The dependence of interresponse times upon the relative reinforcement of different interresponse times.
01 Sep 1956-Journal of Experimental Psychology (American Psychological Association)-Vol. 52, Iss: 3, pp 145-161
About: This article is published in Journal of Experimental Psychology.The article was published on 1956-09-01. It has received 340 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Reinforcement.
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01 Jan 1958TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe a transition between behaviourist learning theory and the modern information processing or cognitive approach to perception and communication skills, and provide a principal starting point for theoretical and experimental work on selective attention.
Abstract: First published in 1958, this book has become recognized as a classic in its field. It marked a transition between behaviourist learning theory and the modern 'information processing' or 'cognitive' approach to perception and communication skills. It continues to provide a principal starting point for theoretical and experimental work on selective attention. As Professor Posner writes in his Foreword to the reissue: 'it remains of great interest to view the work in its original form and to ponder those creative moments when the mind first grasps a new insight and then struggles to work out its consequences.
5,325 citations
TL;DR: The neonate's preference for the maternal voice suggests that the period shortly after birth may be important for initiating infant bonding to the mother.
Abstract: By sucking on a nonnutritive nipple in different ways, a newborn human could produce either its mother's voice or the voice of another female. Infants learned how to produce the mother's voice and produced it more often than the other voice. The neonate's preference for the maternal voice suggests that the period shortly after birth may be important for initiating infant bonding to the mother.
1,852 citations
TL;DR: It is found that third-trimester fetuses experience their mothers' speech sounds and that prenatal auditory experience can influence postnatal auditory preferences.
Abstract: Pregnant women recited a particular speech passage aloud each day during their last 6 weeks of pregnancy. Their newborns were tested with an operant-choice procedure to determine whether the sounds of the recited passage were more reinforcing than the sounds of a novel passage. The previously recited passage was more reinforcing. The reinforcing value of the two passages did not differ for a matched group of control subjects. Thus, third-trimester fetuses experience their mothers' speech sounds and that prenatal auditory experience can influence postnatal auditory preferences.
863 citations
Cites background from "The dependence of interresponse tim..."
...…in a limited period of time; (b) it measures the probability that an infant will emit a particular class of IBIS given the opportunity to do so (cf. Anger, 1956; DeCasper & Fifer, 1980); and (c) it renders the conditional probabilities of IBIS between O.Ot and 0.4[, and those between 1.01 and…...
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...…Differentially reinforcing a range of IBIS causes the shorter differentially reinforced IBIS to increase in frequency (see newborn studies by DeCasper & Fifer, 1980; DeCasper & Sigafoos, 1983; as well as animal studies by Anger, 1956; Catania, 1970; DeCasper & Zeiler, 1977; Malott & Cumming, 1964)....
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TL;DR: It was concluded that the rate of responding maintained by a given interval schedule depends not on the overall rate of reinforcement provided but rather on the summation of different local effects of reinforcement at different times within intervals.
Abstract: Interval schedules of reinforcement maintained pigeons' key-pecking in six experiments. Each schedule was specified in terms of mean interval, which determined the maximum rate of reinforcement possible, and distribution of intervals, which ranged from many-valued (variable-interval) to single-valued (fixed-interval). In Exp. 1, the relative durations of a sequence of intervals from an arithmetic progression were held constant while the mean interval was varied. Rate of responding was a monotonically increasing, negatively accelerated function of rate of reinforcement over a range from 8.4 to 300 reinforcements per hour. The rate of responding also increased as time passed within the individual intervals of a given schedule. In Exp. 2 and 3, several variable-interval schedules made up of different sequences of intervals were examined. In each schedule, the rate of responding at a particular time within an interval was shown to depend at least in part on the local rate of reinforcement at that time, derived from a measure of the probability of reinforcement at that time and the proximity of potential reinforcements at other times. The functional relationship between rate of responding and rate of reinforcement at different times within the intervals of a single schedule was similar to that obtained across different schedules in Exp. 1. Experiments 4, 5, and 6 examined fixed-interval and two-valued (mixed fixed-interval fixed-interval) schedules, and demonstrated that reinforcement at one time in an interval had substantial effects on responding maintained at other times. It was concluded that the rate of responding maintained by a given interval schedule depends not on the overall rate of reinforcement provided but rather on the summation of different local effects of reinforcement at different times within intervals.
793 citations
TL;DR: Analysis of both new and existing data are presented to show that by classifying tasks in terms of the need to use a temporary memory store to retain temporally discontiguous information one can cut right across existing classifications as well as achieve a better fit to the data.
Abstract: All recent memory theories of hippocampal function have incorporated the idea that the hippocampus is required to process items only of some qualitatively specifiahle kind, and is not required to process items of some complementary set. In contrast, it is now proposed that the hippocampus is needed to process stimuli of all kinds, but only when there is a need to associate those stimuli with other events that are temporally discontiguous. In order to form or use temporally discontiguous associations, it is essential to maintain some memory of the first component until the second component has occurred. When the temporal gap to he spanned is small, and the number of items to be temporarily retained is low, a limited-capacity, short-term store is sufficient to allow associations to be formed. Such a store is presumed to operate in parallel with the hippocampus in normal animals. Hippocampal damage disrupts a much higher-capacity store that has a slower decay rate, and so leaves animals with only a very limited ability to form temporally discontiguous associations. Hippocampal damage, however, is not held to affect the long-term storage of associations of any kind, if they can be formed. Analyses of both new and existing data are presented to show that by classifying tasks in terms of the need to use a temporary memory store to retain temporally discontiguous information one can cut right across existing classifications as well as achieve a better fit to the data. The hippocampus thus seems best described as a high-capacity, intermediate-term memory store.
555 citations
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11,456 citations
TL;DR: The use of ranks to avoid the assumption of normality implicit in the analysis of variance has been studied in this article, where the use of rank to avoid normality is discussed.
Abstract: (1937). The Use of Ranks to Avoid the Assumption of Normality Implicit in the Analysis of Variance. Journal of the American Statistical Association: Vol. 32, No. 200, pp. 675-701.
4,751 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1964TL;DR: The purpose here is to describe a few of these methods which have been used by experimentalists in biological and physical research and whether these results indicate a superiority of sample A over sample B?
Abstract: The last twenty years have seen a great increase in the use of statistical methods in various branches of science and technology. One of the obstacles to the more widespread use of these methods is the complex and laborious nature of the computations which are often required in order to make use of the customary textbook methods. It is not always realized that rapid approximate methods are available for many situations.4 Such approximate methods, however, sacrifice some of the information contained in the data. The purpose here is to describe a few of these methods which have been used by experimentalists in biological and physical research. Signi$canceof Differences. Many experiments are designed to test whether one category differs from another in regard to some measurable quantity. These categories may be, for example: the tensile strength of two types of metal or plastic; the effect of a proposed drug or treatment compared with one now in use; or the comparison of the effect of two fertilizer mixtures on the yield of a certain crop. In all such cases the logic underlying the experiment is usually the same. The assumption is made that the two categories (materials, drugs, or fertilizers) do not differ. An experiment is performed leading to a set of replicated measurements under each category. A statistical constant is calculated from the results, and the probability of obtaining a value as large or larger than that obtained is used as a guide in accepting or rejecting the original assumption. If this probability is sufkiently small, the hypothesis that the two materials are the same is abandoned and a decision is reached that they are different. The particular probability level a t which the hypothesis is abandoned is, of course, a matter of choice, and is determined in part by the seriousness of the consequences should a wrong decision be made, the time and expense involved in the experiments, etc. Efficient statistical tests are described in current textbooks, but these tests often require considerable computation. The tests to be described here are quite simple but often adequate for the purpose in view. Tests Based on Rank Vumbers. An example from entomological work will serve to illustrate these methods. Two household fly sprays had been tested on houseflies, and the tests were replicated eight times for each material. The results obtained, expressed as per cent mortality of the houseflies, are shown in TABLE 1. The average per cent mortality for sample A is 67.7 per cent, while for sample B it is 61.7 per cent. The question to be decided is whether these results indicate a superiority of sample A over sample B? or whether the results are merely due to chance fluctuations and would not hold true in the long run. We may assign rank numbers 1 to 16 to the 16 results in order of magni-
1,021 citations