Although intelligence has traditionally been identified as "the ability to learn" (Peterson, 1925), this relationship has been questioned in simple operant learning tasks (Spielberger, 1962). Nevertheless, recent pieces of research have demonstrated a strong and significant correlation between associative learning measures and intelligence…

This study examined how the amount of effort required to produce a reinforcer influenced subsequent preference for, and strength of, that reinforcer in 7 individuals with intellectual disabilities. Preference assessments identified four moderately preferred stimuli for each participant, and progressive-ratio (PR) analyses indexed reinforcer…

The integrity of the rodent anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is essential for various aspects of instrumental behavior, but it is not clear if the ACC is important for the acquisition of a simple instrumental response. Here, it was demonstrated that post-session infusions of anisomycin into the rat ACC completely prevented the acquisition of…

In avoidance learning studies, a warning signal (Sd) is directly paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) unless a particular response is performed. Research by Augustson and Dougher (1997) demonstrated that not only warning signals but also stimuli that are indirectly paired with the aversive event are capable of affecting the…

Using a deck of 60 Say All Fast a Minute Every Day Shuffled (SAFMEDS) cards, a learner established a fluent verbal repertoire related to the key terms of Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior. This learner was required to see the phrase printed on the front of the card and to say the term printed on the back. Regular timings were recorded…

Activation of the infralimbic region (IL) of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) reduces conditioned fear in a variety of situations, and the IL is thought to play an important role in the extinction of conditioned fear. Here we report a series of experiments using contextual fear conditioning in which the IL is activated with the GABAa antagonist…

Electrolytic lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex (PFCX) were examined using fear conditioning to assess the recall of fear extinction and performance in the Y-maze, open field, and object location/recognition in male and female Sprague-Dawley rats. Rats were conditioned to seven tone/footshocks, followed by extinction after 1-h and 24-h…

We used a delayed non-concurrent pre- and post-intervention probe design to test the effects of a voice conditioning protocol (VCP) with 3 preschoolers with autism on (a) rate of acquisition of listener curricular objectives, (b) observing voices and the presence of adults across 3 settings, (c) selecting to listen to adults tell stories in free…

This paper describes and analyzes B. F. Skinner's coauthoring practices. After identifying his 35 coauthored publications and 27 coauthors, we analyze his coauthored works by their form (e.g., journal articles) and kind (e.g., empirical); identify the journals in which he published and their type (e.g., data-type); describe his overall and local…

With the number of students with autism and related developmental disabilities increasing and a lack of trained professionals, solutions are needed to provide training on a large scale. Alternative training approaches need to be developed so that paraprofessionals can access training in an efficient and effective way. One such possibility is…

Since 1983, slot machines in North America have used a computer and virtual reels to determine the odds. Since at least 1988, a technique called clustering has been used to create a high number of near misses, failures that are close to wins. The result is that what the player sees does not represent the underlying probabilities and randomness,…

Topographically similar verbal responses may be functionally independent forms of operant behavior. For example, saying yes or no may have different functions based on the environmental conditions in effect. The present study extends previous research on both the assessment and acquisition of yes and no responses across contexts in children with…

Prior experience of unsignaled food can interfere with subsequent acquisition by birds of autoshaped key-pecking at a signal light. This has been understood to indicate that unsignaled food results in context conditioning, which blocks subsequent learning about the keylight-food relationship. In the present experiment with rats lever insertion as…

The effects of reinforcer magnitude and response requirement on pigeons' say choices in an experimental homologue of human say-do correspondence were assessed in two experiments. The procedure was similar to a conditional discrimination procedure except the pigeons chose both a sample stimulus (the say component) and a comparison stimulus that…

The purpose of this series of experiments was to evaluate the effects of mixed mand-tact arrangements on the acquisition of mands and tacts in preschool-aged children. In Experiment 1, the effects of three training arrangements (mand-only training, tact-only training, and mand-tact training) were investigated with 3 typically developing children.…