the sensory extinction
condition (Iwata, Pace, Cowdery, & Miltenberger, 1994).

importance of matching extinction interventions to the function of the

behavior. In this study the extinction strategies that were designed to
eliminate behavior maintained by social negative reinforcement (i.e., escape
extinction) and social positive reinforcement (i.e., ignoring) had no effect on
the target behavior. The behavior only decreased under the sensory
extinction (i.e., padded helmet) condition.

10.3 Interim Summary: Using Extinction in Applied

Settings

Extinction is a process whereby the contingency between responding and

reinforcement is broken. The ultimate outcome of this process is an
elimination of the behavior. Extinction can be accomplished by removing
the reinforcer or by delivering the reinforcer on a noncontingent basis. For
extinction to be effective the behavior analyst must first identify the
maintaining contingencies via a functional analysis. Extinction interventions
vary depending on the function of the behavior to be extinguished. For
example, behavior maintained by social positive reinforcement is placed on
extinction by removing social reinforcement contingent upon performance
of the behavior. Alternatively, behavior maintained by negative
reinforcement is placed on extinction by eliminating escape contingent on
performance of the behavior. There are many properties of the extinction
process, such as extinction bursts, extinction-induced aggression, gradual
reductions in behavior, and spontaneous recovery that the behavior analyst
should consider prior to using extinction in an applied setting. Those who
will implement the extinction program must be prepared for such issues as
potential increases in the intensity of the behavior or the reemergence of the
behavior at later points in time. If there is any concern that those who are
targeted to implement the program may not be capable of doing so over
extended periods of time, or if very rapid behavior change is required, then
alternative intervention strategies should be considered.

10.4 Punishment

in Chapter 5 we outlined the basic properties of punishment as

demonstrated by experimental research. In this section of the current chapter
we will examine the use of punishment in applied settings. Punishment can
be defined as the application or removal of a stimulus contingent on
responding that decreases the probability of responding. As discussed in
Chapter 5, it is important to remember that punishment is defined
functionally in terms of changes in responding. Punishment in behavioral
analysis is therefore very different from the way the term is used in
everyday language, in everyday use punishment is typically equated with an
aversive consequence for engaging or not engaging in an activity. For
example, a student may be expelled from school for fighting, or a person
may be fined or imprisoned for driving a car without insurance. The
everyday use of the term punishment is therefore not defined in terms of its
influence on responding. An aversive consequence is usually equated with
causing some form of hurt or pain to the individual. In behavioral analysis a
punishing stimulus does not necessarily have to cause pain. In fact, in some
cases a painful stimulus can act as a reinforcer. For example, a spanking may
increase and not decrease behavior. In this situation spanking would be
defined as a reinforcing and not as a punishing consequence.
Painful stimuli as well as stimuli that do not cause physical discomfort
can act as punishers in the behavioral sense and are sometimes used by
behavior analysts to decrease aberrant behavior. It is important to recognize
that punishment protocol should be the interventions of last resort for the
behavior analyst. Punishment procedures should only be used in cases
where less intrusive and positive alternatives (e.g., differential reinforcement
strategies, functional equivalence training etc.) have been considered or tried
and have failed to reduce the behavior. Additionally, it would be difficult to
justify the use of many types of punishment techniques described below
with behavior other than that which is dangerous to self or others (e.g. self-
injurious or aggressive behavior). Punishment techniques should only be
used in the context of an intensive intervention to increase appropriate
alternative behaviors for an individual. As evidence of the importance and
controversy surrounding the use of punishment techniques the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) convened a consensus development conference to
discuss the use of such techniques. This conference concluded that
"Behavior reductive procedures should be selected for their rapid effectiveness only if the exigencies

of the clinical situation require such restrictive interventions and only after appropriate review.
These interventions should only be used in the context of a comprehensive and individualized

behavior enhancement treatment package." (NIH, 1989, p. 13)

Today, punishment is often described as a form of default technology by

behavior analysts (e.g., Iwata, 1994). In other words, punishment is the
treatment of last resort and it is typically used only in cases where the
function of the aberrant behavior has not been identified. In cases where a
functional analysis can identify the maintaining contingencies for aberrant
behavior then an intervention other than punishment may be most
appropriate to eliminate the behavior. In situations where the maintaining
consequences are identified the behavior analyst can withhold these
consequences when aberrant behavior occurs and deliver the consequences
contingent on appropriate alternative behavior, if maintaining contingencies
for aberrant behavior cannot be identified through a functional analysis then
it becomes impossible to withhold reinforcement contingent on aberrant
responding. One treatment option may then be to override the maintaining
reinforcement contingencies with a more powerful punishment contingency
in order to eliminate aberrant responding. Again, punishment protocol
should only be implemented in the context of a more general program to
teach alternative appropriate responding to the individual.

10.5 Punishment Techniques

Punishment techniques can be divided into three general categories: The

presentation of aversive events contingent on responding, which is described
in this section; the removal of positive events contingent on responding,
which is described in Section 10.6; and finally, there are a variety of
punishment techniques that require the client to engage in activities
contingent on performance of the target behavior, and these techniques are
described in Section 10.7. With all these techniques, the events used can only
be defined as punishers if their contingent application reduce the probability
of the target behavior.

Contingent Presentation of Aversive Events

Aversive events can be divided into unconditioned or conditioned aversive

events. Unconditioned aversive events are stimuli that by their nature are
aversive to humans. The aversive properties of such stimuli are
unconditioned or unlearned. Examples of unconditioned aversive events
include electric shock, the smell of amonia, and loud noise. Conditioned
aversive events are stimuli that have acquired aversive properties through
pairing or association with unconditioned aversive stimuli or other
conditioned aversive stimuli. For example, the verbal reprimands of a parent
(e.g., "No!") to a child may become aversive through pairing with spanking or
loss of privileges (such as TV time). The use of unconditioned and
conditioned aversive events to reduce or eliminate maladaptive behavior has
been examined by behavior analysts.
 Electric shock has been used as a punishment technique in a small
number of cases. The shock itself is typically of a very mild form and is
delivered to the arm or leg. Shock has usually been restricted to the
treatment of behaviors that are severely maladaptive or life-threatening.
Alternative and less intrusive interventions have typically been tried and
have failed in such cases (Linscheid, Iwata, Ricketts, Williams, & Griffin,
1990). Shock has been particularly successful in cases where life-threatening
behavior is resistant to other forms of therapy. In fact shock can typically
produce an almost immediate suppression of the target behavior. For
example, electric shock has been found to be quite effective in treating
chronic rumination or vomiting in infants (Cunningham & Linscheid, 1976;
Linscheid & Cunningham, 1977). This is a life-threatening condition that can
result in severe weight-loss and dangerous medical complications. Linscheid
and Cunningham (1977), used electric shock to treat chronic vomiting
(episodes of vomiting occurred on average over 100 times per day) in a 9-
month-old child. A mild shock was applied to the child's leg at the onset of
each vomiting episode. Vomiting was virtually eliminated after 3 days of
treatment. Episodes of vomiting did not occur for up to 9 months following
treatment.
Other unconditioned aversive stimuli have been used to treat dangerous
or life-threatening behavior. Peine, Liu, Blakelock, Jenson, and Osborne
(1991) examined the use of contingent water misting to reduce self-choking
in an adult with severe developmental disabilities. This man engaged in self-
choking to the point of syncope. Self-choking consisted of squeezing the
neck region with either hand or forcefully twisting an item such as a towel
or shirt around the neck. He aggressed towards staff if they attempted to
redirect his behavior. The water misting procedure consisted of spraying the
man in the face contingent on self-choking. A spray bottle which delivered
0.5cc of water (at room temperature) per application was used. This
treatment produced rapid reduction of self-choking (see Figure 10.8).
Additionally, the experimenters measured generalization of the treatment
gains across multiple settings in the institution. As can be seen in Figure
10.8, the water misting procedure resulted in an elimination of self-choking
across these settings. These treatment gains were maintained for up to 8
months as seen in the follow-up assessment phase of the figure.

Figure 10.8 Rates of self-choking by a deaf-blind man with mental retardation before and during
water mist treatment and its generalization and follow-up. The numbers in the generalization phases
indicate different settings (Peine, Liu, Blakelock, Jenson, & Osborne, 1991).

One of the most frequently cited conditioned aversive stimuli used to

reduce aberrant behavior is that of verbal reprimands (Kazdin, 1994), As
mentioned earlier, verbal reprimands can become aversive stimuli through
pairing with other conditioned or unconditioned aversive stimuli. Verbal
reprimands do not necessarily act as aversive stimuli with all individuals or
with the same individual in every context. In some instances verbal
reprimands may act as reinforcers. For example, Iwata et al. (1994)
demonstrated that contingent attention in the form of verbal reprimands can
serve as a consequence that maintains aberrant behavior with many people
with developmental disabilities. Whether verbal reprimands will act as
reinforcing or punishing stimuli depends on the learning history of the
individual.
When they do function as aversive stimuli, verbal reprimands can be an
easy to implement and relatively benign way of reducing aberrant behavior.
It is important to realize that verbal reprimands, as used by behavior
analysts, do not include hurtful statements or statements that ridicule.
Verbal reprimands typically consist of telling an individual not to engage in
a particular form of aberrant behavior. Additionally the individual is
informed of the negative consequences for engaging in such behavior.
For example, Rolider and Van Houten (1984) examined the use of verbal
reprimands to reduce the aggressive behavior (hitting, pinching etc.) of a 4-
year-old girl towards a younger sibling (see Figure 10.9). An initial DRO
procedure which consisted of positive physical attention (hugs and kisses
from the mother) for every 15 minutes without aggressive behavior did not
produce a reduction in aggressive behavior below the baseline assessment
condition (see the figure). Finally, a DRO plus verbal reprimand intervention
was implemented. The verbal reprimand condition consisted of holding the
child by the shoulders, making eye contact, then telling the girl that she was
hurting her sibling and that she was not to do this again. The DRO plus
verbal reprimand intervention virtually eliminated aggressive behavior in
the girl (see the final phase of the figure).
Figure 10.9 Frequency of aggressive behavior of a young girl towards her younger sibling under
Baseline, DRO, and DRO plus verbal reprimand conditions. (Rolider & Van Houten, 1984).

The individual delivering verbal reprimands is usually in close physical

proximity, maintains eye contact with, and often physically holds the person
being reprimanded. In fact verbal reprimands have been shown to be more
effective in reducing behavior if they are delivered with these additional
behaviors (Doleys, Wells, Hobbs, Roberts, & Cartelli, 1976; Van Houten, Nau,
MacKenzie-Keating, Sameoto, & Colavecchia, 1982).

Considerations when using aversive consequences

Aversive consequences, when made contingent upon performance of

aberrant behavior, can rapidly reduce that behavior. Aversive consequences
can be either unconditioned (i.e., inherently aversive) or conditioned (i.e.,
learned) stimuli. Unconditioned aversive stimuli such as water misting or
electric shock have been demonstrated to produce rapid and long lasting
reductions with very severe behavior problems. When using conditioned
aversive stimuli such as verbal reprimands it is important to establish that
such stimuli are in fact aversive for the client concerned. Under those rare
and extreme situations where aversive stimuli are selected for use they
should be embedded within a more general behavioral program to increase
adaptive responding in the client.

10.6 Contingent Removal of Positive Events

The removal of positive events contingent on responding can also be used to

decrease maladaptive behavior. Two general techniques have typically been
used by behavior analysts to remove positive events contingent on
maladaptive responding. These techniques are called time out from positive
reinforcement and response cost.
Time out from positive reinforcement consists of a series of protocols
whereby the person is removed from all positively reinforcing events for a
brief period of time. Time out can be either exclusionary or nonexclusionary.
With exclusionary time out the person is removed from the current
environment where the maladaptive behavior is occurring and placed in a
barren room (usually termed a time out room) where no reinforcing items
are available for a brief time period. Exclusionary time out is a particularly
useful method with maladaptive behaviors such as tantrums and aggression
as such behaviors can be disruptive to other individuals in the setting (for
example, other students in a classroom). Once the brief time period has
elapsed and the individual is observed not to be engaging in the aberrant
behavior then they are allowed to return to the original activities. The
person should not be released from time out when they are engaging in the
targeted maladaptive behavior. Otherwise the time out procedure may in
fact reinforce or strengthen the target behavior (i.e., the person may learn to
associate escape from time out with the maladaptive behavior). Brief rather
than extended time periods in time out should be used. Brief periods in time
out seem to be as effective as extended time out periods in reducing
maladaptive behavior (Kazdin, 1994). Additionally, extended time out
periods may interfere with ongoing educational or rehabilitative
programming for the person.
An alternative to exclusionary time out is non-exclusionary time out. In
non-exclusionary time out the individual remains in the setting where the
aberrant behavior occurs. But the person does not have access to reinforcers
in this setting for a brief period of time. Non exclusionary time out is
typically a more acceptable time out procedure to professionals and parents
because the person is not placed in isolation for a period of time.
Additionally, the person has the opportunity to continue to observe
educational activities while they are in the time out condition. One
frequently cited form of non-exclusionary time out is called contingent
observation. Porterfield, Herbert-Jackson, and Risley (1976) used contingent
observation to reduce disruptive behaviors such as aggression and tantrums
in a preschool classroom. Once targeted maladaptive behaviors occurred,
staff removed the child away from toys and other children to a corner of the
classroom. The child was told to remain in the corner and observe the other
children playing appropriately. Staff then returned to the child after one
minute and asked the child if they were ready to return to the group. If the
child was not engaged in the maladaptive behavior (e.g., tantrums) and
indicated that they wanted to return to the group then they were allowed to
play again. This contingent observation technique was compared with a
redirection intervention on disruptive behaviors in the classroom (see Figure
10.10). The redirection intervention consisted of redirecting the child's
attention to another activity (such as another toy) when they engaged in
disruptive behavior. The results of both of these interventions, as shown in
Figure 10.10, demonstrated that contingent observation was a more effective
technique in reducing overall levels of disruption and aggression for this
preschool class.
In some situations non-exclusionary time out may not be the procedure of
choice as some persons may attempt to escape from time out and return to
ongoing activities. In such situations exclusionary time out may be
considered as a back-up procedure (i.e., if a person escapes from
nonexclusionary time out then they may be placed in exclusionary time
out). In order for any time out protocol to be maximally effective the person
must have a rich "time in" environment. In other words the ongoing
environment from which the person is removed should be highly
reinforcing. The removal of reinforcers contingent on aberrant behavior to
reduce that behavior can only occur if there are reinforcers in the person's
environment. Again, this point highlights previous discussions in this and
earlier chapters of the importance of using punishment programs only in the
context of positive programming to teach adaptive skills to individuals.

Figure 10.10 Number of disruptions and aggressive behaviors per child per hour for 50 days in a day
care center with follow-up at 1 and 2 months (Porterfield, Herbert-Jackson, & Risley, 1976).

In some cases, exclusionary and non-exclusionary time out will not be

effective. This is particularly true for individuals whose aberrant behavior
occurs independent of the social environment. For example, individuals with
autism often engage in high rates of self-stimulatory behavior (e.g., hand
flapping, body rocking) irrespective of the social environment. As such
behavior seems to be automatically reinforced (i.e., the behavior produces its
own reinforcement), time out does not remove the source of reinforcement.
Rolider and Van Houten (1985) developed a form of time out technique,
called movement suppression time out, which seems to be effective with
such forms of automatically reinforced aberrant behavior. In one example
these authors compared the effectiveness of movement suppression time out
with a DRO intervention to reduce aberrant behavior in a 9-year-old boy
who was diagnosed with autism. The boy engaged in arm biting which
frequently broke the skin and mouthing inappropriate objects such as cloth
and rocks which he sometimes swallowed. The DRO procedure consisted of
reinforcing comments and hugs from his mother if he did not engage in
these behaviors for 10 minutes. Movement suppression time out consisted of
physically guiding the child to a corner of the room, positioning his chin
against the corner of the wall with both hands behind his back and both feet
together touching the wall. The child was not allowed to move for 3 minutes
and was physically repositioned if he moved in any way. The results of the
DRO and movement suppression time out interventions are displayed in
Figure 10.11. As can be seen in the figure the DRO intervention had little
effect on aberrant responding. The movement suppression procedure
resulted in rapid elimination of both arm biting and mouthing. Movement
suppression time out was implemented for an extended period of time (see
the follow up phase of Figure 10.11) and aberrant behavior was eliminated
during this period.
Figure 10.11 Number of arm bites (top panel) and mouthing incidents (bottom panel) under Baseline,
DRO Alone, and Movement Suppression Time-Out. Followup observations on the target behaviors are
also presented (Rolider & Van Houten, 1985).

The effects of time out procedures may be determined by the context in

which they are implemented. Under certain ongoing conditions which a
person may find aversive a time out procedure may in fact reinforce
maladaptive behavior because it allows the individual to escape from these
ongoing events. Under such conditions a time out procedure will result in
increases in maladaptive responding. Alternatively, during ongoing activities
which the same person finds to be positive, the same time out procedure
may act as a punisher. In this second condition the time out procedure will
result in decreases in maladaptive responding. Haring and Kennedy (1990)
demonstrated this influence of context on the effectiveness of time out
protocol with a number of individuals. The effects of time out on aberrant
responding under task and leisure conditions for one individual with
developmental disabilities are displayed in Figure 10.12. The contextual
influences on DRO protocol were also examined with this individual but will
not be addressed in this discussion. The task condition involved identifying
common items such as money and various foods
Figure 10.12 Percentage of intervals with stereotypy across Baseline, DRO, and Time-Out conditions
in task (top panel) and leisure (bottom panel) contexts (Haring, & Kennedy, 1990).

during teaching trials. The leisure condition involved listening to the radio.
The maladaptive behavior exhibited by this individual consisted of
stereotyped responding. Time out under the task condition involved
removing instruction contingent on stereotyped responding for a period of
15 seconds. Time out under the leisure condition consisted of removing the
leisure items (turning the radio off) contingent on stereotyped behavior for a
period of 15 seconds. The time out conditions under the task and leisure
contexts were structurally identical (i.e., removal of items contingent on
maladaptive behavior for 15 seconds). However, as can be seen in Figure
10.12, the time out intervention served a different function within the task
and leisure contexts. Time out resulted in increases in stereotypy under the
task condition and decreases in stereotypy in the leisure condition.

Response Cost

Response cost is another punishment technique which involves the removal

of positive events or stimuli contingent on responding. We noted in Chapter
5 that this type of punishment can be shown to have reliable and orderly
effects in experiments with adult humans. In applied contexts, response cost
is a form of penalty that is imposed on the individual for engaging in a
particular maladaptive behavior. This type of technique is readily
recognizable to the general public (e.g., fines for late payment of domestic
charges or for parking a car inappropriately etc.) and is viewed as an
acceptable method to reduce maladaptive behaviors (Grant & Evans, 1994).
Response cost differs from time out protocols in a number of ways. With
response cost the reinforcer may be permanently withdrawn (as when
somebody is fined for a traffic violation). In time out the reinforcers are
withdrawn for a brief period of time. Additionally, with time out, all
opportunities for reinforcement are removed for a period of time. Aside
from a penalty, all other positive events continue to be available with a
response cost intervention.
Response cost protocols are often used as part of a token economy system.
In fact token economy systems that incorporate response cost components
are more effective than either procedure if used alone (Bierman, Miller, &
Stabb, 1987). Upper (1973) incorporated a response cost system as part of a
token economy to increase adaptive responding of psychiatric patients in a
hospital ward. Patients were fined for such behaviors as sleeping late, public
undressing, and aggressive outbursts. The response cost protocol, when
incorporated into the token economy system, resulted in dramatic
reductions of these aberrant behaviors.
In many situations response cost procedures can be implemented alone.
Rapport, Murphy and Bailey (1982) used a response cost system to decrease
classroom disruption in two school children who were diagnosed with
hyperactivity. For each episode of disruptive or inattentive behavior the
child would lose 1 minute from their break time period. The contingent
removal of time from break for disruptive behavior not only decreased
aberrant behavior but also resulted in increases in academic performance.

Considerations when removing positive events

A number of behavioral techniques are designed to punish maladaptive

behavior by removing positive stimuli contingent on responding. Time out
from positive reinforcement describes a set of techniques which are designed
to remove all positive consequences contingent on maladaptive responding
for a brief period of time. Time out protocol can be exclusionary (where the
person is removed from the environment) or non-exclusionary (where
positive items are removed but the person remains in the environment
where the maladaptive behavior occurred). Movement suppression time out
is a recent technique designed to reduce maladaptive behavior such as some
forms of stereotypy which are sometimes automatically reinforced.
Alternatively, response cost procedures involve a penalty whereby some
item (such as tokens) are permanently removed contingent on maladaptive
behavior.
Overall, these procedures are more acceptable to the general public — that
is they have greater social validity (see Chapter 5) — than the use of aversive
consequences to reduce aberrant behavior. Time out procedures are
generally effective if the person is removed from ongoing activities for a
brief period of time (i.e., typically not more than several minutes). The
person should not be allowed to escape from time out if they continue to
engage in the aberrant behavior at the end of the time period, instead the
behavior analyst should wait until they desist in aberrant behavior and then
release them from time out. If aberrant responding persists for extended
time periods under time out conditions then alternative interventions should
be considered. Time out is only effective as a punisher if the person is
removed from activities that they find to be reinforcing. Time out may
actually act as a reinforcer if the person is removed from ongoing aversive
activities. Response cost procedures are often used within the context of a
token economy system. Token economies which incorporate a response cost
component are typically more effective than token economies which do not.
Response cost procedures, when implemented alone, can also be very
effective in reducing behavior.

10.7 Contingent Activity

A variety of punishment procedures employ the performance of activities

contingent on maladaptive behavior. In other words the person must
perform aversive activities after they engage in the targeted aberrant
behavior. One of the most frequently described activity punishers is that of
overcorrection (Foxx & Azrin, 1972; Foxx & Bechtel, 1983). Overcorrection
typically consists of two components: restitution and positive practice.
Initially the individual is required to restore any items in the environment
that have been damaged as a result of the maladaptive behavior. For
example, if an individual engaged in an aggressive outburst and overturned
a chair then the individual would be required to replace the chair in its
original position. The positive practice component involves repeated practice
of a behavior that is an appropriate alternative to the maladaptive behavior.
To continue with the overturned chair example, the individual might then be
required to straighten all chairs in the room. In many situations the
difference between restoring the environment and practicing appropriate
alternative behaviors may be unclear, in the above exaimple the restitution
component (i.e., replacing the thrown chair) is in a sense a form of positive
practice. Suffice it to say that overcorrection involves restoring the
environment following the maladaptive behavior and then practicing
appropriate alternative behaviors.
 Merely restoring the environment (sometimes called simple correction)
does not seem to act as a punisher when used without positive practice. For
example, Azrin and Wesolowski (1974) compared a simple correction
protocol with an overcorrection protocol to reduce theft among people with
developmental disabilities in an institutional setting, in the simple correction
condition the person was required to return the item that was stolen. As can
be seen in Figure 10.13, this simple correction procedure did not eliminate
theft in the setting. A positive practice component was then combined with
the simple correction protocol. Positive practice involved purchasing an item
similar to the stolen item and giving the purchased item to the victim. The
simple correction procedure combined with positive practice (this is
described as a theft reversal intervention in Figure 10.13) resulted in the
elimination of stealing among the 34 individuals in the institutional setting.
Other research has also demonstrated that restitution plus positive practice
is more effective than restitution alone in reducing maladaptive behavior
(e.g., Carey & Bucher, 1981).
Figure 10.13 Number of stealing episodes each day for a group of 34 persons with developmental
disabilities in an institutional setting. Frequent stealing occurred under the simple correction
procedure (person was to return the stolen item). Stealing was eliminated in the overcorrection (theft
reversal) phase (person returned the stolen item and gave the victim a further item of equal value)
(Azrin & Wesolowski, 1974).

In many cases the maladaptive behavior may not actually involve

disruption or damage to the environment. For example, if a child engages in
self-stimulatory behavior (such as hand flapping or body rocking) then little
in the environment is altered. In such cases positive practice alone can be
used. Contingent on the maladaptive behavior the child would be required
to practice alternative appropriate behaviors. For example, Azrin and Powers
(1975) required students who spoke out without permission in class to
practice raising their hands and waiting for the teacher's permission to
speak. Positive practice trials were conducted in the classroom during recess
periods. The intervention markedly reduced classroom disruption with these
children.
Overcorrection procedures may have some advantages over the other
punishment protocol described thus far in this chapter (i.e., contingent
presentation of aversive stimuli and contingent removal of positive events).
The positive practice component of overcorrection protocol allows the
individual to practice appropriate alternative behaviors. Overcorrection can
therefore serve an educative as well as a punishing role. It also allows the
therapist to focus on alternative appropriate behaviors rather than only
focusing on reducing maladaptive responses. In some instances, however,
overcorrection procedures may be difficult to implement. For example, if the
individual is unwilling to follow through with restitution and positive
practice the therapist may have to physically guide the person through the
tasks. This may be particularly problematic with adults who may aggress in
such situations. Also, implementing overcorrection protocol can be intensive
and time consuming for the therapist. It would be difficult for a therapist to
implement overcorrection protocol correctly in a situation where the
therapist is simultaneously responsible for the supervision of other
individuals.
Contingent exercise is another form of activity punisher that has been
used to reduce maladaptive behavior. The individual is required to engage in
some form of physical exercise following the targeted behavior. Contingent
exercise differs from overcorrection in that the individual is not required to
restore the environment nor is the individual required to practice
appropriate alternative behaviors. Luce, Delquadri, and Hall (1980) used
contingent exercise to reduce the aggression and disruption of two
emotionally disturbed boys in a special education setting. Hitting other
children was targeted for one child. The child was required to stand up and
sit down on the floor 10 times contingent upon hitting another child. This
brief contingent exercise markedly reduced the amount of hitting in the class
(see Figure 10.14).

Considerations when using contingent activity

Activity punishers are typically described in terms of two general

techniques: overcorrection and contingent exercise. With overcorrection the
individual must restore any damage to the environment caused by the
aberrant behavior and repeatedly practice appropriate alternative behaviors.
Overcorrection is often viewed as a more acceptable punishment procedure
than the contingent use of aversive stimuli because it includes an educative
component (i.e., the person is required to perform appropriate alternative
behaviors to the aberrant behaviors). Positive practice can be used
effectively without restitution in situations where the aberrant behavior
does not result in damage to the environment. Overcorrection may be
difficult to implement in situations where the behavior analyst is required to
supervise many individuals simultaneously. Additionally, overcorrection
may not be the treatment of choice with individuals (especially adults) who
are noncompliant and who may aggress to avoid such activity. Several
studies have examined the use of contingent exercise as a punishment
technique. While contingent exercise can reduce aberrant responding it does
not include an educative component. As with overcorrection, contingent
exercise may be difficult to implement when supervising groups and in cases
where the individual may be noncompliant with regard to engaging in the
exercise regimen.
Figure 10.14 Number of hits per day during school period. During Baseline the hitting was ignored
and no consequences were delivered. During the Contingent Exercise condition the child had to
engage in stand up and sit down on the floor exercise contingent upon hitting (Luce, Delquadri, &
Hall, 1980).

10.8 Advantages and Disadvantages of using

Punishment

Punishment protocol should be considered the intervention of last resort. As

mentioned earlier, these techniques are best reserved for the treatment of
behavior that is of danger to the person or others. Punishment is usually
considered in situations where other less intrusive interventions (e.g.,
differential reinforcement strategies) have been tried and have failed to
reduce maladaptive responding. Punishment interventions are not typically
used in isolation but are combined with interventions to increase
appropriate alternative behaviors, in addition to a knowledge of the various
punishment techniques described in the previous sections, the behavior
analyst should be aware of some of the advantages and disadvantages of
using punishment protocols.
One of the major advantages of using punishment is that it can produce
an almost immediate reduction or elimination of the maladaptive response.
This is particularly true with unconditioned aversive stimuli such as electric
shock (Linscheid, et al., 1990). In cases where unconditioned aversive stimuli
are used the reduction in aberrant responding is often quite dramatic and
the treatment gains generally last for extended periods of time after the
intervention is removed. This effect on responding is generally true for the
other types of punishment protocol described in this chapter. Aberrant
behavior may however re-emerge following the removal of some
punishment techniques. If punishment protocol do not produce the desired
reduction in responding following several applications then alternative
protocol should be considered. It is not appropriate to expose an individual
to extended periods of aversive contingencies if these contingencies do not
have the desired functional effect.
In addition to eliminating aberrant responding, punishment protocol may
also result in positive side effects. For example, Rolider, Cumrnings, and Van
Houten (1991) evaluated the effects of punishment on eye contact and
academic performance for two individuals with developmental disabilities.
Both individuals engaged in aggression and other forms of escape behavior
during academic instruction. Punishment protocol used in this study
included a form of restraint or movement suppression time out and
contingent exercise. The effects of punishment on academic achievement and
eye contact was evaluated across therapists — with one therapist delivering
punishment during instructional trials while the other therapist did not. The
results demonstrated greater levels of academic achievement and increased
levels of eye contact during instructional trials with the therapist who
delivered the punishment protocol. Matson and Taras (1989) provided an
extensive review of the positive side effects which have been documented
when using punishment protocol. For example, some of the positive side
effects of electric shock to treat rumination have included weight gain,
increased social behavior, decreased crying and tantrums, improved self-
feeding, and overall increases in activity levels.
There are also several disadvantages associated with using punishment
techniques in applied settings, many of which have already been alluded to
in this chapter. The use of punishment techniques with humans, especially
individuals with developmental disabilities who may be unable to give
informed consent, has been the source of much public controversy in the last
decade. Many parent support groups (e.g., The Association for Persons with
Severe Handicaps) have taken stances against the use of punishment. Indeed
several States in the United States have banned the use of punishment
protocol in treatment. Much of this debate has been infused by a lack of
understanding of the technical meaning of the term punishment in behavior
analysis. Many of the position statements from non behavioral interest
groups equate punishment with the more everyday usages of the term.
Punishment is sometimes equated with such notions as cruelty, revenge,
harm etc. While these debates may be devisive at times they do highlight the
need to use punishment as a treatment of last resort, with very clear
guidelines for its use, and within the context of a more general behavioral
program to teach adaptive skills to the person. In the next and final chapter,
we will relate these issues to the human rights of individuals in treatment.
Punishment procedures can also produce negative side effects. Many of
these negative side effects have been reported with almost all types of
punishment protocol. Emotional side effects include such behaviors as
crying, tantrums, soiling, wetting, and general agitation. Many of these
negative side effects occur when punishment protocol are first implemented
and tend to decrease as the intervention is continued. It is important to note
that these emotional side effects have been reported relatively infrequently
in the literature. Interestingly, it is also commonly observed that in
experimental studies with nonhuman animals, punishment does not
persistent produce those behaviors classified as emotional.
Punishment has also been demonstrated to produce avoidance behavior in
applied settings. Morris and Redd (1975) examined avoidance behavior in
nursery school children. These children were supervised by men who (a)
praised on-task behavior; (b) reprimanded off-task behavior; (c) praised on-
task behavior and reprimanded off-task behavior; (d) ignored the behavior of
the children. Children engaged in higher levels of on-task behavior with the
men who reprimanded or who praised and reprimanded. When asked about
which of the men they would like to play with the children chose the man
who praised on-task behavior. The man who used reprimands only was
ranked as the least preferred play companion. These results may highlight a
more general problem with using punishment protocols in applied settings.
Various neutral stimuli in an applied setting may become conditioned
aversive stimuli through pairing with aversive protocols. The use of
punishment with an individual could therefore result in many aspects of an
environment such as a school setting becoming aversive for that individual.
As we noted in Chapter 5, this would be predicted from a theoretical
consideration of the effects of using aversive stimuli.
Relatedly, and as mentioned throughout this section on punishment, an
individual may aggress towards the therapist in order to escape from a
punishment protocol. This may be particularly problematic with adults as it
may be difficult for the therapist to control aggressive outbursts while
implementing a treatment. In such situations the therapist may unwittingly
reinforce escape-maintained aggression if the individual is allowed to escape
from treatment. Alternative treatments to punishment should obviously be
considered in such situations.
When a therapist, parent, or other care provider uses punishment they are
in effect providing examples of how to control another individual's behavior.
Those who observe such practices can learn that such techniques can be used
to control the behavior of others. The effects of what is often called modeled
punishment have been extensively described in the literature (Kazdin, 1987).
Children who are referred to clinicians for severe aggression usually come
from homes where physical aggression is used by parents to control their
children, in such home environments children learn that physical aggression
is an acceptable and powerful tool for controlling the behavior of others.
 It was mentioned earlier that one of the major advantages of punishment
techniques is that they can produce rapid elimination of the maladaptive
behavior. However, the maladaptive behavior can recover once these
techniques are withdrawn. Recovery seems to occur under conditions where
the behavior has not been completely eliminated during the punishment
intervention. Additionally, conditioned punishers may lose their
effectiveness over time which can result in a return of the target behavior to
baseline levels. Such recovery following the removal of punishment may be
overcome if punishment of the undesired response is embedded within a
more general behavioral program to teach alternative appropriate behaviors.

10.9 Overall Summary

The use of applied behavioral procedures based on the principles of

extinction and punishment were described in this chapter. Punishment and
extinction describe processes which result in a reduction or elimination of
behavior. With extinction the contingency between the reinforcer and
response is removed. Punishment involves the application or removal of a
stimulus contingent on the performance of the target behavior. Prior to
using extinction and punishment it is important that the behavior analyst
establish a firm rationale for reducing targeted behaviors (see Chapter 7).
The use of some of these strategies, particularly the use of aversive stimuli as
punishers, should be considered the treatment of last resort and
administered under strict guidelines. Typically, extinction and punishment
protocols are used to eliminate aberrant behavior in the context of an
intervention to increase appropriate alternative behaviors for the person.
There are certain characteristics of responding when behavior is punished
or placed on extinction. For example, one can expect an initial increase in
responding when a behavior is placed on extinction (i.e., an extinction
burst). Additionally, behavior may re-emerge under extinction contingencies
(i.e., spontaneous recovery). Punishment and extinction contingencies can
also result in avoidance and aggressive behavior on the part of the client. It
is important that those who administer extinction or punishment protocols
be familiar with such characteristics in order to implement such protocols
efficiently and effectively.
Extinction of responding can be accomplished by removing the reinforcer
entirely (i.e., reinforcement is no longer available) or delivering the
reinforcer noncontingently on a fixed-time schedule. In both cases the
contingency between responding and reinforcement is removed.
Noncontingent delivery of reinforcing stimuli has been examined relatively
recently in the applied literature and seems to produce rapid reductions in
responding without creating ethical problems that can arise when access to
highly-preferred reinforcers is removed.
It is vital that the reinforcement contingencies are identified before any
extinction protocol can be implemented. In fact an extinction protocol
should be determined by the function of the behavior to be extinguished.
Extinction protocols will differ depending on whether the behavior is
maintained by social positive reinforcement, social negative reinforcement,
or automatic reinforcement.
There are three general categories of punishment protocols. One class of
punishment techniques involves the presentation of aversive stimuli
contingent on the performance of the behavior targeted for reduction. These
aversive stimuli can either be unconditioned (e.g., electric shock) or
conditioned (e.g., verbal reprimand). A second class of punishment protocol
involves the removal of positive events contingent on performance of the
targeted behavior. In time out from positive reinforcement, the individual is
removed from ail reinforcing events for a predetermined period of time.
Response cost protocols involve the permanent removal of some item or
event in the form of a penalty or fine contingent on maladaptive responding.
A final class of punishment techniques requires the client to engage in some
form of activity contingent on the target behavior (such as overcorrection or
contingent exercise).
There is much current debate about the use of punishment in therapy,
particularly when it is used with individuals with developmental disabilities.
Punishment is sometimes seen as being synonymous with abuse and cruelty.
In behavioral analysis, however, punishment is defined functionally in terms
of its influence on responding. Punishment protocols should only be used as
a treatment of last resort for behavior that is dangerous to self or others.
Chapter 11
Behavior Analysis: Current Status and
Future Directions
This book could not have been written until recently because much of the
research reported in Chapters 7 through 10 was only carried out in the 1990s,
although, as we have shown, it builds on experimental research that began
in the 1930s and continues to progress, in this final chapter we point to some
the areas of development that we have not been able to include earlier, we
consider human rights issues, and we suggest where and how some
significant future developments may occur.

11.1 Applications of Behavior Analysis to Issues in

Health and Medicine

Basic research identifies the fundamental environmental determinants of

behavior, while applied behavior analysis develops interventions which are
derived from these fundamental principles to achieve meaningful change in
socially significant behavior for persons in real world settings. Accordingly,
the accounts in Chapters 7 through 10 of the procedures used to assess,
increase, and decrease behavior in applied settings emphasized the fact that
such applied procedures are derived from the basic principles of behavioral
analysis that were described in Chapters 2 through 6.
It was necessary in Chapters 7 through 10 to select examples of these
applied behavioral procedures that best illustrate the behavioral processes
and methodologies involved. These chapters thus focused on detailed
descriptions of applied behavioral techniques and the power of such
techniques to change behavior, rather than describing studies on topics of
social interest. In contrast, and to illustrate the potential of applied behavior
analysis to embrace a broad field, this section will focus on a select number
of topics of wide social concern in which behavioral principles have been
systematically applied and researched. We have argued elsewhere (Leslie,
1997a), that there is no reason why applied behavior analysis should not be
the "methodology of choice" across a wide area in which techniques derived
from very different approaches to psychology are currently employed. This
would be desirable because, when an applied behavior analysis approach is
taken, the same aims of significant behavioral change are set — and usually
achieved — as have been evident in the many studies reviewed in this
volume.

Promoting Healthy Life-styles

A significant application of applied psychology in general and applied

behavior analysis in particular has been in the area of health psychology
(Leslie, 1997a). One of the fundamental interests of health psychologists is
the development of strategies to promote and maintain healthy life-styles. It
is generally recognized that engaging in appropriate exercise and diet can
reduce the probability of certain illnesses and possibly prolong healthy life
(Cummings, 1986). Consequently, applied behavior analysts who work in the
area of health psychology have developed interventions to increase
appropriate exercise and diet.
One strand of applied behavioral research has focused on promoting
healthy meal options within restaurant settings (Dubbert, Johnson, Schlundt,
& Montague, 1984; Mayer, Heins, Vogel, Morrison, Lankester, & Jacobs, 1986;
Wagner & Winett, 1988). For example, Wagner & Winett (1988) developed
and evaluated an intervention to promote the selection of low-fat salads as
an entree in one restaurant of a national fast-food chain. The intervention
consisted of a series of posters with the message "Be fit & healthy; Eat a low-
fat SALAD as your meal or add a side salad" and a picture of a salad. These
posters were situated in proximity to where the customers placed their
orders. Small "tent cards" with the same message as the poster were placed
on each table in the restaurant. The intervention was conducted over an 11-
week period and the effectiveness of the posters/cards was evaluated using
an ABAB design. The percentages of salads sold each day were corrected for
influences such as weather and customer flow. The effects of the intervention
on the corrected percentage of salads sold each day are presented in Figure
11.1. Overall, the results show an increase in the purchase of low-fat salads
under the prompting intervention. While effective in its own terms, this type
of intervention has limitations as it stands because eating healthily in the
restaurant might not generalize to other settings, such as the home.
However, in Chapter 9, we discussed tactics for ensuring the generalization
of new skills.
Behavioral procedures have also been successfully used to increase
physical exercise. DeLuca and Holborn (1992) examined the influence of a
variable ratio (VR) schedule of reinforcement on exercise behavior with six
11-year-old boys using a stationary exercise bicycle. Three of these boys
were diagnosed as obese (at least 20% above average body weight for age).
Childhood obesity is a prevalent problem that can have negative
physiological and psychological effects (Israel & Stolmaker, 1980; Mayer,
1970). Physical inactivity is often associated with obesity. Regular exercise is
recommended in many cases as part of an intervention to control obesity.
Exercise sessions, which were approximately 30 min in length, occurred each
day over a 12 week period. Sets of back-up reinforcers were identified for
each child (for example, comic books, model plane, puzzle). Each backup
reinforcer was assigned a number of points. The child earned points by
exercising on the bicycle, and the stationary exercise bicycle was
programmed to ring a bell and to illuminate a red light after a variable
number of revolutions pedaled (the dependent variable being revolutions
pedaled per minute). This VR schedule was gradually "thinned" during the
experiment which produced marked increases in the rate of exercise for all
boys. The results of the intervention on mean revolutions pedaled per
minute are shown in Figure 11.2. All boys and their parents indicated that
they were satisfied with the exercise program as it resulted in decreases in
weight (for the obese boys) and increases in activity for all children.

Figure 11.1 Daily corrected percentage of sales for all salads during baseline and intervention (posters
etc.) in a restaurant (Wagner & Winett, 1988).
Figure 11.2 Mean revolutions pedaled per minute during baseline, VR 1 (VR range, 70 to 85), VR 2 (VR
range, 90 to 115), VR 3 (VR range, 100 to 130), return to baseline, and return to VR 3 phases for obese
and nonobese boys (DeLuca & Holborn, 1992).

The number of new cases of skin cancer and melanoma-related deaths

rises yearly in the USA (American Cancer Society, 1990). Many of these new
cases can be attributed to changes in life-style in the past thirty years which
have resulted in increased sun exposure (that is, sun tanning). The incidence
of such cancers could be dramatically reduced if individuals engaged in
behaviors which limited direct exposure to ultraviolet radiation. These
behaviors include wearing sunglasses, hats, shirts, and sunscreen. Lombard,
Neubauer, Canfield, and Winett (1991) examined the effectiveness of a
multicomponent behavioral intervention to increase behaviors associated
with skin cancer prevention at two outdoor swimming pools. Posters and
fliers were made available in the pools and these illustrated how to protect
oneself against sun damage. Free sunscreen was available at the front desk
of each pool. Pool attendants were required to engage in the protective
behaviors (wear a hat, shirt, sunglasses etc.). A feedback poster also
illustrated the percentage of adults and children who engaged in at least two
protective behaviors the previous day at the pool. The overall results of this
intervention demonstrated increases in the percentage of children and adults
who engaged in at least two protective behaviors at poolside each day over
baseline assessments.
Certain jobs or professions may expose a worker to any number of
hazardous situations that may cause illness. For example, health-care
workers, such as nurses, are often exposed to body fluids of patients and are
thus at risk of contacting various infections such as human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Nurses are required to engage in certain
protective behaviors in order to reduce the probability of such infection (for
example, wearing gloves, masks, eyewear, gowns etc.). DeVries, Burnette,
and Redmon (1991) examined the effectiveness of a performance feedback
intervention to increase glove wearing with emergency room nurses. Glove
wearing during six high-risk situations (that is, situations where the
potential for infection was quite high if protective gloves were not worn)
was observed during baseline. High-risk situations included phlebotomy,
giving an injection, cleaning a laceration, and inserting an intravenous
catheter The feedback intervention was implemented in a multiple baseline
design across four nurses. Nurses were unaware that glove wearing was
being observed during baseline. Glove wearing during high-risk situations
was quite low for all four nurses (see Figure 11.3). Intervention consisted of
giving feedback to the nurses regarding their glove-wearing behavior
immediately after baseline and every two weeks thereafter. Feedback
consisted of a request for behavior change (that is, a request to wear the
gloves in high-risk situations) and both verbal and graphic feedback of the
number of times gloves were worn during contact situations during the
previous observations. Figure 11.3 demonstrates that the feedback protocol
did result in increases in glove wearing. In some respects however this
intervention was unsuccessful, as nurses continued not to wear gloves in
many high-risk situations. In such situations an intervention should only be
deemed successful if it eliminates such risk-taking behavior entirely.
Figure 11.3 Percentage of contact situations in which gloves were worn by 4 nurses for consecutive
10-hr shifts. Arrows indicate the delivery of feedback by the infection-control nurse. (DeVries,
Burnette, & Redmon, 1991).

These are some examples of applied behavioral research which has

focused on increasing adaptive or healthy life-style behaviors in the
population. In similar vein, behavioral interventions have also successfully
reduced risk-taking behaviors in drivers and pedestrians (Van Houten &
Nau, 1981) and increased safety belt use (Geller & Hahn, 1984). Clearly,
applied behavior analysis has great potential as a behavior change strategy
to promote healthier life-styles within the community at large.

Behavioral Medicine

Behavioral medicine could be best thought of as a distinct sub-discipline

within the general field of health psychology. Behavioral medicine might be
defined as the application of behavioral principles to treat a variety of
medical disorders (Blanchard, 1992). In many respects, some of the research
examples discussed in the previous section (for example, the treatment of
obesity) could also be included in this section. While the distinction between
behavioral applications within the field of health psychology and behavioral
medicine may be somewhat blurred it is still instructive to describe
behavioral techniques that are directly used to treat medical problems.
Behavioral procedures have been used to treat a variety of eating
disorders including anorexia nervosa and bulimia (Garfinkel & Garner,
1982). Anorexia nervosa, which is typically found in young women but is
increasingly identified in young men, involves severe reduction in food
consumption. This disorder can result in significant weight loss and even
death. With many of these cases, behavioral treatment is implemented
within hospital settings. The client has been admitted to hospital because
weight loss has reached a dangerous level and behavioral programs are
designed to increase weight to an acceptable level. Typically, behavioral
contracts are drawn up between the patient and therapist which make
privileges contingent on consumption of daily meals and daily increases in
weight throughout the program. Carr, MacDonnell, and Afnan (1989)
implemented such a protocol with a 14-year-old boy who was hospitalized
with anorexia nervosa. The intervention resulted in a rapid increase in
weight from 29 kg to a predetermined criterion of 40 kg within 4 weeks.
Differential reinforcement procedures have been successfully used to treat
chronic back pain (for example, Cairns & Pasino, 1977; Fordyce, Fowler,
Lehmann, DeLateur, Sand, & Trieschmann, 1974). In these studies patients
were reinforced (with social praise) by hospital staff for engaging in
increased activity arid exercise. Complaints and inactivity were ignored. The
results of such interventions indicate that patients increase in their physical
activity and report significant reductions in pain.
Behavioral techniques have also been used to teach self-performance of
intrusive medical regimens for children suffering from such illnesses as
diabetes, asthma, and cystic fibrosis (Lowe & Lutzker, 1979; Russo & Varni,
1982). Typically these behavioral interventions consist of developing a task
analysis of the essential self-care skills. Children are then taught to perform
the task analysis through various prompting strategies (see Chapter 9).
Finally, these skills are maintained through reinforcement strategies such as
token economies. For example, Derrickson, Neef, and Parrish (1991) taught
self-care skills to four children with tracheostomies. A tracheostomy is a
procedure which involves an incision into the trachea and insertion of a tube
below the larynx to maintain an airway (Stool & Beebe, 1973). Some
children with airway obstruction may require tracheostomy for extended
time periods. A tracheostomy requires regular care and this involves the
removal of secretions from the tracheostomy tube and trachea. A task
analysis for tracheostomy self-care was developed initially and then the
children were taught to perform the steps of the task analysis on an
anatomically correct doll (simulation training) and then on themselves. The
performance of the children on the doll and on themselves during baseline,
following training (identified as the PT, or post training, phase in the graph),
and during follow-up phases are shown in Figure 11.4, All four children
performed few of the skills independently prior to training. Interestingly,
during the initial post training trials (that is, following simulation training
with the doll) all four children did not substantially increase their
performance of self-care skills on themselves or with the doll. Remedial
training during post training trials produced a rapid increase of self-care
skills to criterion levels (that is, 100% correct responding on the task
analysis). These positive results maintained for up to 6 weeks during
followup assessments.
Clearly, there are many powerful demonstrations of the application of
behavioral principles to treat a range of medical problems. These include
chronic medical problems such as food refusal, compliance with medical
treatments for such illnesses as diabetes or asthma, and teaching of self-care
skills which are essential for the long-term success of some intrusive surgical
procedures (as in the Derrickson et al., 1991 study above).
Figure 11.4 Percentage of correct responses on simulation and self-administration probes for four
children who were taught self-care of tracheotomies (Derrickson, Neef & Parrish, 1991).

11.2 Community Behavior Analysis

One of the fundamental aims of applied behavior analysis is the application

of behavioral principles for the amelioration of problems that are of social
relevance (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968/1987). Human problems can occur at
the level of the individual (for example, self-injury), of the group (for
example, family violence), of the community (for example, vandalism), of
the state (for example, unemployment), or of the culture (for example, sexual
harassment). These different levels are not mutually exclusive: any problem
behavior is functionally related both to immediate, or proximal, influences
and to broader, or distal, contextual influences. While applied behavior
analysts have recognized the importance of designing interventions to
change behavior at a community or national level they have focused in
practice on the assessment and treatment of problem behaviors in the
individual. Applied behavior analysts have, of course, developed powerful
technologies to change the behavior of individuals and rigorous empirical
methodologies to demonstrate the effectiveness of these intervention
technologies. However, hard-won changes at the individual level may not be
maintained over time if that person returns to a community which
differentially reinforces the original problem behavior. This can be thought
of as an ABA "design", where A is the community setting and B is the
behavioral intervention program: we would expect that a return to
Condition A, the community setting, should reinstate the original,
unwanted, behavior.
Focusing on the individual may therefore be the least effective way to
produce change at times. Indeed, targeting behavior change at the individual
level may, in some cases, legitimize inappropriate or ineffective systems. For
example, many individuals with mental retardation who engage in self-
injury do so to escape from demand situations such as instructional tasks.
The intervention of choice for self-injury maintained by escape is escape
extinction (that is, in treatment the person is not allowed to escape the task
contingent on self-injury). However, in a hypothetical situation where staff
physically abuse the individual within the instructional situation then
escape extinction should not be implemented. In such a case, stopping the
physical abuse by staff, which is acting as an establishing operation for
escape-maintained self-injury, would be the appropriate intervention.
The complexity of various levels of contextual influence on problem
behavior is illustrated by Fawcett (1991) in his analysis of the various factors
that can contribute to drug abuse:
At the individual level, adolescents may lack the social skills to refuse drugs offered by peers or
have limited alternatives for after-school activities. At the family or school level, parents and
teachers may lack knowledge, skills, or other resources for monitoring youths. At a more distal
level, school officials may experience punishment for reporting youths suspected of using or
dealing drugs, or the school may lack financial resources to implement drug abuse prevention
curricula. In the broader context, elected officials may lack information and constituent support to
establish regulations for mandatory drug testing in schools or to create incentive programs or
opportunities that encourage at-risk youths to stay drug-free (Fawcett, 1991; p. 625).

If applied behavior analysis is to realize its ultimate goal of successfully

treating human problems then it must increasingly focus on the need to
assess and intervene at systemic as well as individual levels (Baer, Wolf, &
Risley, 1987). Behavior analysts have not traditionally been very effective at
intervening at systemic levels of society, and there seem to be a number of
reasons for this. The technical language used by behavior analysts, which is
important for precision and clarity within the scientific community, may be
off-putting to the general public. It was noted in Chapters 5 and 10 that there
is a degree of confusion with regard to the meaning of the behavioral term
"punishment", and in general the lay public equate the term "punishment"
with causing harm to a person. This confusion continues to harm the public
perception of the discipline. Behavior analysts can redress this problem in
two ways, both by educating the public about the basic principles of
behavior analysis, and by adopting more user-friendly terms to describe
their profession and activities when interacting with the general public.
Other problems arise from the relationship between applied and
experimental analyses of behavior. Many of the experimental designs used
to evaluate the effectiveness of applied interventions require stringent forms
of control, such as the systematic removal and reintroduction of the
intervention, which may not be acceptable when working in community
settings. A tension may sometimes occur between the need for experimental
rigor and community application. Some experimental designs (such as a
multiple baseline design) may be more suitable to community applications
than others (such as a withdrawal design). This may explain why many
behavior analysts focus their attention on research questions with
populations or settings where they can have maximum control with regard
to the systematic manipulation of environmental variables (such as
institutionalized populations). However, it is important for behavior analysts
to realize that they must succeed in doing research that is also addressed to
systemic issues in wider society, and this may require modification of
research designs to take account of uncontrolled variables. Scientists'
behavior is itself controlled by reinforcement contingencies, and editors of
academic journals may promote this type of research by suggesting that such
research need not necessarily include all the rigorous empirical evaluations
that would typically be required for publication (and thus reinforcement) of
applied behavioral research.
Fawcett (1991) has outlined a set of 10 values to help guide action at
community or systemic levels. These values are outlined in Table 11.1.
Fawcett (1991) suggests that all 10 values should guide the development of
any behavioral community research activity. He also outlines the expected
contribution of the behavioral researcher and the community that is
involved in the research project for each of the values. These values
emphasize the importance of understanding applied community research as
a collaborative venture between the researcher and the community.
Researchers must be sensitive to community needs as they develop research
projects and interventions. If behavior analysts were to adopt these values
then many of the problems facing community behavior analysts (outlined
earlier in the section) may be mitigated. In fact these values are helpful
guidelines for all types of applied behavioral research. In Chapter 5, we
introduced the concept of social validity, and the values listed in Table 11.1
operationalize social validity and demonstrate the potential benefits of
collaboration to both the researcher and the community.
Behavior analysis is not without many excellent examples of behavioral
applications to large scale community issues such as energy conservation,
crime prevention, and business practices (see Greene, Winett, Van Houten,
Geller, & Iwata, 1987). For example, Fox, Hopkins, and Anger (1987)
examined the influence of a token economy system to promote safe practices
of employees in two open-pit mines. The intervention was conducted over a
10-year time period and involved approximately 1000 employees in both
mines during any one year of the intervention. The behaviors targeted for
reduction included work-related injuries, days lost from work due to injury,
and medical costs. The intervention was implemented in a multiple baseline
design across the two mines.
Tokens in the form of trading stamps were given to workers at the end
Table 11.1 Some Values Guiding Community Research and Action: Contributions from Research and
Community Perspectives. (Fawcett, 1991)

Values of community
Research perspective Community perspective
research and action

1. Researchers should
Research should be Communities should
form collaborative
grounded in the local exert some control over
relationships with
context. research that affects them.
participants.
2. Descriptive research Research should contri Research should contribute
should provide infor bute knowledge to
mation about the understanding about
Values of community
Research perspective Community perspective
research and action

variety of behavior about naturally strengths (as well as

environment occurring events. deficits) and the variety of
relationships ways that individual and
of importance to community goals can be
communities. met.
3. Experimental research
The effects of research
should provide infor Research should help
interventions should
mation about the identify
be
effects of environmental : goals, procedures, and
replicable, durable, am
events on d effects that are important
generalizable to other
behaviors and out and acceptable to clients.
people and situations.
comes of importance.
Applied research
4. The chosen setting, should
participants, and use valid measures to Research should target all
research measures examine real-world those who contribute to the
should be appropriate problems in the problem and should leave
to the community natural improved valued aspects of
problem under context of people the community.
investigation. actually experiencing
the concerns.
5. The measurement Measurement systems Research findings should
system must be should be replicable tell
replicable, and mea by typically trained the complete story,
sures should capture researchers. including the role that
the dynamic or tran participants play in
sactional nature of changing
their environments.
Values of community
Research perspective Community perspective
research and action

behavior-environment
relationships.
Interventions should
6. Community interven Community interventions
be
tions should be should be sustainable with
replicable by those
replicable and local resources and should
available to

build on local capacities

sustainable with local
implement them. for addressing community
resources.
concerns.
7. Community action
should occur at the Interventions should Interventions should be
level of change and produce the targeted to optimize
timing likely to maximum desired benefits for the community
optimize beneficial impact. and its members.
outcomes.
8. Researchers should Interventions should be
interventions should be
develop a capacity to disseminated
adapted to local conditions
disseminate effective cautiously so that
and their use should
interventions and their continued
enhance local capacities
provide support for effectiveness
for change.
change agents. is assured.
9. Results should be Research findings Research findings should
communicated to should be
clients, decision be submitted for peer communicated to
makers, and the review, and, if participants and decision
broader public. judged acceptable, makers in understandable
disseminated to the and maximally influential
 broader scientific ways and these audiences
community. should help assess what
was valuable about the
research.
10. Community Community research
research Community research should
and action projects should contribute to contribute to prevention
should contribute to understanding of of problems in living,
fundamental change environmental events capacity building, and
as well as that affect behavior. empowerment of people of
understanding. marginal status.

of each month if they were not involved in accidents. Additional stamps

were given to all members of a group who were managed by a common
supervisor if no member of that group had been injured in the previous
month. Tokens were lost if a worker caused an accident or missed work due
to a work-related injury. Tokens could be exchanged at a local store for a
variety of items such as barbecue grills, bowling balls, electrical appliances
etc. The intervention resulted in very positive long-term effects (see Figure
11.5). There was a substantial decrease in the number of days lost due to
work-related accidents (upper panel of the figure). Additionally, the costs to
the companies for work-related injuries decreased substantially (lower panel
of the figure).
Figure 11.5 The yearly number of days lost from work (top graph) and work-related injuries (bottom
graph), per million person hours worked under Baseline and Token Economy conditions in both mines
(Fox, Hopkins, & Anger, 1987).

11.3 Applications of Further Principles of Behavior

Analysis

The vast majority of applied behavioral intervention programs have relied

on principles of behavior established in the laboratory (with nonhuman
animals) many years ago. However, it is important that the possible
applications of more-recently established, and more "advanced", principles
be investigated. The relationship here is similar to that between science and
technology in any discipline. In some cases, scientists pursue a particular
problem because they know that there is a possible technological application
for its solution — and we will return to this issue in behavior analysis later
in this chapter — but more often scientists investigate problems because of
their inherent interest and applications come later. Interestingly, despite the
preference for funding (by governments etc.) of research of the first type, it
is often research of the second type which produces really useful new
applications. As examples of applications of principles additional to those
described earlier, we will briefly review some applications of research on
choice and concurrent schedules and of research on stimulus equivalence.
In Chapter 4 (Section 4.7), we described concurrent schedules of
reinforcement. Choice between different responses is a general feature of
operant behavior, and it can be subjected to an experimental analysis if two,
or more, operants are reinforced in the same situation. This is what occurs in
concurrent schedules of reinforcement. Choice can be operationally defined
as the proportion of time allocated to each operant, or the relative rate of
that response, and variation of the parameters of the schedules of
reinforcement involved may be used as a method of discovering how those
parameters affect choice. For example, if the rate of reinforcement for
Response R1 doubles, how is the time allocated to, or the rate of, that
response changed?
In 1961, Herrnstein proposed the matching law. This states that the time
allocated to an activity is proportional to the rate of reinforcement of that
activity relative to other current sources of reinforcement. A great deal of
subsequent research has been directed at testing this law under varying
conditions, and the occurrence of some systematic deviations from the
predictions of Herrnstein's simple formula led Baum (1974) to propose the
generalized matching law:

where R stands for the response rate, Rf stands for the reinforcement rate,
and the subscripts 1 and 2 stand for the two response alternatives. This is a
"power law" and the shape of the function is determined by whether the
parameter a is less than 1.0, or greater than 1.0; when it equals 1.0 a linear
relationships exists, which is what Herrnstein originally proposed. These
three types of function are illustrated in Figure 11.6. If a is more than 1.0,
greater changes in responding occur as the ratio of reinforcement rates
varies, and this is called overmatching because it indicates a high sensitivity
to changes in the rate of reinforcement. Correspondingly, if a is less than 1.0,
this is called undermatching. If b is less than 1.0 then bias towards the
second response alternative, R2, is shown. This is also illustrated in Figure
11.7.
The generalized matching law represents a promising start towards being
able to incorporate some aspects of real-world complexity into laboratory
analyses of operant behavior, and real-world applications have also been
investigated. For example, Beardsley and McDowell (1992) carried out a
study with college students where, during conversation, verbal praise was
used as a reinforcer for eye-contact. Reinforcement was administered at five
different rates on VI schedules in different phases of the experiment. The
results in Figure 11.7 show a good fit to Herrnstein's matching law (indicated
by the curves which are hyperbolic functions) for each individual and for the
group median performance.
A concurrent VI VI schedule of monetary reinforcement for completion of
math tasks was used by Mace, Neef, Shade, and Mauro (1994) with teenagers
with behavior disorders. During each experimental session, a

Figure 11.6 The percentage of R1 responses as a function of the percentage of reinforcements for that
response alternative. The diagonal line indicates Herrnstein's matching law. Three types of deviation
from this can be described by the generalized matching law. Details are given in the text.
Figure 11.7 Amount of eye contact as a function of rate of social reinforcement (Beardsley &
McDowell, 1992). Details are given in the text.
participant was offered a series of choices between two piles of distinctively
marked math-problem cards, which were placed directly in front of them.
The participant worked through as many problems as they wished and,
according to the pile (left or right) from which the problems were selected,
the experimenter provided reinforcement for correct problem completion
with nickels on the VI schedule appropriate for that task. Typical results for
an individual participant are shown in Figure 11.8. In the first condition
experienced, VI 20 sec VI 240 sec, Matt allocates nearly all his time and
responding to the much "richer" schedule (VI 20 sec) as would be predicted
from the matching law. Later transitions to other schedule combinations,
however, did not always produce immediate shifts in preference until
additional procedures (which encouraged some shifting to the less reinforced
schedule) were used. Eventual performance on all schedule combinations
showed a good fit to the generalized matching law.

Figure 11.8 Percentage of time that one experimental participant, Matt, allocated to performing
arithmetic problems on the richer reinforcement schedule (Mace, Neef, Shade, & Mauro, 1994). Marks
at foot of graph indicate sessions on which additional procedures were used. Details are given in the
text.

These studies provide encouraging demonstrations of the continuing

power of extrapolations from experiments done in the laboratory with
maximal control of variables and, usually, with nonhuman experimental
participants, to real-world human conditions. Additionally, all sorts of
applied issues can be investigated with variants of these techniques. Recent
studies have used choice procedures to look at reinforcer preference
assessments, to compare reinforcer effects, and to analyze and improve
clinical interventions (see Fisher & Mazur, 1997, for a review).
Chapter 4 (Section 4.10) gave an account of stimulus equivalence classes,
and indicated their probable importance for a general account of human
learning. "Preverbal" children do not generally show the capacity for
stimulus equivalence class formation that is characteristic of older children
and adults, and this suggests that stimulus equivalence class formation and
verbal abilities are intimately related. (The nature of this relationship is not
yet established; see Home & Lowe, 1999, and Barnes, Healy, & Hayes, 1999,
for a vigorous debate about this issue.) As suggested in Chapter 6 (Section
6.8), it may be a capacity to form stimulus equivalence classes that
distinguishes human psychology from that of other species. This possibility
has, of course, stimulated research designed to disprove this hypothesis by
demonstrating equivalence in nonhuman species. (A strength of the
scientific method in general is that scientists may be highly motivated to
complete difficult sets of experiments because they disagree with someone
else's claim that the experiments "won't work".)
A number of such experiments has either demonstrated some, but not all,
aspects of stimulus equivalence, or the training procedure has been modified
(for example, by including appetitive or aversive stimuli as members of
stimulus classes, or by training specific response patterns to various sample
stimuli). A recent study with pigeons sought to demonstrate transitivity (one
of the essential requirements of stimulus equivalence class formation) using
a procedure that avoided the methodological shortcomings of a number of
earlier studies (Kuno, Kitadate, & Iwamoto, 1994). Aspects of the training
and testing procedure are shown in Figure 11.9. Following A-B and B-C
matching-to-sample training (in a manner that closely resembled that
described in Chapter 4 for humans, with the obvious differences that the
stimuli were presented on pecking keys, the responses were pecks directed at
one of three wall-mounted keys, and the reinforcer for "correct" responses
was food presentation), A-C transitivity tests were carried out. For example,
the pigeons would have been reinforced in an earlier phase of the
experiment for pecking A1 (circle) followed by pecking B1 (triangle), and on
separate trials they would have been reinforced for pecking B1 (triangle)
followed by pecking C1 (red). On some trials in the transitivity test, the
sample stimulus would now be A1 (circle), and a correct sequence,
indicating transitivity, would be to peck this and then to peck C1 (red),
which would be presented as a comparison along with the C2 stimulus.
Kuno et al. found that two of their four pigeons showed a tendency to select
the "correct" stimuli (in that they were "right" more often than would have
been predicted by chance alone), but these birds still only made around 60%
"correct" responses.

Figure 11.9 Pigeons trained to match A1 to B1 and A2 to B2, and to match B1 to C1 and B2 to C2,
were tested for transitivity by presenting A1 or A2 as sample stimuli and C1 and C2 as comparison
stimuli (Kuno, Kitadate, & Iwamoto, 1994).

We might tentatively conclude that at this stage rigorous experiments

have shown only a weak tendency towards stimulus equivalence class
formation in nonhuman species, while it is a behavioral process which has
striking behavioral effects in verbally-competent humans. (This conclusion is
"tentative" because, as we have seen on a number of occasions, the history of
research in behavioral analysis is one where apparent differences between
species often turn out, following further research, to be gaps that can be
bridged with careful and extensive training.) What about humans who are
less verbally competent, such as those with developmental delays? Recall
that Sidman (for example, 1971, 1990) originally devised equivalence training
procedures to facilitate reading development in just this group, and more
recent experimental findings with equivalence have in turn been applied
with such individuals.
An example of this is provided by the study of Kennedy, Itkonen, and
Lindquist (1994). Experimental studies with verbally competent adults (for
example, Fields, Adams, Verhave, & Newman, 1990) have shown that
following A-B, B-C, C-D, D-E training, for example, with matching-to-
sample procedures (again, see Chapter 4 for an explanation of the
terminology used), that some relationships may require more training to
emerge than others. For example, B-A matching is liable to emerge before C-
A matching, which may in turn emerge before E-A matching (although all
these relationships, and many others, would be expected to occur once a
stimulus equivalence class was established, see Chapter 4). This is called the
inter-nodal distance effect.
Table 11.2 shows the stimuli used by Kennedy et al. with young adults
with moderate learning disabilities. Following sight-word training, to
establish accurate labeling of all the words, matching-to-sample training was
carried out to establish A-B, B-C, and C-D links within each of the four
classes, meats, dairy products, cereals, and vegetables. A pattern of results
was obtained resembling those from the Fields et al. study. That is,
symmetrical relations (e.g., B-A) were established more quickly than
transitive relations with one node (e.g., C-A) which were established more
quickly than those involving two nodes (e.g., D-A). Amongst other
implications, these findings can aid the construction of effective training
materials for important educational tasks.

11.4 Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Behavioral

Treatment

Applied behavioral scientists have amassed a wealth of data which

demonstrates the effectiveness of behavioral procedures to increase
appropriate behavior and decrease inappropriate behavior. These techniques
have been used in a variety of applied settings (including the community,
the clinic, and education) and with many populations (including the
developmentally disabled, mentally ill, preschoolers, parents, etc.). However,
those who advocate the use of applied behavioral
Table 11.2 Stimulus Classes (1 through 4) and Stimuli (A through D) Used(Kennedy, Itkonen, &
Lindquist, 1994).

Food group

Meats Dairy products Grains/cereals Vegetables/fruits

(1) (2) (3) (4)
A bacon cream toast onion
B salami yogurt muffin potato
C flank gouda cookie garlic
D liver butter donut squash
techniques have not been without their critics (see Walsh, 1997), It was noted
in earlier sections of this book (see Chapters 5 and 10) that punishment
procedures in particular have been misconstrued by some audiences. In fact,
some individuals have gone so far as to describe behavior analysis and those
who practice behavior analysis as evil and controlling (McGee, Menolascino,
Hobbs, & Menousek, 1987). Such conclusions are based in part on
misinformation about applied behavior analysis, in part on a small number
of cases of abuse, and in part on ideological objections to all scientific
accounts of human behavior (see Leslie, 1997b, for a review of these issues).
Nonetheless, this only strengthens the need for behavior analysts to explain
how and why their practices are ethical.
While no professional group can exert total control over the practices of
each individual member, applied behavior analysts have developed a set of
guidelines designed to guide their professional practices (Van Houten,
Axelrod, Bailey, Favell, Foxx, Iwata, & Lovaas, 1988). These guidelines for
the practice of applied behavior analysis are described as a set of six
fundamental rights of the client. Each of these rights are summarized below.

An individual has a right to a therapeutic environment

Individuals have a right to appropriate living standards within the

environment where treatment is applied. The individual should have access
to leisure activities and materials. The social environment should be pleasant
and the person should have frequent opportunities for social interactions
with others. Activities should be age-appropriate and of educative value.
Minimal restrictions should be placed on the preferred activities of the
person. The safety and protection of the individual should be considered at
all times.

An individual has a right to services whose overriding goal is

personal welfare
The goal of any behavioral intervention is to develop functional skills which
promote greater independence for the individual. The individual or legal
guardian should therefore be actively involved in selecting target behaviors,
intervention protocol, and identifying goals of treatment. Peer review and
human rights committees are also important and should be involved in the
treatment selection and program evaluation process. Peer review commitees
should be composed of experts in the field of behavior analysis and can
provide feedback on the clinical efficacy of the intervention protocol. Human
rights committees, comprised of parents, advocates, and consumers examine
the acceptability of the program in terms of basic human rights.

An individual has a right to treatment by a competent

behavior analyst

Persons who develop and supervise behavioral programs should be trained

to the highest standard. This should include doctoral level training in
behavior analysis and practicum training under qualified supervision.
Individuals who deliver treatment should be properly trained in the methods
of intervention. Qualified behavior analysts should monitor those who
deliver treatment.

An individual has a right to programs that teach functional

skills

Every individual has a right to full participation in every aspect of

community life. The goals of intervention should not be based on a priori
assumptions of an individuals potential or limitations. Interventions may be
of three general types. Individuals may be taught new skills to access
preferred stimuli. Individuals can also be taught skills to reduce or avoid
unpleasant stimuli. Finally, certain behaviors may need to be eliminated as
they may act as barriers to inclusion in society.
An individual has a right to behavioral assessment and
ongoing evaluation

The selection of any behavior-change strategy should be based on an

assessment of the environmental determinants of that behavior. This
includes the assessment of antecedents and consequences. Assessment
should involve interview of the individual and significant others when
necessary. This should be followed by observation of the individual in the
criterion environment (that is, contexts where the behavior will be targeted
for increase or decrease). Once the intervention is implemented it should be
continuously evaluated. Continuous evaluation allows the behavior analyst
to determine if the treatment is effective and to modify the intervention if it
is not achieving the desired objectives.

An individual has a right to the most effective treatment

procedures available

Treatments that have been scientifically validated should only be selected

for use. Exposure of individuals to restrictive treatments (for example, some
punishment protocols — see Chapter 10) is unacceptable unless these
treatments are essential to produce clinically significant behavior change.
Alternatively, exposure to less restrictive interventions may be equally
unacceptable if they produce gradual change with behavior that may be of
immediate danger to the individual or other individuals in that person's
environment.
People who practice applied behavior analysis are fundamentally
interested in improving the lives of the people they work with and of society
in general. The guidelines outlined above make this very clear. There will be
individuals in any discipline, who, from time to time, will violate such
guidelines. These individuals should not be allowed to practice behavior
analysis. It is important not to generalize the inappropriate practices of a few
to an entire discipline.
 As mentioned at several earlier stages, it is punishment protocols which
most often raise ethical concerns within and concerning behavior analysis.
Several of these statements of rights are relevant to the use of punishment.
As also stated in earlier discussion and supported by these statements of
rights, it is scarcely conceivable that the use of punishment on its own can
be justified. However, the requirements to maintain personal welfare as an
overriding goal and to provide the most effective treatment available, may
mean that it is sometimes appropriate within a program that also teaches
functional skills.
Because behavior analysis is an emerging rather than an established
profession, issues of professional competence are of current concern.
Whereas, for example, the role "clinical psychologist" is well-established and
defined by specified training and experience in many countries, these
developments have no yet taken place for "behavior analysts"; it is not
established, for example, whether all behavior analysts will have initial
training to graduate level in psychology or not, as some other backgrounds
are certainly appropriate. However, the behavior analysis community is
highly committed to specification of behavioral objectives, including those
of training for themselves, and there is currently active debate on these
matters. It is to be hoped that international standards and availability of
common training are rapidly established.

11.5 The Relationship Between Basic and Applied

Behavior Analysis

In Chapter 1 (Section 1.10) the relationship between the experimental

analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis was examined. Because
this topic is of great importance for the future development of the whole
field of behavior analysis it will be discussed again in this chapter. It is now
over thirty years since applied behavior analysis identified itself as a
separate sub-discipline within behavior analysis (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968).
As originally conceptualized, applied behavior analysis was to busy itself
with the application of the basic principles of learning to problems of social
significance. In the first position paper which outlined the basic tenets of the
applied field, Baer et al. (1968), drew a clear distinction between the
activities of behavioral scientists who discover basic functional relations and
those who apply such principles to ameliorate society's current problems. In
some ways therefore, the original conceptualization of the relationship
between the basic and applied dimensions of the science was a linear one.
The basic scientist identified the fundamental properties of behavior and the
applied scientist then developed interventions based on such principles.
Whatever the relationship between the basic and applied behavioral
sciences there was certainly an enormous amount of development in applied
behavior analysis during its first decade (roughly the 1970s). Behavioral
techniques were applied to increasingly diverse topics of social interest (see
Section 11.1 of this chapter), and problems that had been resistant to other
forms of therapy (for example, self-injury of individuals with developmental
disabilities) seemed capable of being successfully treated using behavioral
methods (for example, Lovaas & Simmons, 1969). However, within a decade
of its inception applied behavior analysis was being criticized as not
fulfilling many of its objectives. Holland (1978) proclaimed that behavior
analysis had become divorced from the parent science of behaviorism. Some
suggested that basic research addressed topics that had no potential real-
world applications (Cullen, 1981). Alternatively, other scientists saw the
divergence between basic and applied research agendas as inevitable (Baer,
1981). According to Baer (1981), the fundamental principles of behavior had
already been discovered (that is, reinforcement, punishment etc.) and the
task of the applied scientist was to examine such principles in applied
settings. By the 1980s behavior analysis was clearly two separate sub-
disciplines with little cross-fertilization. For example, very few behavioral
scientists published findings in both basic and applied journals. This trend
continued through the 1990s.
Does this "separate development" matter? We think it does, and so do
others as there have been calls for more integration of basic and applied
research periodically during the last 20 years (Deitz, 1978; Michael, 1980;
Mace, 1994a; Wacker, 1999), and in recent years the impetus for this
integration seems to be greater (see Mace, 1994a in particular). We will
briefly consider the costs of separation, and then go on to the possible
benefits of greater integration and how that might be achieved.
We have been able to point to many successes for applied behavioral
analysis, but current technology is not yet capable of treating many complex
human phenomena. One could say that this is simply because there has not
been time to develop it, but we have noted earlier that there was a long
period when there seemed to be no progress on applications to complex
human behavior. As recently as 1994, Mace (1994a) notes that the majority
of applied technology is derived from the law of effect, and thus not much
influenced by developments in the experimental analysis of behavior at all
(as the discovery of the law of effect preceded Skinner's experimental
analysis of behavior). That situation has now begun to change radically (see
Leslie & Blackman, 1999, for many advances in application to complex
human phenomena), but damage was done in the interim. In some respects,
applied behavior analysis waned in popularity through apparent lack of
progess on the "big issues" in human behavior and there was also continuing
controversy about the use of aversive techniques which was out of all
proportion to their use. Another negative factor, and one affecting the
availability of funds for research and new developments as well as the
general popularity or esteem of applied behavior analysis, was the tendency
towards a narrow focus on individuals with developmental delay and
behavior disorders at the expense of wider social and community issues.
This arose not directly from a separation from the experimental analysis of
behavior itself, but more from a preoccupation with continuing to work in
those areas where techniques had already been successfully applied. In a
similar vein, Hayes (1991) claims that applied researchers have focused on
the examination of behavior modification techniques per se with little
attention paid to basic research issues.
This disconnection of the basic and applied fields can also have negative
effects on the basic research tradition. Many basic researchers are content to
examine fundamental properties of behavior that may not have any direct
relevance to human problems (Mace, 1994a). Such a position is academically
defensible and may lead eventually to useful but unpredicted applications as
mentioned earlier, but it may not garner public support in the form of
research grants and other financial incentives. This in turn could produce an
erosion of academic positions at universities and may negatively influence
graduate applications to such research programs. More importantly, behavior
analysis may simply lose the opportunity to address many of the issues to
which it could potentailly make a contribution (Leslie, 1997a).
Mace (1994a) summarises some of the costs of separation and suggests
some of the potential benefits of integration:
....the basic and applied sectors of our field have evolved toward greater separation during the past
30 years; this separation, to some extent, has been to the detriment of both areas. Behavioral
technologies have been founded on only the rudimentary principles of behavior. Further, because
applied behavior analysts have little connection to the basic literature, basic findings with
potential to improve behavioral technologies are unlikely to be recognized and stimulate new
technologies. Basic research, on the other hand, has been generally insulated from the applied
agenda and has given greater emphasis to the specification and testing of behavioral laws without
due consideration to their relevance to human affairs. As a result, opportunities to collaborate on
the solution of important social problems and to demonstrate the tangible value of basic
behavioral research to the culture have been missed (Mace, 1994a; p. 532).

Mace (1994a) also provides some concrete suggestions for establishing

collaborative research relationships between the basic and applied research
communities (also see Chapter 1). He models this potential relationship on
the medical model of basic biomedical research which is designed to produce
effective medical procedures. First, basic research could develop animal
models of intractable human problems (that is, behaviors that are sometimes
resistant to current applied technologies; for example, some forms of self-
injury in individuals with developmental disabilities). In such laboratory
analogues historical influences could be systematically manipulated.
Potential independent variables (potential applied treatments) could also be
systematically investigated. If robust results are eventually demonstrated
with nonhuman subjects then these functional relationships could be
examined with humans under laboratory conditions. This second phase of
the experimental continuum is to examine whether similar functional
relationships are demonstrable with humans under similar laboratory
conditions. The final stage of the process is the application of the technology
to deal with real human problems in applied settings. This model has
potential for producing collaborative research as it is quite successful in the
medical and other natural science fields. If the relationship between basic
and applied behavior analysis was in some way similar to basic research and
therapy in the medical professions then basic research could profit by
increased financial support etc. Many lay people can see the need to conduct
research to find cures for such illnesses as HIV and cancer and will probably
fund such research. Basic and applied behavior analysis could possibly
achieve such a symbiotic relationship and public perception in the future
Behavior analysts are now actively attempting to overcome this
separation of basic and applied research interests. Wacker (1999) has urged
activity in what he calls "bridge research". Bridge research can take several
possible forms but fundamentally a bridge research project produces
findings that can influence both basic and applied research programs. For
example, a basic research question could be examined with human
participants in a non-laboratory setting. While many aspects of experimental
rigor might be sacrificed with such an experimental preparation the results
might produce general interest across basic and applied research
communities. Future systematic replications could eventually substantiate
the findings of such a bridge study. One of the fundamental properties of
bridge research is that it breaks the mold of the basic and applied research
traditions. Wacker (1999) notes that if such research is to develop, then the
editorial practices of many of the major journals in the field will have to
change to support this novel research agenda.

11.6 Summary
This final chapter extends the account of behavior analysis provided earlier
in several ways. Applications to health and medicine are reviewed, both
because of their inherent importance, and because they illustrate that the
techniques shown to be effective in earlier chapters can be applied more
widely. Healthy life-styles, through selection of low-fat meals, increases in
physical exercise, or avoidance of risk of skin cancer or exposure to HIV
infection, have been shown to be reliably enhanced with behavioral
techniques, and medical problems, such as anorexia nervosa, chronic back
pain, and management of self-care following tracheostomy, have been
successfully treated. These types of examples of applied behavior analysis
show that there is huge potential in areas traditionally regarded as the
province of medicine, and they also demonstrate that even when there is
clearly a biological or organic origin of a problem, behavioral intervention
may nonetheless be appropriate and effective.
Consideration of applications to community issues throws light on to
some assumptions that have underpinned the applications discussed
throughout the rest of this volume. It has generally been presumed that the
focus of attention, and treatment or intervention, will be the individual, but
we must also examine the social or systemic level of analysis. Elimination of
a drug abuse problem, for example, may require more attention to the
situation and contingencies that prevail in the school or on the street than to
the behavior of individual drug users. Alternatively, self-injurious behavior
within a residential care setting may be maintained by escape from physical
abuse by staff, and it is the latter that would require attention rather than
the behavior of individual clients. For behavior analysis to develop further,
the need to address the systemic as well as the individual level of analysis
must assume a high priority. Additionally, the techniques of behavior
analysis must be adapted to make them usable in less well-controlled
contexts, and the language in which behavior analysis is presented to a
wider public must be simplified.
Applications of behavioral analysis have, until recently, drawn on a
limited number of well-established principles. However, more complex
processes can be shown to be effective in real-world contexts. The matching
law, for example, which has been extensively studied in the laboratory has
also been demonstrated to predict behavior in naturalistic human situations
— such as one where eye-contact was "unknowingly" reinforced with verbal
praise — and in application to educational issues with people with
developmental delay. Stimulus equivalence classes, which have been the
subject of much recent laboratory research, also have important applications.
Sidman's pioneering studies were concerned with the development of
reading skills in those who do not readily learn to read, and recent
discoveries about equivalence classes have application to the construction of
effective strategies for teaching reading.
It has been evident at several points in this volume that ethical issues are
raised by behavioral interventions, as indeed they are by all attempts to
influence the behavior of others. The behavior-analysis community is aware
of these issues, particularly because behavior analysis has often been
criticized by others who are not necessarily very well informed about
behavioral principles, and has generated a set of ethical guidelines. These
guidelines concern the right of an individual to a therapeutic environment,
the right to services aimed at enhancing personal welfare, the right to
treatment by a competent behavior analyst, the right to a program that
teaches functional skills, the right to assessment and ongoing evaluation, and
the right to the most effective treatment procedures available. As with any
ethical code, these guidelines will not resolve every issue, but they do
provide an articulated framework within which judgements can be made.
The relationship between the experimental analysis of behavior and
applied behavior analysis is of great importance to the future of both sub-
disciplines. Although they have "grown apart", there is now much concern to
sustain the interface between and, in particular, to foster bridge studies that
make an impact on both the experimental analysis of behavior and applied
behavior analysis. This would make behavioral research more akin to
medical research in its organization, and more likely to generate the wider
understanding and use which it richly deserves.
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Author Index
Adams, B .J. 324
Afnan, S. 309
Albin, R. 173
Allen, K. D. 166
Allen, L. D 216
Allen, S. J. 166
Allison, J. 35, 220
American Cancer Society 306
Anger, W. K. 314, 317
Anrep, G. V. 7
Antonitis, J.J. 53
Arbeit, W. R. 129
Asmus, J. 228-9
Ault, M. H. 173
Austin, G. 136
Axelrod, S. 171, 325
Aydin, A. 69
Ayllon, T. 17, 222-3
Azrin, N. H. 17, 54-5, 113-5, 120, 222-3, 230, 294, 295
Baer, D. M. 142-4, 183, 185-6, 241, 243, 245, 256-8, 312-3, 328-9
Bailey, J. S. 174, 239-40, 293, 325
Bandura, A. 138, 140-1, 144
Barab, P. 144
Barlow, D. H. 185
Barnes, D. 71, 322
Barry, J.J. 105
Bates, P. 204-5
Baum, W. M. 146, 319
Bauman, K. E. 19, 171, 239-40
Beardsley, S. D. 319-20
Beasty, A. 70
Bechtel, D. R. 294
Beebe, J. K. 310
Bentall, R. P. 70
Besley, S. 91-2
Bevan, P. 114, 116
Bhatt, R. S. 134
Bierman, K. L. 292
Bijou, S. W. 173
Binkoff, J. A. 171
Blackman, D. 330
Blampied, N. H. 122
Blakelock, H. 284-5
Blanchard, E. B. 309
Bolles, R. C. 111
Borakove, L. S. 157
Boring, E. G. 9
Bowen, A. M. 160
Bowman, L. G. 213-4
Bradshaw, C. M. 114, 116
Brady, J. V. 118-9
Braunling-McMorrow, D. 157
Breen, C. 162
Brigham, T. A. 194
Bruner, J. S. 136
Bucher, B. B. 295
Builock, D. H. 58
Burgio, L. D. 176, 251-2
Burnette, M. M. 306, 308
Byrne, P. 179
Cairns, D. 310
Campbell, D. T. 184
Canfield, D. 306
Capehart, J, 56-7
Carey, R. G. 295
Carlsen, A. 176
Carr, A. 309
Carr, E. G. 152, 171, 176, 218, 228, 261
Cartelli, L. M. 287
Cataldo, M. F. 267, 273
Catania, A. C. 70, 89
Chandler, L. K. 256
Chomsky, N. 144-5
Christophersen, E. R. 158, 159
Cigrand, K. 179, 228-9
Clarke, S. 171
Clees, T. 204-5
Colavecchia, B. 287
Cone, J. D. 171
Connis, R. T. 236
Cook, J. 179
Cook, T. D. 184
Cooley, J. 141
Cooper, J. O. 196, 205, 212, 228, 237, 269
Cowdery, G. E. 177, 261, 267, 273, 279-80
Crimmins, D. B. 172
Crisp, A. G. 176
Crosbie, J. 116
Crowley, R. 236
Cullen, C. 329
Cummings, A. 298
Cummings, C. 304
Cummings, L. 236
Cunningham, C. E. 284
Cuvo, A. J. 157, 203, 236, 254
Darwin, C. R. 9
Davis, P. K. 236, 254
Day, H. M. 262, 275
Deaux, E. B. 61
De Boynson-Bardies, B. 38
Deitz, D. E. D. 226-7
Deitz, S. M. 226-7, 230, 329
DeLateur, B. J. 310
DeLeon, I. G. 275, 276-7
deLissovoy, V. 155
Delquadri, J. 296, 297
DeLuca, R. V. 162, 305, 307
Dennis, I. 132-4
DeRaad, A. 179
Derby, K. M. 228-9
Derrickson, J. G. 310-2
DeVries, J. E. 306, 308
Dinsmoor, J. A. 105
Dobes, R. W. 155
Doleys, D. M. 287
Donnellan, A. 179, 273, 278
Dorsey, M. F. 19, 171, 177, 261
Dubbert, P. M. 304
Dugdale, N. 96, 147
Duker, P. C. 200, 202
Dunham, P. J. 116
Dunlap, G. 171, 195, 213, 215, 256
Durand, V. M. 171-2, 176, 228, 261
Edwards, G. L. 212
Eisenberger, R. 35
Estes, W. K. 113
Evans, A. 241-2, 292
Evans, S. 160
Falk, G. D. 195
Fantino, E. 42
Farthing, G. W. 91-2
Favell 231, 232, 325
Faw, G. D. 166
Fawcett, S. B. 313-4, 315
Fearing, F. 3
Ferro, J. 213, 215
Ferster, C. B 68, 87
Fields, L. 97, 324
Finney, J. W. 158-9
Fischer, S. M. 233
Fisher, W. W. 213-4, 322
Fisher, W. P. 233-4
Fleshler, M. 108-9
Fletcher, F. M. 103
Fordyce, W. E. 310
Foster-Johnson, L. 213, 215
Fowler, R. S. 310
Fowler, S. A. 256-7
Fox, D. K. 314, 317
Foxx, R. M. 230, 294, 325
France, K. G. 272
Frick, F. S. 31, 53
Friman, P. C. 100, 158-9, 193, 275
Fuentes, I. 61
Garcia, J 77
Garfinkel, P. 309
Garner, D. 309
Gast, D. 187, 196, 240
Gaylord-Ross, R. J. 162
Geller, E. S. 200, 309, 314
Gewirtz, J. L. 38
Gladstone, E. W. 141
Glasscock, S. T. 158-9
Glynn, D. 236, 257
Goh, H. 177, 206, 261, 273-4
Goldiamond, I. 248-9
Goldstein, A.P. 18
Goodfield, J. 1
Goodman, J. 259
Goodner, V. 194
Goodnow, J. J. 136
Gormezano, I. 61
Grant, L. 241-2, 292
Gray, J. A. 67
Green, G. 157
Greene, B. F. 200, 314
Griffin, J. C. 284, 298
Guthrie, E. R. 32
Guttman, N. 81-2
Hagopian, L. P. 213-4, 233-4
Hahn, H. A. 309
Hake, D. F 54, 55
Hailman, 83
Hall, R. V. 39, 296-7
Halle, J. W. 38, 241, 243, 245
Halliday, S. 144
Hampton, J. A 132-4
Haring, T. G. 162, 291
Harlow, H. F. 127, 128
Harmer, M. L. 259, 260
Harris, S. L. 198-9
Harrison, J. M. 105
Harrison, S.N. 134
Hawkins, R. P 155.
Hayes, S. C. 19, 100, 147, 322, 330
Hayes, L. J. 147
Healy, O. 322
Hearst, E. 56, 91-2
Hefferline, R. F. 40
Heins, J. M. 304
Herbert-Jackson, E. 288-9
Herman, L. M. 129
Herman, R. L. 115
Heron, T. E. 196, 205, 212, 228, 237, 269
Herrnstein, R. J. 115, 318
Hersen, M. 185
Heward, W. L. 196, 205, 212, 229, 237, 269
Higgins-Hains, A. 183
Hineline, P. H. 261
Hobbs, D. C. 325
Hobbs, S. A. 287
Hoffman, H. S. 108-9
Holborn, S. W. 162, 305, 307
Holland, J. G. 329
Holz, W. C. 113-5, 120
Honig, W.K. 114
Hopkins, B. L. 314, 317
Home, P. L. 322
Horner, R. 173
Horner, R. D. 237
Horner, R. H. 256, 258, 262, 275
Horton, C. P. 32
Hovell, M. 160
Howie 46
Hudson, S. M. 272
Hughes, C. 259-60
Hulicka, I. M. 56-7
Hull, C. L. 34, 36, 41, 44-5
Hunt. H, F. 118-9
Hurwitz, H. M. B. 31
Hutchinson, R. R 54-5
Isaacs, C. D. 248-9
Israel, A. C. 305
Itkonen, T. 324
Ivancic, M. T. 166, 176, 213
Iwamoto, T. 322-3
Iwata, B. A. 19, 171, 174-5, 177, 179, 200, 206, 208, 213, 216, 219-20, 230-1, 233, 261, 267, 269-71, 273-7,
279-80, 283-4, 298, 314, 325
Jackson, D. 39
Jackson, D. A. 249
Jackson, N. C. 199, 201
Jacobs, A. L. 304
Jason, L. A. 195-6
Jelalian, E. 160
Jenson, W. R. 284-5
Johnson, B. F. 236
Johnson, W. G. 304
Jones, H. M. 56
Jones 231-2
Kahan, E. 122
Kahng, S. 275-7
Kalish, H. I. 81-2
Kalsher, M. J. 177, 261, 267, 273
Kamin, L. J. 77, 109
Kaplan 105
Karpman, M. 35
Kazdin, A. E. 69, 120, 122, 161, 173, 183, 184, 197, 218, 268, 288, 300
Keenan, B. 40
Keenan, M. 52, 71
Keilitz, I. 237
Keller, F. S. 7, 49
Kennedy, C. H. 184, 206, 207, 291, 324
Kern, L. 195
Kern-Dunlap, L. 171
Killian, D. J. 259-60
Kitadate, T. 322-3
Knapp, L. G. 160
Knight, D. 176
Koegel, R. L. 256
Koelling, R. A. 77
Krasner, L. 18
Krauss, K. S. 134
Kromrey, J. D. 195
Kuno, H. 322-3
Lagomarcino, A. 166
Lalli, J. S. 255
Lancioni, G. 154
Langer, S. N. 174
Lankester, L. V. 304
LaVigna, G. D. 179, 273, 278
Lea, S. E. G. 42, 132-4, 179
Leaf, R. B. 157
Legacy, S. M. 233-4
Lehmann, J. F. 310
Lennox, D. B. 171, 176
Lerman, D. C. 174-5, 177, 261, 269, 271, 275
Leslie, J. C. 35, 39, 64, 66, 119, 144, 147, 221, 303-4, 325, 330
Lindquist, K. 324
Lindsley, O. R. 17
Linscheid, T. R. 284, 298
Liotta, R. F. 195-6
Liu, L. 284-5
Loiben, T. 166
Lombard, D. 306
Lovaas, O. I. 84, 177, 271, 325, 329
Lowe, C. F. 70, 96, 147, 322
Lowe, K. 310
Lubeck, R. C. 256
Luce, S. C. 296-7
Lund, D. 39
Lutzker, J. R. 310
MacDonald, R. F. 174
MacDonnell, D. 309
Mace, F. C. 19, 176, 194-5, 321, 329-31
MacKenzie-Keating, S. E. 287
Mackintosh, N. J. 83-4, 89-90, 120, 271
Marcus, B. A. 216, 233, 278
Mathews, M. R. 199, 201
Matson, J. L. 299
Matthews, B.A. 70
Mauro, B. C. 321
Mayer, J. 305
Mayer, J. A. 304
Mazaleski, J. L. 177, 230-1, 233, 261, 269-70
Mazur, J. E. 217, 322
McCosh, K. C. 177,261
McDowell, J.J. 319-20
McCee, J. J. 325
McGimpsey 231, 232
Meichenbaum, D. 259
Meier, S. M. 194
Menolascino, F. J. 325
Menousek, P. E. 325
Meyer, G, R. 174
Meyer, K. 184
Meyers, D. V. 230
Michael, J. 152, 171, 185, 329
Millenson, J. R. 31, 119
Miller, G. A. 31, 53
Miller, C. L. 292
Miltenberger, R. G. 171, 176, 179, 279-80
Montague, N. W. 304
Mooney, B. M. 236
Moore, F. 267-9
Morris, E. K. 299
Morrison, D. C. 304
Mowrer, O. H. 56
Muenzinger, K. F. 103
Mulvihill, M. M. 160
Murphy, H. A. 293
Nation, J. R. 69, 218
National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference Statement, 282
Nau, P. A. 287, 309
Neef, N. 310-2, 321
Neisworth, J. T. 267-9
Neubauer, T. E. 306
Newman, S. 324
Newsom, C. D. 171
Newton, J. T. 1 76
Niarhos, F. 259-60
Northup, J. 179, 228-9
O'Donoghue, D. 162
O'Kane, N. 179
Oliver, C. 155
O'Neill, R. 173
O'Reilly, M. F. 152, 154, 157, 162, 171, 176, 179, 236, 253, 257
Osborne, J. G. 284-5
Osgood, C. E. 37
Otis, L. S. 118
Owens, J. C. 213-4
Pace, G. M. 177, 213, 261, 267, 273, 279-80
Paclawskyj, T. R. 213
Page, T. J. 176, 213
Parrish, J.M. 176,310-12
Pasino, J. A. 310
Passero, M. A. 160
Pavlov, I. P. 6, 49, 60, 73, 76-9, 83, 91
Pearce, J.M. 69
Peine, H. A. 284-5
Perin, C. T. 56
Peterson, R. 142-4
Peterson, R. F. 173
Phillips, J. F. 251-2
Piazza, C. C. 213-4
Pitts-Conway, V, 162
Poling, A. 230, 275
Polster, R. 69, 218
Porterfield, J. K. 288-9
Powers, M. A. 296
Powers, S. W. 160
Premack, D. 34-5
Pyles, D. A. M. 174
Rapport, M. D. 293
Rasing, E. J. 200, 202
Redd, W, H. 299
Redhead, E.S. 69
Redmon, W. K. 306, 308
Reichle, J. 228
Reid, D. H. 166, 251-2
Reimers, T. 179
Reiss, M. L. 239-40
Renzaglia, A. 204-5
Repp, A. C. 226-7, 230
Rescorla, R. A. 79, 91, 119
Reynolds, W. F. jr. 134
Rheingold, H. L. 38
Richman, G. S. 19, 171, 239-40
Ricketts, R. W. 284, 298
Rincover, M. 279
Ringdahl, J. E. 216, 233, 278
Risley, T. R. 256, 288-9, 312-3, 328
Roane, H. S. 216
Robbins, F. R. 171
Roberts, M. W. 287
Rodgers, T. A. 177, 261
Rolider, A. 286, 289-90, 298
Ross, H. W. 38
Routh, D. K. 38
Rudolph, R. 83, 90
Rusch, F. R. 236
Russo, D. C. 310
Ryan, C. 230
Sameoto, D. 287
Sand, P. L. 310
Sasso, G. 179, 228-9
Schlundt, D. G. 304
Schneiderman, N. 61
Schoenfeld, W. N. 7, 49
Schreibman, L. 84
Seligman, M. E. P. 32, 78
Shade, D. 321
Sherman, J. 142-4
Shimoff, E. 70
Shore, B. A. 177, 206, 208, 261, 275-7
Sidman, M. 96, 109, 187, 324
Simmons, J. Q. 177, 271, 329
Skinner, B. F. 14, 15, 20-1, 27, 29, 32, 46, 50, 57, 60, 68, 87, 113, 118, 145, 150, 171
Slevin, I. 213-4
Slifer, K. J. 19, 171, 176
Slivka, R.M. 114
Smith, C. E. 152
Smith, H. V. 69, 218
Smith, R. G. 177, 206, 208, 230-1, 233, 261, 269-70, 275-7
Smith, W. C. 58
Snell, M. E. 237
Souza, G. 206-7
Sowers, J. 236
Speir, N. C. 230
Spencer, H. 24
Spooner, F. 253
Spradlin, J. E. 241, 243, 245
Sprague, J. R. 173, 258
Stabb, S. D. 292
Stanley, R. T. 166
Stark, L. J. 160
Steege, M. 179, 228-9
Stokes, T. F. 256-8
Stolmaker, L. 305
Stool, S. E. 310
Storey, K. 173
Sturmey, P. 176
Sulzer-Azaroff, B. 174
Szabadi, E. 114, 116
Taras, M. E. 299
Tarpy, R.M. 42
Tawney, J. 187, 196
Taylor, B. A. 198-9
Taylor, I. 154, 157
Terrace, H. S. 238
Thomas, I. 248-9
Thorndike, E. L. 10
Tierney, K. J. 69, 218
Timberlake, W. 35, 220
Touchette, P. E. 174
Toulmin, S. 1
Trattner, J. 35
Trieschmann, R. B. 310
Justin, R. D. 192
Ulrich, R. E. 118
Upper, D. 292
Van Houten, R. 83, 90, 200, 275-6, 286-7, 289-90, 298, 309, 314, 325
Varni, J. W. 310
Verhave, T. 97, 110, 324
Viney, W. 56-7
Vihman, M. M. 38
Vogel, J. M. 304
Vollmer, D.
Vollmer, T. R. 175, 177, 179, 193, 213, 216, 219-20, 230-1, 233, 261, 269, 270, 278
Wacker, D. P. 19, 179, 195, 228-9, 329, 331-2
Wagner, A. 91
Wagner, J. L. 304-5
Wallace, R. F. 249
Walsh, P. 325
Warren, J.M. 130
Wasserman, E. A. 134
Watson, J. B. 13
Webley, P. 42
Weigel, J. W. 158-9
Wells, K. C. 287
Wesolowski, M. D. 294-5
Wilcox, B. 258
Williams, J.B. 56
Williams, D. E. 284, 298
Willis, K. D. 177, 261
Wilson, K. G. 100
Wilson, P. G. 251-2
Winett, R. A. 200, 304-6, 314
Winograd, E. 105
Wohn, T. 255
Wolery, M. 240
Wolf, M. M. 122, 256-7, 312-3, 328
Woods, P. 46, 218
Zanolli, K. 255
Zarcone, J. R. 175, 177, 179, 230-1, 233, 261, 269-70
Zencius, A. H. 254
Zener, K. 117
Subject Index
After a page number, 'f' indicates a figure away from its main text.
ABAB designs 190-7, 209-10
ABC assessment 173-4
aberrant behavior: analysis of 170-1, 176-80
acquired reflexes 5-7
adaptive behavior
see also increasing adaptive behavior in applied settings
and evolutionary theory 8-10, 20-1
aggression, extinction-induced 54-5, 71, 273-4
alternating treatment designs 206-10
Antecedent — Behavior — Consequence (ABC) assessment 173-4
applied behavior analysis 16-19, 21, 303-12, 328-33
applied settings see assessing behavior in applied settings; decreasing maladaptive behavior in applied
settings; increasing adaptive behavior in applied settings; single-case experimental designs
arbitrary stimulus classes 131-2, 149
Aristotle 1, 20
assessing behavior in applied settings 151, 179-81
conducting observations 167, 180
defining the target behavior 155-9
functional analysis 176-9
functional assessment 171-5
functional assessment and analysis of aberrant behavior 170-1
measuring and recording behaviors 159-67
reliability of assessment 168-9
selecting target behaviors 154-5
understanding and guiding behavioral assessment 151-4
aversive contingencies 67, 101-2, 123-4
aversive classical conditioning 117-20
avoidance behavior 107-12
 contingent presentation of aversive events 283-7
escape from aversive stimuli 102-6
ethics of 106, 120-3
punishment 112-16
avoidance behavior 101, 107-12, 123
backward chaining 251,253
basic behavior analysis 18, 328-33
behavioral deficits 142
behavioral interviews 171-3
behavioral medicine 309-12, 332
behavioral similarity 141-2
behaviorism 12-14, 21
bidirectional training 147
blocking 77, 98
chaining 137, 250-4, 263
changing criterion designs 203-4, 205f, 210
choice 318
classical conditioning 7-8, 20
aversive classical conditioning 101, 117-20, 124
extinction 60-2, 68-9, 72
stimulus control in 76-9, 98
community behavior analysis 312-28, 332
complex behavior 125, 149-50
arbitrary stimulus classes 131-2
concept acquisition 125-9, 130f
conceptual behavior and discriminations 130-1
modeling 136-42
polymorphous concepts and natural concepts 132-4
reinforcement of modeling 142-4
rules as solutions to problems 134-6
verbal behavior 145-9
concept acquisition 125-9, 130f, 149
concept identification 135-6, 150
conceptual behavior and discriminations 130-1, 149
concurrent schedules of reinforcement 86, 88-9, 99, 318
conditioned reflexes 5-7, 20
conditioned reinforcement 41-2, 48, 141-2, 150
conditioned suppression 118-20, 124
conditioning see classical conditioning; operant behavior and operant conditioning
contingent activity 294-7, 302
contingent exercise 296-7
contingent presentation of aversive events 283-7
continuous reinforcement 63
cumulative recorders 28, 29f
current status and future directions 303, 332-3
applications of behavior analysis to issues in health and medicine 303-12
applications of further principles of behavior analysis 318-25
community behavior analysis 312-18
ethical guidelines for the use of behavioral treatment 325-8
relationship between basic and applied behavior analysis 328-32
Darwin, Charles 9-10, 20-1
decreasing maladaptive behavior in applied settings 265-6, 281, 301-2
advantages and disadvantages of using punishment 298-301
contingent activity 294-7
contingent removal of positive events 287-94
matching extinction protocol to maintaining contingencies 278-81
punishment 281-3
punishment techniques 283-7
using extinction 266-76, 277f
using reinforcement 225-35, 262-3
delay of reinforcement 217-18, 224
Descartes, René 2-3, 8, 20
differential reinforcement schedules 66-7, 72, 225-32, 262-3
differentiation 76-7, 78f, 85
direct observation procedures 173-5
discriminated avoidance 108-9
discrimination 59, 77, 78f, 84-6, 98, 99 conceptual behavior and 130-1, 149 learning sets 125-9
discrimination training 87-90, 99
discriminative stimulus 79-80, 138, 145
disjunctive concepts 131-2
dualism 2, 20
duration recording 161-2, 163
effort, law of 11-12, 21
emitted responses 26
escape from aversive stimuli 101-6, 123
establishing operations 218-19, 225
ethics
of aversive contingencies 106, 120-3, 124
guidelines for the use of behavioral treatment 325-8, 333
event recording 160-1
evolutionary theory: and adaptive behavior 8-10, 20-1
experimental analysis of behavior 14-16, 21
external validity 184-5
extinction 45, 49, 71-2
changes in response rate during 49-51, 52f
of classically conditioned responses 60-2
decreasing behavior using 266-76, 277f, 281, 301
differential reinforcement schedules 66-7
extinction-induced aggression 54-5, 71, 273-4
following intermittent reinforcement 67-9
human behavior under schedules of reinforcement 69-71
intermittent reinforcement 62-6
matching extinction protocol to maintaining contingencies 278-81, 301-2
operant extinction paradigm 59-60
outside the laboratory 60
resistance to 55-6, 57f
spontaneous recovery 57-8
successive conditioning and 58-9
topographical changes in responding
 during 51, 53-4, 254-5, 263
extinction burst 267-70, 301
fading 238-47, 263
fixed-time schedule of reinforcement 269
forward chaining 251
free operant avoidance 108-11
frequency recording 160-1
functional analysis 19-21, 170-1, 176-81, 227-8, 229f, 262-3
functional assessment 170-5, 180-1
functionally-defined operants 43-4
future directions see current status and future directions
generalization 80-2, 98-9
generalization gradient 81-2
generalization of newly acquired skills 255-9, 260f, 263
generalization testing 80-1
gradual reduction in behavior 271
graphic displays 185-90, 191f, 209
healthy life-styles: promoting 304-9, 332
human behavior
see also complex behavior; modeling; verbal behavior
early attempts to explain 1-3, 20
simple operant conditioning 39-41
under reinforcement schedules 69-72
vocal operants 37-9, 47-8
increasing adaptive behavior in applied
settings 211, 224-5, 262-3
chaining 250-4
establishing new behavioral repertoires 235-8
fading response and stimulus prompts 238-47
negative reinforcement 260-2
optimizing reinforcer effectiveness 217-21
programming generalization of newly acquired skills 255-9, 260f
selecting reinforcers 212-17
 shaping 247-9
token economies 221-4
topographical changes in responding during extinction 254-5
using positive reinforcement 211-12
using reinforcement to decrease maladaptive behavior 225-35, 262-3
inhibitory stimulus control 91, 92f, 99, 114
instructional prompting strategies 235-8, 263
fading 238-47, 263
instrumental behavior 10
interdimensional training 90
intermittent reinforcement 62-6, 72
extinction following 67-9, 72
internal validity 183-4
inter-nodal distance effect 324
interval recording 163-6
interviews, behavioral 171-3
intradimensional training 90
language 146
see also verbal behavior
latency recording 161-3
law of effort 11-12, 21
law of least effort 32
learning sets 125-31, 130f, 149
least effort, law of 32
least-to-most prompt sequences 239-40
maladaptive behavior see decreasing maladaptive behavior in applied settings
matching law 115, 318-22, 333
matching-to-sample training 93-6
measuring behaviors 151, 159-67, 180
medicine, behavioral 309-12, 332
modeling 136-44, 150, 236-9
momentary time sampling 166
most-to-least prompt sequences 240-1
Motivation Assessment Scale 172
multiple baseline designs 197-203, 210
multiple schedules of reinforcement 86-8, 99
natural concepts 134, 150
negative reinforcement/reinforcers 101-2, 105-7, 260-3
new behavioral repertoires: establishing 235-8, 263
newly acquired skills: programming generalization 255-9, 260f, 263
noncontingent reinforcement 233-5, 269-70, 301
observations 167, 173-5, 180
operant behavior and operant conditioning 47-8
analysis of purposive behavior 23-5
changes in behavior that characterize operant conditioning 28-32
conditioned reinforcement 41-2
definition of response classes 42-4
operants and reinforcing stimuli 33-6
outcomes of operant conditioning 32-3
response differentiation and response shaping 44-7
simple operant conditioning of complex or "unobserved" human behavior 39-41
simple operant conditioning paradigm 36-7
Skinner box experiment 25-8
three-term relationship of operant conditioning 79-80, 98-9
vocal operants 37-9
operant extinction paradigm 59-60
operants 33, 44
outcomes of operant conditioning 32-3
overcorrection 294, 296-7
overshadowing 77-8, 83-4, 98
partial-interval recording 164-6
partial reinforcement extinction effect 67, 69
Pavlov, Ivan P. 5-8, 20, 60, 62, 76-7, 79, 83
Pavlovian method 6-7
perceptual stimulus classes 74-6, 98
physical response prompts 237-8
picture response prompts 236, 238-9
polymorphous concepts 132-4, 150
positive events: contingent removal of 287-94, 302
positive reinforcement/reinforcers 37, 101, 105-6, 211-12, 224, 262
promoting healthy life-styles 304-9, 332
prompts see instructional prompting strategies
psychology 12-3, 18
punishment 101, 112-16, 123, 281-97, 301-2
advantages and disadvantages 298-301
ethics 120-4, 302, 327-8
purposive behavior: analysis of 23-5, 47
recording behaviors 151, 159-67, 180
reflex action 3-5, 20
reflexivity 95
reinforcement/reinforcers
see also schedules of reinforcement; token economies
conditioned 41-2, 48, 141-2, 150
decreasing maladaptive behavior 225-35, 262-3
increasing adaptive behavior 211-12, 224
modeling 142-4, 150
negative 101-2, 105-7, 260-3
noncontingent 233-5, 269-70, 301
operants and reinforcers 33-6, 47
optimizing reinforcer effectiveness 217-21, 224-5
positive 37, 101, 105-6, 211-12, 224, 262
selecting reinforcers 212-17, 224, 262
reliability of assessment 168-9, 180
removal of positive events 287-94, 302
resistance to extinction 55-6, 57f, 71
response acquisition effect 138-9
response classes: definition of 42-4, 48
response cost 287, 292-3, 302
response differentiation 44-6
response effort 274-6, 277f
response facilitation effect 138
response modulation effect 138, 140
response prompts 235-44, 263
response rate: changes during operant extinction 49-51, 52f, 71
response shaping see shaping
rights of the individual 325-8, 333
Romanes, George John 9-10
rule-governed behavior 134-6, 147-50
scatterplot assessment 174-5
schedules of reinforcement 218, 224-5, 262
concurrent 86, 88-9, 99, 318
differential 66-7, 72, 225-32, 262-3
fixed-time 269
human behavior under 69-72
intermittent 62-6, 72
multiple 86-8, 99
scientific approach to behavior 1, 20-1
acquired or conditioned reflexes 5-7
applied and basic behavior analysis 18-19
behaviorism 12-14
classical conditioning 7-8
development of applied behavioral analysis 16-18
early attempts to explain human behavior 1-3
evolutionary theory and adaptive behavior 8-10
experimental analysis of behavior 14-16, 21
functional analysis 19-20
reflex action 3-5
scientific analysis of "voluntary" behavior 10-12
shaping 44, 46-8, 204, 247-9, 263
Sherrington, Sir Charles 4
shuttle box 103-4
simple correction 294-5
simple operant conditioning 36-7, 39-41
simultaneous discrimination procedures 88
single-case experimental designs 183, 209-10
alternating treatment designs 206-9
changing criterion designs 203-4, 205f
graphic displays 185-90, 191f
internal and external validity 183-5
multiple baseline designs 197-203
withdrawal or ABAB designs 190-7
Skinner, B.F. 14-16, 21, 32, 47, 62, 145 cumulative recorder 28, 29f
Skinner box experiments 14, 15f, 25-8, 47
species-typical aversive behaviors 111-12, 117-18
Spencer, Herbert 24
spontaneous recovery 57-8, 62, 71-2, 271-3, 301
stereotyped behavior 32
stimulus control 73-4, 98-100
in classical conditioning 76-9, 98
effects of discrimination training 89-90
inhibitory stimulus control 91, 92f
multiple and concurrent schedules of reinforcement 86-9
perceptual stimulus classes 74-6
stimulus discrimination paradigm 84-6
stimulus equivalence 93-8
stimulus generalization 80-2
stimulus salience 82-4
three-term relationship of operant conditioning 79-80
stimulus equivalence class formation 93-100, 126, 132, 147, 149, 322-5, 333
stimulus prompts 235, 237-8, 244-7, 263
stimulus-response laws 4
structural changes of responding in extinction 51, 53-4
successive conditioning and extinction 58-9, 72
successive discrimination procedures 87-8
symmetry 95
target behaviors 151
defining 155-9, 180
measuring and recording 159-67, 180
selecting 154-5, 180
task analysis 156-9, 180
Thorndike, Edward L. 10-12, 16, 21, 32, 33
three-term relationship of operant conditioning 79-80, 98-9
time delay instructional protocol 241-4
time out 120, 287-92, 293-4, 302
token economies 221-5, 314, 316-18
topographical changes in responding during extinction 51, 53-4, 254-5, 263
topographically-defined operants 43
total task chaining 253-4
transitivity 95
validity: internal and external 183-5
verbal behavior 40-1, 70-2, 89-90, 135, 145-50
verbal response prompts 235-6, 239
vocal operants 37-9, 47-8
"voluntary" behavior: scientific analysis of 10-12, 21
Watson, John B. 12-14, 21, 118
WGTA see Wisconsin General Test Apparatus
whole-interval recording 165-6
Whytt, Robert 3-4
Wisconsin General Test Apparatus (WGTA) 126, 127f
withdrawal designs 190-7, 209-10