It has been suggested that verbally sophisticated individuals engage in a series of precurrent behaviors (e.g., covert intraverbal behavior, grouping stimuli, visual imagining) to solve problems such as answering questions (Palmer, 1991; Skinner, 1953). We examined the effects of one problem solving strategy--visual imagining--on increasing…

AS PART OF THE RESEARCH ON THE INFLUENCE OF RESPONSE-CONTINGENT REINFORCERS ON THE LEARNING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING BEHAVIOR OF CHILDREN, THE EFFECTS OF A LIMITED NUMBER OF VARIABLES ON THE PERFORMANCE OF CHILDREN OF THREE AGE LEVELS (4-5, 7-8, AND 10-11), SELECTED EQUALLY FROM MIDDLE- AND LOWER-CLASS BACKGROUNDS, WERE INVESTIGATED. THE EXPERIMENTAL…

Fjellstedt and Sulzer-Azaroff (1973) used differential reinforcement of short latencies to decrease a child's latency to comply with instructions. We replicated this contingency with a young man diagnosed with Asperger syndrome across two tasks (question answering and math problem solving). We added a differential reinforcement contingency to…

The influence of an individual's cognitive style on hypothesis testing behavior was investigated. Thirty analytic and 30 global subjects each solved 24, 16-trial problems with intermittent reinforcement, i.e., E said "right" or "wrong" after every fifth response. Results indicated that the analytic subjects solved more problems…

In a 1964 investigation of the effects of age and memory on problem solving, using subjects from age three to age nineteen, it was found that the youngest and oldest subjects performed a three-choice probabilistic task significantly different from the "middle-age" children (7 to 9 years old). The three-choice task was an apparatus with a…

CONCEPT FORMATION--AS IT IS AFFECTED BY SUBJECTS (NORMAL AND RETARDED), PROBLEMS (SIMULTANEOUS, SUCCESSIVE, AND SIMILARITY-DIFFERENCE), RESPONSES (MANUAL AND VERBAL), REINFORCEMENT (100 PERCENT AND PARTIAL REINFORCEMENT), AND STIMULI--WAS INVESTIGATED. ELEVEN SEPARATE EXPERIMENTS ARE DESCRIBED. IT WAS FOUND THAT--(1) CONCEPT ATTAINMENT IS…

Examined the relationship between spouses' (N=58) attributional styles for marital problems and their negative social reinforcement in a laboratory interaction procedure. Results indicated wives who attributed other couples' marital problems to undesirable personality traits or negative attitudes were more likely to verbally criticize their…

A report on learning psychology and its relationship to the study of school learning emphasizes the increasing interaction between theorists and educational practitioners, particularly in attempting to learn which variables influence the instructional process and to find an appropriate methodology to measure and evaluate learning. "Learning…