S2 Exam

Question 1

DRO

Answer 1

Rf given when an undesirable behaviour is NOT observed.

Rfing anything else that a person may be doing, as long as they are not engaging in the target behaviour. Because the “other” behaviours are not necessarily specified, no particular behaviours will reliably receive reinforcement. Therefore, any paricular acts are unlikely to increase very much, if at all. However, does not require the same degree of vigilance as rfing specific alternative behaviours as DRA. DRO is not response dependent, because no particular alternative response is required.

For e.g. a girl who picks the skin of her palm is given a token (1 min of Candy Crush) for every 15mins that she doesn’t pick her palm

Question 2

DRA

Answer 2

rf schedule in which a functional alternative to an undesirable target behaviour is reinforced while treating or witholding rf for unwanted behaviour.

E.g. A student is offered both praise and attention when saying “excuse me” and waiting for a response rather than shouting out.

Question 3

Advantages and Disadvantages of DRO

Answer 3

Advantages:

• Widely applicable: easy to use when compared to the dense rf required of DRA.
• Relatively rapid
• Often durable

Disadvantages:

• May return to previous problem behaviour: If the ‘other’ behaviour produces reinforcers of lesser value, or requires more time or effort to attain reinforcers of equivalent value, returning to the previously (maladaptive) behaviour is more likely.
• Fails the “dead man’s test”: Though rf is the main application in DRO, the procedure is not necessariyl constructive. Because it might neglect targeting a beneficial replacement behaviour. If rfs are provided for not blurting out, a dead man’s lack of behaviour could qualify him for receiving those reinforcers. DRO does not teach how to behave.
• Risks reinforcing other unwanted behaviours.
• Behaviour contrast: When using DRO you must ensure that the targeted behaviour does not receive rf at other times. Otherwise, if the beahvioru is placed on a DRO in some contexts it may increase in contexts where rf is available.

Question 4

Advantages and disadvantages of DRA

Answer 4

Advantages -
Constructive: Identify one or more alternative beneficial behaviours. They learn what to do instead of what not to do.
Benign: Rfs continue so a carefully planned programme will yield regular rf and all the good things that go along with it.
Acceptable
Lasting change

Disadvantages -
Effect may be delayed: RF procedures can take time to produce results, particularly if the alternative resp is not firmly established in the client’s repertoire.

Question 5

DRI

Answer 5

DRI (subclass of DRA)
but with a further restriction: the alternative behaviour can't be emitted simultaneously with the unwanted behaviour. Uses a replacement behaviour that can't be performed at the same time as the target behaviour.

Question 6

DRL

Answer 6

Used when you want to reduce the frequency of a behaviour, not extinguish it. Rf is provided when the behaviours frequency is below a certain criteria.

Question 7

Total count IOA

Answer 7

Dividing one observer’s data by another’s data and multiplying by 100. E.g. 28 target behavs and other observed 31. 28/31 x 100.

Disadvantage: if two observers agree on the total number of behaviours, they may have recorded “occurences” at entirely different times. For e.g if 50 intervals, one observer may record a behaviour as occurring, while the other records a non-occurrence. May end up being 100% because they each observed it occuring 25 times each but at different times.

Question 8

Mean Count per interval IOA

Answer 8

calculating a percentage of agreement within each interval and then averaging the total averages. E.g. two observers recording over 10 trials.

Question 9

Exact count per interval IOA

Answer 9

Percentage of exact agreement intervals between observers. Most conservative way to measure IOA and tends to underestimate.

Question 10

Trial by trial or point-by-point or total interval IOA

Answer 10

Much like exact count but useful for discrete trial data.
Observers would either agree or disagree on each trial’s success, and record their data.
Tends to overestimate

Question 11

Event Recording IOA

Answer 11

• Total count IOA
• Mean count per interval IOA
• Exact count per interval IOA
• Trial by Trial

Question 12

Timing/Interval Recording

Answer 12

• Interval by interval
• Scored interval ( best for low rates of occurences)
• Unscored interval (best for high rates of occurrences)

Question 13

Baseline logic - Prediction

Answer 13

Prediction that if no changes occur in the subject’s environment subsequent measures will fall within the range of values obtained thus far.

Question 14

Baseline logic - Verification

Answer 14

Can be accomplished by demostrating that prior level of baseline responding would have remained unchanged had the IV not been introduced.

Question 15

Baseline logic - Replication

Answer 15

Repeating IV manipulations conducted previously in the study and obtaining similar outcomes.

Question 16

Tact

Answer 16

a verbal response evoked by a non-verbal SD and maintained by generalised conditioned rf.

Question 17

Mand

Answer 17

Behaviour under control of MO maintained by a characteristic rf.

Question 18

Intraverbal

Answer 18

Is controlled by a verbal stimulus without point-to-point correspondence and is rfd by nonspecific rf.

Question 19

Single Case Design - 2 defining features

Answer 19

1: Designs require continuous measurement
2: Intervention effects are replicated within the same subject over time - subjects serve as their own control.

Question 20

Single case design vs between-group

Answer 20

SC usually assess few subjects on many occasions and between group usually assesses many subjects on few occasions.

SC = visual inspection as the primary method whereas group evaluation is via statistical analysis.

SC allows to make changes to plan whereas within group designs have to stick to their plan.

Question 21

Visual Inspection Criteria

Answer 21

changes in means across phases
changes in level across phases
changes in trend or slope
latency of change
non-overlapping data across phases

Data that present minimal variability, show consistent patterns over relatively extended phases, and show that changes in means, levels, or trends are replicable across phases for a given subject or across subjects are more easily interpreted.

Question 22

Changes in means across phases

Answer 22

shifts in the average rate of performance on the continuous measure as phase (AB) are changed.

Question 23

Changes in level across phases

Answer 23

shift or discontinuity of performance (a leap, jump) from the end of one phase to the beginning of the next phase and back again as phase shifts again.

Question 24

Changes in trend or slope

Answer 24

the trend line that characterises the data within each phase For e.g could say there was no trend (horizontal line or zero slope) in baseline but an accelerating slope during intervention phase, a decelerating slope during return to baseline and an accelerating slope upon intervention phase return. A marked change in slope conveys that something happened that is reliable and changed the predicted pattern (slope) of performance from each prior phase.

Question 25

Latency of change

Answer 25

amount of time or the period between onset of a condition and the changes in performance. A short latency (immediate) change contributes to inferring that the condition was responsible for that change.

Question 26

Non-overlapping Data across phases

Answer 26

Combined criterion involving some or all of first four criteria. Non-overlapping data refers to the finding that the values of the data points during baseline don’t approach any of the values of the data points attained during intervention.

Question 27

Accuracy vs Reliability

Answer 27

Accuracy: Means what you’ve measured to be “true” is the same (or close) to what is actually true. Measurement is accurate to the degree that it corresponds to the true value of the thing measured.

Reliability - Reliable measure is consistent measure. The closer the values obtained by repeated measurement of the same event are to another, the greater the reliability.

Question 28

FK-30 Distinguish between MO and reinforcement effects

Answer 28

MO - affect the value of a rf. e.g sleep deprivation makes sleep all that much more valuable and causes a person to want to go to bed.

Rf Effects - makes a person want something (or want to get away from something) because of the organism’s history with the consequence.

Question 29

Response Generalisation

Answer 29

When untrained responses functionally equivalent to the target response are emitted or evoked by the same stimulus e.g teach person greeting of hey and hi and they then start to use other forms of greetings such as waving.

The tendency for the effects of training one behaviour to spread to other behaviours.

Question 30

Stimulus Generalisation

Answer 30

When a response evoked by an antecedent stimulus can also be evoked by similar antecedent stimuli.

If the effects of training, whatever the training and whatever the effects, carry over to situations where there was no training.

Question 31

Rule Governed behaviour

Answer 31

The control of behaviour by rules, or other prompts.

Behaviour controlled by delayed consequences, or even consequences that a person hasn’t yet encountered. People may not act on the rule and its implied or stated consequences may not be likely contacted in the moment.

Question 32

Instructions

Answer 32

suggest situational constraints. Are designed to become SDs.

Question 33

FK-29 Distinguish between the SD and the MO

Answer 33

SD = signal that rf is (or may be) available
MO = increase or decrease the power of a rf in value and in behaviour that has led to obtaining rf in the past.

They share 2 important similarities
both events occur b4 the behaviour of interest
both events have evocative functions (evoke behaviour by calling it up or producing it.

Question 34

Withdrawal Design

Answer 34

Entails repeated measures of behaviour in a given setting.

Requires at least 3 consecutive phases
1 an initial baseline phase
2 an intervention phase during whch the IV is introduced and remains in contact with behaviour.
3 a return to baseline by removing the IV.

ABAB is most straightforward and generally most powerful w/in subject design for demonstrating a functional relation between an evironmental manipulation and a behaviour - when a functional relation is revealed with a withdrawal design, the data show how the behaviour works.

+ By turning behaviour on and off can make a clear and convincing demo of experimental control.

• May not be reversible and may not be ethical to remove.

Question 35

Cumulative records

Answer 35

of rspnses recorded during each obs period is added to the total # of rspnses recorded during all previous obs periods e.g if Molly runs 3k on day 1 and 4 k on day 2 day 2 would be plotted at 7.

Y axis: value of any data point represents the total # of responses recorded since the beginning of data collection e.g cumulative # of words measured.

CRs can also show overall and local response rates (rate = # of rsponses emitted per unit of time). Overall response rate is the average rat of rsp over a gvn period of time, such as during a specific sesion, phase, or condition of an experiment.

Steeper the slop the higher the response rate.

Four situations:
1 when total # of rsponses made over time is important
2 source of feedback for participant - total progress and relative rate of performance.
3 When behaviour can or can’t occur only once per session.
4 Plotting data from single session cumulatively by 10s inteveral reveal pattern of responding.

Question 36

Multiple Probe Design

Answer 36

Horner and Baer (78)
Particularly appropriate for evaluating the effects of instruction on skill sequences in which it is highly unlikely that the subject can improve performance on later steps in the sequence without acquiring the prior steps.

Enable the analyst to extend the operation of logic of the MB tactic to behaviours or situations in which concurrent measurement of all behavs comprising the design is uneccessary, impractical, potentially negative, or too costly.

Intermittent probes provide the basis for determining whether behaviour change has occured prior to intervention.

3 key features
1 An initial probe is taken to determine subjects level of performance on each behaviour in the sequence.
2 a series of baseline measures is obtained on each step prior to training on that step.
3 after criterion level of performance is reached or any training step, a probe of each step in the sequence is obtained to determine whether performance changes have occurred in any other steps.

Question 37

Delayed MB Design

Answer 37

Experimental tactic in which an initial baseline and intervention are begun, and subsequent baselines are added in a staggered or delayed fashion.

A delayed MB may allow research to be conducted in certain environments in which other experimental tactics can’t be implemented

• wn a reversal design is no longer desirable or possible due to environmental changes.
• limited resources, ethical concerns, a ‘new’ behaviour or setting, or subject becomes available.