An Example of Discovery Research Involving the Transfer of Stimulus Control
Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: The initial purpose of the present study was to replicate procedures for teaching preschool children to recruit attention at appropriate times by having an experimenter signal the availability and unavailability of attention (i.e., arrange a multiple schedule involving reinforcement and extinction; Tiger & Hanley, 2004). Following the development of discriminated social responding, the schedule-correlated stimuli were removed (i.e., a mixed schedule of reinforcement was arranged). However, discriminated responding continued during these conditions. Further evaluation suggested that stimulus control over children's social responding had transferred from the schedule-correlated stimuli to the delivery of reinforcement. The effect of a history of reinforcement under multiple-schedule conditions on performance under mixed schedules was then replicated with 2 participants in a reversal design. These findings suggest that following experience with schedule-correlated stimuli, these stimuli may be removed with only modest disruption to discriminated responding.
Authors: Jeffrey H. Tiger, Gregory P. Hanley
Institution: University of Kansas
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2152604557