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Neurophysiological and behavioural correlates of the long-term sensitization were investigated in Helix lucorum small. Application of 10% quinine solution on the snail's head initiated a long-term (for more than 24 hours) facilitation of defensive reactions. The behavioural effects correlated with the changes in evoked and spontaneous activity of L-PP11 neurons, i.e., facilitation of synaptic components in responses to testing stimulation, increase in membrane excitability and depolarization. Efficacy of sensitization depended on the duration of the experimental procedure. After daily training site-specific and modality-specific effects dominated (i.e., more expressed facilitation of responses to testing stimulation of the sensitized body site than that of the other sites or to testing stimulation of the same modality as sensitizing stimulation). After 3 days of training the effects of general sensitization were predominantly observed, i.e., facilitation of neuronal responses to stimulation of different modalities and body sites, depolarization of the membrane and increase in its excitability.

A treatment package, consisting of multiple exemplar training and community-based instruction, was evaluated for its effectiveness in teaching four students with profound mental retardation and multiple disabilities to participate in two sets of community-living tasks. All training took place in community settings, and each student demonstrated improved performance on at least one task set. In addition, all students demonstrated improved performance on a series of tasks selected to assess generalization of performance across settings, materials, and/or motoric responses required to complete the target task. Maintenance of performance over a 4-to 5-month period was assessed and achieved for two of the students. The results of this investigation are discussed in terms of the implications for programming for students with profound mental retardation.

A time delay procedure was used to teach 3 children with autism to ask the question "What's that?" when novel stimuli were presented during an instructional task. Once the ability to ask the question was acquired, the children's ability to learn novel information by asking the question was assessed. The children were then taught to ask the question within a less structured context. All three studies used a multiple baseline across participants. Generalization was assessed in a different room, to a new person, and to novel stimuli. All of the children learned to ask the question within the instructional context, while on a walk in the school building, and to request information about three-dimensional objects. The acquisition of novel information was consistent for receptive and expressive tests for 2 of the children, with varied results for the 3rd. These studies indicate that children with autism can be taught to ask questions that lead to the acquisition of new information.

Siphon responses of Aplysia have been used to examine the neural basis of nociceptive behavioral inhibition. The authors tested the response specificity and functional significance of this inhibition. Video analysis showed that strong tail-nerve shock decreased the duration of siphon constriction evoked by weak siphon shock. Tail-nerve shock also caused the appearance of a novel flaring response to the test stimulus, which resembled the siphon response to tail-nerve shock. Novel flaring responses were expressed to both mechanical and electrical siphon stimuli. Tailshock facilitated another defensive response, inking, during the period of inhibited siphon constriction. Tailshock also facilitated tail contractions evoked by weak contralateral tail stimulation during this period. These results indicate that inhibition is not generalized across defensive responses and is specific to siphon responses that interfere with directed ink ejection toward an injured site.

Pica and scavenging are serious, sometimes life-threatening behaviorproblems among a significant percentage of individuals with mental retardation. This study describes procedures developed to reduce life-threatening pica and food scavenging in two adolescents with severe to profound mental retardation. Treatment was designed to teach the subjects to discriminate safe from unsafe items by training them to ingest only those items put on a specified placemat and to communicate with simple signs or gestures to obtain more food to be put on the mat. Discrimination was achieved by praising subjects when they selected and ingested items from their placemats and delivering a mild punisher when attempts to ingest nonplacemat items were made. A multiple baseline design across settings was used to evaluate the effects of the treatment package in three inpatient settings. All environments were "baited" with both edible and inedible items. Our treatment procedures appeared to be effective in reducing pica in each of the settings. Generalization of treatment effects to natural environments for one of the two subjects was documented.

When singly housed under laboratory conditions, male Syrian golden hamsters routinely attack novel conspecific intruders introduced into their home cages. As we report here, after being repeatedly defeated by a larger, more aggressive intruder, such normal territorial aggression on the part of the resident hamsters is replaced by defensive behavior and flight. We have found that such conditioned defeat (CD) can be reliably induced by a series of 5-min trials with an aggressive intruder whether these trials are spread over 4 days or are all given on the same day. A useful behavioral criterion for the appearance of CD during acquisition is the first occurrence of anticipatory flight (AF), i.e., the first time the resident flees from the next aggressive intruder before being attacked. CD shows generalization: Animals trained to the AF criterion (AF Group) subsequently show defensive behavior toward, and even flee from, intruders which show absolutely no sign of aggressiveness. Animals in the AF Group persisted in such defense behavior for two test sessions; animals given three additional defeat trials beyond the appearance of AF (AF + 3 Group) showed a greater magnitude and persistence of defense and flight. A comparison of CD-trained animals which met a non-aggressive intruder (NAI) every day for 5 days to similarly trained animals which met the intruder only on the fifth day after acquisition suggests that CD diminishes passively as a function of time and not as the consequence of repeated encounters with a nonaggressive stimulus animal. We also found that near ideal NAIs could be prepared by treating nonaggressive hamsters with high doses of diazepam: animals so treated locomote more or less continuously around the cage virtually ignoring the subject. An unexpected observation was that subjects in the AF Group tended to closely follow these diazepam-treated, rapidly locomoting NAIs around the cage. Following may be an example of the "risk assessment" activities directed toward a potential threat. The development of a rapid and reliable technique for inducing CD in hamsters sets the stage for further physiological and pharmacological work on this interesting phenomenon.

An investigation was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a constant-time-delay procedure used in combination with multiple exemplars of strangers, lures, and sites to teach a generalized response to the lures of strangers to four preschool children with disabilities. Although the correct response was quickly acquired in the training site, the response failed to generalize to the probe sites until training was conducted in vivo. Instruction in vivo resulted in acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of the response to strangers' lures. Generalization occurred across probes with novel exemplars of lures, strangers, and sites.

We examined acquisition of individual social communicative behaviors and generalization across other social behaviors in 2 children with autism. The results of a multiple baseline design showed that the children's treated social behaviors improved rapidly and that there were generalized changes in untreated social behaviors. These improvements were accompanied by increases in subjective ratings of the overall appropriateness of the children's social interactions. The results suggest the possibility of identifying pivotal response classes of social communicative behavior that may facilitate the understanding of social behavior in autism as well as improve peer interactions, social integration, and social development.

Four residents of a group home who had severe mental retardation were taught to use self-instruction in combination with multiple exemplars to solve task-related problems. The combined strategy was associated with generalization to untrained problems as well as response maintenance of the problem-solving strategy (i.e., responding to multiple exemplars and self-instructing). The use of the strategy was discussed in terms of instructional strategies for teaching self-instruction and areas for future research, including isolating the factors responsible for generalization and identifying the role of language in promoting generalized responding.

This study investigated the effects of a language program called the missing-item, format, on the acquisition of requesting during snack periods. The missing-item format, an assessment and training approach, develops a child's spontaneous requesting skills in everyday tasks. Generalization and response-durability measures were also collected. The missing-item format produced effects in requests for targeted snack items, but not for the majority of generalization and durability measures. A generalization training program was then implemented, using the missing-item format. As a result, a requesting repertoire that was durable and generalized across multiple settings and stimulus conditions was established in both students.

This study was designed as an in-laboratory evaluation of the significance of postural blood pressure (BP) adjustments in the investigation of laboratory-field generalization. Blood pressure responses were monitored while 20 subjects completed a mental arithmetic task in two postures, seated and standing. Baseline data were also collected in each posture. The standing challenge was regarded as a laboratory representation of real-world standing challenges. Reactivity scores for the seated stressor were calculated as seated task level minus seated baseline level. For the standing stressor, they were calculated in two ways; standing task level minus standing baseline, and standing task level minus seated baseline. It was hypothesized that the standing reactivity scores calculated from standing baselines (i.e. from the same-posture baselines) would be more highly correlated with seated reactivity than would the standing reactivity scores calculated using sitting baselines. This was not found to be the case for either SBP or DBP. Absolute task SBP levels were very similar in both postures, while they were significantly different for DBP, with standing task levels being higher. It was concluded that ignoring posture will not mask SBP reactivity associations between laboratory and field, but that it may do so for DBP, particularly in future studies as our overall understanding of laboratory-field generalization increases.

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the stability of heart rate and blood pressure reactions of individuals across laboratory challenges and a challenge in the natural environment. Undergraduate musicians' heart rates and blood pressures were measured during anticipation and in response to a mental arithmetic challenge and a visual-verbal concepts challenge in the laboratory and anticipation of a musical performance jury in the natural environment. Results revealed that systolic blood pressure reactivity measured in anticipation of laboratory challenges, but not during these tasks, was related to systolic blood pressure levels measured in anticipation to the musical performance jury. Generalization of heart rate and diastolic blood pressure reactivity across settings was not supported. Systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate reactions were stable across laboratory tasks.

Equal numbers of men and women learned a finger maze, with half of the subjects initially using their right hands and the other half using their left hands. To reach criterion, subjects receiving music in the ear ipsilateral to the hand used required more trials than did those receiving no music. Furthermore, when the right hand ran the maze, music played to the ipsilateral ear also delayed learning, compared with music played contralaterally. Binaural music delayed learning when the left hand was used but not when the right hand was used. Possible causes of these effects are suggested. When subjects switched hands and relearned the maze, the number of trials to criterion depended on the group subjects were in during initial learning and not on the group they were in during the hand reversal (response generalization) trials. Although the music condition used determined the effect of music on initial learning and on response generalization, some evidence is presented that indicates that the two effects are not entirely interdependent and that they may even involve different mechanisms.

In the study carried out on children aged 10 years (51 persons), subjects aged 16-17 (11) and adults (19) characteristics of the perception and attention interaction were studied by means of electrophysiological parameters analysis (ERP, CNV, EEG) of the process of solution of various visual tasks. It has been shown that adequate brain provision of this process is based in adults both on the functional topographic differentiation and specialization of separate perceptive operations and on the possibility of controlling generalized and local activating influences according to task requirements. In children aged 10, not differing from the adults by the success of the perceptive activity, age peculiarities of its strategy are revealed connected with functional brain organization. Basic distinctive features of children perceptive activity are intensified regional specificity manifested both in responses to relevant and non-relevant stimuli, and excessive generalized activation testifying to incomplete structural-functional maturation of the frontal regions of the cerebral cortex. Increasing functional activity of these structures in ontogenesis provides for the selectivity of perceptive, cognitive and activating processes, adequate to the requirements of the task.

The effect of self-monitoring on the generalization and maintenance of conversational skills of adults with mental retardation was examined. Target behaviors were asking nondirected questions, answering directed questions, and asking directed questions. Although training alone did not result in generalization of these skills to the assessment setting, the addition of self-monitoring did. Results were maintained over 6 months and generalized to the untrained behavior of answering nondirected questions. The importance of the effect was supported by social comparison and subjective evaluation data. Results indicate that self-monitoring may be effective in increasing generalization and maintenance of conversational skills.

The present study evaluated the role of compatibility effects in the precuing of arm and direction parameters. In the first two experiments different stimulus and response arrangements were examined. For all three experiments the spatial precue and imperative stimuli were compatibly assigned to responses (i.e., a direct correspondence existed between the stimulus and response locations). Experiments 1 and 2 indirectly tested the effect of decision processes required by the stimulus-response set. Experiment 1 replicated previous research that has found longer reaction times for the direction uncertain parameter as compared to arm uncertain. Experiment 2 examined the precuing of arm and direction parameters with stimuli that maintained right-left arrangements for both parameters. Unlike Experiment 1, reaction times did not differ for precuing the two movement parameters. Experiment 3 directly examined the effect of differential decision requirements from up-down spatial stimuli and right-left spatial stimuli for a single parameter. In support of results from the first two experiments, results indicated longer reaction times for decisions from up-down stimuli as compared to right-left stimuli. Because reaction times for precued movement parameters are a function of the stimulus and response arrangements used, differences in reaction times are most likely due to compatibility effects arising from differences in the spatial arrangements of the precued stimulus and response set.

Autistic and severely handicapped children were taught to ask questions (e.g., "How did I do?") and make requests (e.g., "Check it out") to recruit or set the occasion for praise from an adult. Teaching occurred during structured sessions in a community-based group home. Generalization of the children's use of these behaviors was evaluated during other activities in the teaching area, with other staff members in different areas of the home, and at each child's academic classroom. The children learned the behaviors to cue or set the occasion for praise independently and used these behaviors in all of the generalization settings. In the generalizations settings, the children were frequently successful in recruiting praise.

The learned helplessness theory (Seligman, 1975) claims that permanent failure causes an expectation of uncontrolability that generalizes to subsequent test tasks and produces (mediated by motivational deficits) performance deficits. In contrast, Kuhl (1981) states that permanent failure produces not only the expectation of uncontrolability but also a functional deficit, called state orientation. State orientation, but not the expectation of uncontrolability, should generalize to the test tasks and cause the performance deficits. These opposing assumptions concerning the generalization of the expectation of uncontrolability and state orientation were tested in a helplessness experiment. During a training phase, 45 college students were confronted with either one success, one failure, or three failures in discrimination problems (Levine, 1966). In a subsequent test phase, which was disguised as a second experiment, subjects had to solve anagrams. Expectations of uncontrolability and the amount of state orientation were assessed after success or failure in the training phase (t1) as well as during the test phase while working on the anagrams (t2). Results showed that only state orientation generalized from t1 to t2 and not expectation of uncontrolability. The results are considered to support Kuhl's conception of functional helplessness. Implications for further development of learned helplessness theory are discussed.

This study examines the effects of using positive and negative training examples within a "general case"teaching format to train students with moderate and severe mental retardation to bus tables in cafeteria settings. The primary dependent variable was performance across a set of 15 nontrained tables in two nontrained cafeteria settings. The 15 nontrained tables were selected to sample the range of different stimulus and response demands for table bussing in cafeteria settings. Social validation of the effect was also assessed under maximally normal work conditions. The independent variable was the use of general case instruction with "negative" training examples (i.e., examples in which the learner is not to perform the target response). Results indicate a functional relationship between correct responding with the nontrained tables and general case instruction. The importance of selecting both positive and negative training examples when teaching generalized skills is discussed.

Behavioral treatment procedures were developed to suppress feminine sex-typed behaviors and to increase masculine sex-typed behaviors in an 8-year-old boy with “childhood cross-gender identity.” The boy's clinical history paralleled the retrospective reports of adult transsexuals, including (1) feminine voice inflection and predominantly feminine content in speech, (2) verbal self-reference as “sissy” and “fag” and statements about his preference to be a girl, (3) feminine hand and arm gestures and “swishy” gait, (4) an aversion to masculine play activities, (5) a strong preference for girl playmates and taking a feminine role in play and role-playing, and (6) improvised cross-dressing. With a multiple-baseline intrasubject design across stimulus environments and across behaviors, the subject was treated sequentially in the clinic, at home, and in the school. The boy's mother was trained to administer a token economy program in the home, and the school teacher was taught to apply a response-cost procedure in the classroom. The initial treatment effects were found to be largely response specific and stimulus specific, necessitating treatment for a number of behaviors in the three major environments. Followup data 12 months after treatment termination suggest that the boy's sex-typed behaviors have become essentially normalized. This treatment holds promise for correcting pathological gender identity development in boys and for relieving the associated emotional adjustment problems.

We provided tactile cues to a student who was deaf, blind, and mentally retarded to guide her performance on a variety of packaging tasks. The student had previously received extensive training on multiple packaging and sequencing tasks through her vocational education program. Although she was able to complete these tasks, each change in materials necessitated that similar levels of retraining be conducted in order for her to perform revised tasks. Tactile cues were introduced and evaluated through a multiple baseline with sequential withdrawal design for two envelope-stuffing tasks and one bagging task. Results indicated that the tactile prompts were effective in guiding her performance on the training task and in promoting generalization to novel tasks and cues. Continued use of the cues was necessary to maintain the student's performance. Our findings suggest that tactile prompts function similarly to picture prompts and may be an effective alternative external prompting system for persons for whom picture prompts would not be appropriate.

This study investigated the effects of modification of conceptual tempo on the skilled performance of a group of mildly intellectually handicapped adolescents receiving training in a work preparation centre (N, 41). On the basis of performance on Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures Test the group was divided into two subgroups, reflective, impulsive and then further divided through random allocation to control and experimental conditions. The two experimental groups received a training program designed to promote self-generation of strategies, using self-verbalization to induce a more reflective approach. The control groups received the normal training program of the centre. The criterion measure taken at pre- and posttest was a collation task standardized so as to provoke response uncertainty. Analysis of residual gain scores derived from the two testing occasions indicated that the experimental groups improved significantly more than the controls and that the improvement generalized to their performance on the Porteus Maze and Matching Familiar Figures Test. Contrary to expectation, however, the effect of training did not bring about significant differential improvement for impulsive as against reflective subjects. Both benefited from the training. On the basis of delayed posttests, no generalization was apparent.

The paper presents the results of a behavioural programme designed to increase social interaction and activity in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital. The intervention used a method of information feedback to staff to encourage them to make informed choices of targets and methods of change. The rationale was that this would enhance generalization and programme maintenance. Evidence is presented to show the extent of change obtained after 6 months.

By using a combination of food-reward, shock-avoidance, and visual biofeedback, all contingent upon diastolic blood pressure, baboons were conditioned, in 3–4 months, to raise their blood pressure 30–50% (25–40 mmHg) above preconditioning baseline levels, and maintain the increased pressure during daily 12-hr training sessions. Under conditions where exteroceptive stimuli reliably predict environment events, animals appear to learn to stop making the blood pressure increase response when discriminative periods of safety are in effect within sessions and when training sessions are over. By gradually eliminating feedback, withholding food rewards, and punishing short-term falls in diastolic pressure, elevations in blood pressure were maintained continuously during training sessions and for periods up to 2 hr following the offset of training sessions.

A transfer of stimulus control procedure was used to establish generalized verb-noun instruction-following skills in two severely retarded boys. Each of 12 verbs was trained, in a multiple baseline order, to criterion with each of 12 nouns in the form of verb-noun verbal instructions. Throughout training, reinforced probes were conducted on both trained and untrained verb-noun combinations. As training progressed, both subjects began to respond correctly to untrained verb-noun instructions. Eventually, a verb needed to be trained in combination with only one noun before generalization occurred to the as-yet-untrained 11 verb-noun instructions involving that verb.

This study investigated the use of videotaped exemplars taken from a regular education mathematics class to teach generalization of question asking. Three mildly handicapped fourth-grade students who asked few questions in the regular education class served as subjects. Measures of the frequency of question asking and percentage of accuracy on assignments were obtained in the regular class. Treatment included showing the videotapes to the subjects, structuring opportunities for rehearsing question asking, and providing feedback. The results showed training procedures implemented in the learning resource room were effective in increasing the level of participants' question asking and in improving their scores on assignments in the regular mathematics class.

Electromyographic (EMG) feedback offers a mechanism for helping musicians reduce specific muscle tension during performance. Nine intermediate to advanced level string players participated in a four-session, pretest/posttest design study to determine (1) if left forearm extensor EMG could be reduced using biofeedback, (2) if reductions in EMG would generalize to a no-feedback condition, and (3) if reductions in EMG would generalize from extensors to flexors. Results indicate that biofeedback did facilitate significant decreases in EMG, that the reductions in EMG did generalize to a no-feedback condition, and that generalization from extensors to flexors did not occur.

A training program was conducted to improve the generalized mnemonic performance, or memory, of a Down's Syndrome child. Training was directed at digit-span performance with generalization from training determined by responses to untrained mnemonic performance probes. The digit-span items varied in length from three to five digits. Each length constituted an item class, with each class trained within the framework of a multiple-baseline design. Probes consisted of untrained digit-span items, grammatical sentences, nongrammatical sentences, and match-to-sample items. A training procedure, in which 15 items from each class varied continually from trial to trial and from day to day, resulted in the percentage of correct responses to both training and probe items increasing to levels substantially above baseline. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the training procedure in improving the generalized mnemonic performance of a Down's Syndrome child.

In EMG biofeedback it has been suggested that covariation in tension levels between a trained and untrained muscle increases with continued training of the target muscle. Predictions of this sort are in contrast to the notion of response generalization which would predict decreased covariation between trained and untrained muscles with continued training. This study examined covariation between facial and forearm EMG levels during facial EMG biofeedback, and evaluated changes in such covariation which occurred with continued facial EMG training. Two groups of individuals were trained either to increase or to decrease facial muscle tension in 3 laboratory sessions during which simultaneous measures of facial and forearm EMG were obtained at 1-min intervals. Comparison of facial EMG measures for these groups with those for a third, noncontingent control group revealed bidirectional conditioned effects for each training session. Some covariation between forearm and facial EMG was apparent for all groups. However, examination of change in covariation across sessions revealed that covariation decreased for groups receiving facial muscle training, whereas covariation levels exhibited by the noncontingent feedback group remained stable. This finding was consistent with the concept of response generalization but not with the notion of muscle tension generalization as employed in EMG biofeedback.

SummaryGeneralization of improvement in the behavioural treatment of psychotic patients must be planned in after-care settings, and for durability over time. The transfer of clinical gains is not an automatic by-product of treatment with severely and chronically impaired mental patients. Treatment strategies that facilitate generalization from hospital to community are illustrated in a case study using empirical data. Systematic and specific treatment programmes were co-ordinated between a state hospital ward and a community-based day hospital. Setting step-wise and limited goals is a feature of successful outcomes. Maintaining consistency in reinforcement contingencies from hospital to community settings, using natural reinforcers, pinpointing functional behaviours as therapeutic goals, over-learning, and training natural caregivers are methods that promote generalization.

A multiple-baseline design was used to evaluate the effects of a simple modelling procedure on the contingent praise of five counsellors while they conducted hygiene-training sessions in toothbrushing and hand-and-face washing with severely retarded children. After varying numbers of baseline sessions, each counsellor watched a model who conducted a series of toothbrushing sessions, in which he conspicuously praised correct toothbrushing responses and approximations to correct responses. No modelling occurred during hand-and-face washing sessions. As a result of several exposures to the model's performance, levels of response-contingent praise provided by four of the five counsellors during toothbrushing sessions increased sharply over baseline. The levels of counsellor praise showed parallel increases during hand-and-face washing sessions. A two-week followup showed that the levels of praise obtained through modelling were maintained in the model's absence.

The effects of low posttrial stimulation of the mesenphalic reticular formation (MRF) on spatial learning problems were studied in two consecutive stages. First, the performances of stimulated (S) and no-stimulated (NS) subjects were assessed in a reconvergent three-arm maze. Secondly, the same animals were tested in a generalization paradigm, since they had to solve a similar task in a radial four-arm maze, each group being divided into newly stimulated (S-S, NS-S) or no-stimulated (S-NS, NS-NS) subjects. In the first experiment, no differences were found between the acquisition processes of groups S and NS. Conversely, in the second experiment, previously stimulated animals (S-S and S-NS) showed better generalization of the experimental rule. The results are discussed in terms of preservation of the neural activity after the early MRF stimulation. From a functional point of view, our data indicate that an enhancement of the neural activity during acquisition facilitates not only a high accessibility of memories concerning the experimental rule in a subsequent similar situation but also the capability to apply a previously elaborated response system in a more complex situation.

This study was designed to assess the feasibility of providing individualized instruction in a classroom of autistic children. In particular, we investigated whether students' unsupervised responding was a variable which would influence the effectiveness of individualized instruction procedures. Initially, one teacher attempted to teach different academic behavior to four autistic children simultaneously. During these sessions the teacher rotated from child to child, providing individualized instructions and reinforcers to each. We found, however, that each child stopped responding whenever the teacher rotated to a different child and, further, no academic progress occurred for any of the children during these sessions. In a multiple baseline design, treatment procedures were then introduced (prompt fading, chaining, and programmed instructional materials) to teach each student to continue working for an extended period of time after each instruction from the teacher. After treatment, sessions of individualized instruction in a group were reintroduced for each child. The results showed that unsupervised responding was an important variable influencing the effectiveness of individualized instruction. Specifically, the data show that (1) unsupervised responding, acquired during treatment, generalized to the group setting; (2) after treatment, each child began to make progress on his assigned tasks; and (3) programming instructional materials in small steps appeared to be necessary in order to ensure the maintenance of unsupervised responding across changes in instructional materials. By the end of this study it was possible for one teacher to simultaneously teach four autistic children — with each child learning at his own rate, on his own task, with minimal supervision from the teacher. It is suggested that the generalizability of these results, to other settings where continuous supervision is difficult, may be an important concern of future research.