Unit 4 Flashcards
According to the study cited by Dr DeLeon (Graff & Karsten, 2012) how often do most BCBAs conduct full-scale preference assessments?
Less than once a month
Studies cited by Dr. DeLeon indicate that individuals diagnosed with autism tend to display _______ in stimulus preference assessments
More stability in preferences than individuals without an ASD diagnosis
When comparing food and leisure items, which of the two tend to show greater stability over time?
Food
Research has shown that changes in preferences are most highly correlated with:
Changes in the value of items as reinforcers
As demonstrated by DeLeon (2001), when several preference assessments are conducted over time, the stimuli most often selected on the X preference assessments tend to be the stimuli which are Y likely to function as reinforcers
X = Most recent
Y = most
The term, “effectiveness of a reinforcer” refers, at least in part, to which of the following?
The capacity of a stimulus to support response(s) that just preceded it
Results of a study conducted by Hanley, Iwata, Roscoe, Thompson, and Lindberg (2003) demonstrated that the delivery of non-contingent appetitive stimuli (presumed to be reinforcers) during engagement in non-preferred activities resulted in:
A shift in response allocation toward the low preference activity
Which of the following statements are true regarding determinants of stimulus value as related to reinforcement?
Better quality items may function as more potent reinforcers
In general, reinforcement delays have :
An abolishing effect on the value of reinforcers
The matching law predicts that organisms will distribute behavior among X available alternatives in same proportion that the Y is distributed among those alternatives.
X = Concurrently
Y = Rate of reinforcement
Studies on quality of reinforcement equate “higher quality” with which of the following?
Higher preference
Which of the following schedules is often used in research literature to study the relative (increasing) amount of work one is willing to complete to earn various stimuli as reinforcers?
Progressive ratio schedule (PR)
Satiation has the following effects: It momentarily ___ the reinforcer effectiveness of a stimulus and ___ the frequency of behavior that produced the stimulus as a consequence
Decreases; Decreases
In a study conducted by Zhou, Iwata, and Shore (2002) the effects of deprivation and satiation were evaluated under more natural arrangements than typical contrived experimental conditions. In this case, they looked at the effectiveness of food as a reinforcer right before or right after lunch. The presence of establishing operations or abolishing operations were presumed, due either to the time before a meal that the food was used (30 minutes before lunch was the deprivation-EO condition), or the time after a meal that the food was used (30 minutes after lunch was the satiation-AO condition). Results suggested that when food is used as a reinforcer under these conditions…
(Presumed) deprivation or satiation seemed to affect immediate rates of responding for some, but not all participants
“Defense of consumption” is greater for X , and is greater when the demand is Y .
X = Necessities
Y = Inelastic
You defend (i.e., maintain a rate closer to baseline) your consumption of things you need (versus things you do not really need)—and you do so by continuing to obtain those items even when reinforcer rate is reduced and/or response effort increases. The demand curve declines less quickly (i.e., it bends less—so is less “elastic”) the more you “defend consumption”.
What do behavioral economists call the condition where changes in price (the number of responses required to produce a reinforcer) produce little or no change in consumption of a reinforcer?
An inelastic demand function
Allen is obtaining attention on an FR5 schedule for appropriate behavior. When the schedule requirement is increased to an FR7 schedule, Allen stops engaging in appropriate behavior. In behavioral economics, Allen’s sensitivity to the “price” of attention can be described as:
Elastic demand
Which of the following is an example of an inelastic demand curve? When the price of
Water increases by 50%, consumption is not affected
Cashews (a type of nut) are highly preferred by Lily. Lily is only allowed to earn and consume cashews during experimental sessions. Cashews are not available to Lily at any other time. In behavioral economics this describes a:
Closed Economy
There is greater defense of consumption (less elasticity of demand) under which type of economy?
Closed economy
Demand is more likely to be elastic when (1) alternative reinforcers are X available, and/or when (2) they Y important functional properties with the current reinforcer in use.
X = concurrently
Y = share
According to a stimulus preference assessment, Stimulus A and Stimulus B are equally preferred. Stimulus A is provided non-contingently every day for a month. For the same month, Stimulus B is only provided contingent on completing effortful tasks. Subsequently, another preference assessment is conducted. According to results of past studies, what is likely to result?
B will be preferred over A
When reinforcers are not consumed following each completion of a scheduled requirement, but are collected and consumed later, this is referred to as:
Accumulated reinforcement
Oliver’s teacher gives him a half a biscuit each time he correctly identifies 5 pictures. He eats the piece of biscuit as soon as he earns it. This is an example of:
Distributed reinforcement
In the study conducted by DeLeon et al. (in press) on token reinforcers, how did the rates of responding compare between the accumulated reinforcement condition and the distributed reinforcement condition?
Higher rates during accumulated reinforcement
Accumulated access, mediated through tokens…
- Supports faster work
- Is preferred by learners
- Supports greater overall quantity of work
Which term correctly describes procedures in which a different reinforcer is selected and delivered by the therapist each time a schedule requirement is met?
Stimulus variation
Asking the learner which reinforcer they would like to earn during the following instructional period describes:
Pre-session selection
When a learner selects a reinforcer from a small array each time the schedule requirement is met this describes:
Within- session choice
Which statement is TRUE concerning yoking procedures in studies on choice
Yoking is not perfect, since preferences can change over brief periods of time (e.g., between sessions
What is a potential reason why “reinforcement” may not “work”?
There is some kind of mismatch between the target response and the programmed consequence, which thus fails to function as a reinforcer
Programmed delivery of “reinforcement” can result in a decrease in responding when a contingency is arranged where:
The participant prefers a task more than the stimulus identified by assessment as highly preferred
