Effects of systematically depriving access to a non -ingestive stimulus on choice responding with adults with intellectual disabilities
Item
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Title
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Effects of systematically depriving access to a non -ingestive stimulus on choice responding with adults with intellectual disabilities
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:9cec4f8bb3c8:10061
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identifier
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10090
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Creator
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Reyer, Howard S.,
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Contributor
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Peter Sturmey
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Behavioral psychology | Clinical psychology | Choice | Deprivation | Establishing Operations | Intellectual Disabilities
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Abstract
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Three adults with intellectual disabilities participated to investigate the effects of reinforcer deprivation on choice responding. The experimenter administered two, separate paired-stimulus preference assessments for potential reinforcers. The first identified the most preferred audio-visual (A-V) stimulus. The second identified the least preferred (i.e., nonpreferred) visual-only (freehand) stimulus. During daily 10-min baseline sessions, responses (using a laptop mouse) produced 1-s access for either the preferred (p) A-V stimulus or nonpreferred (n) freehand stimulus on a concurrent continuous reinforcement (CONC CRF p CRFn) schedule. A deprivation phase followed baseline and consisted of four components per session. First, during sole access to the preferred A-V stimulus, which lasted 5 min, responses produced 1-s access to the preferred A-V stimulus on a CRFp schedule. Second, during the deprivation period, participants did not have subsequent access to the A-V stimulus for 5 min, 5 hr, or 24 hr prior to a choice evaluation. Third, during sole access to the nonpreferred freehand stimulus, which lasted 5 min and occurred immediately prior to a choice evaluation, responses produced 1-s access to the nonpreferred freehand stimulus on a CRFn schedule. Fourth, during the choice evaluation, which lasted 10 min, responses produced 1-s access to either stimulus on a CONC CRFp CRFn schedule. A combination multi-element/multiple-baseline across-participants design showed that at least one and, possibly, two participants emitted fewer responses for the preferred A-V stimulus following 5-min deprivation relative to 5-hr and 24-hr deprivation. For two participants, 5-min deprivation reliably resulted in diminished levels of within-session overall responding for the preferred A-V stimulus relative to 5-hr and 24-hr deprivation. Higher values of deprivation did not increase the proportion of choice responses allocated to the A-V stimulus relative to total responses for any participant. However, compared with the results from the separate paired-stimulus preference assessment, a combined A-V/freehand paired-stimulus preference assessment conducted in one session at the end of the study showed that preference for the A-V stimulus decreased for two participants and might have affected the proportion of choice responses. Future research should assess the combined effects of preference and deprivation on choice responding within concurrent schedules.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
