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This study investigated a three‐choice matching‐to‐sample procedure with an observing‐response requirement to induce select and reject control during baseline training and examined their effects on the formation of equivalence classes. The study involved four girls, aged 8 to 10 years, who participated in a computer‐based task that alternated between conditions designed to induce select and reject control by requiring observing responses to display the stimuli. In the select‐control condition, the correct stimulus was revealed first on at least 75% of the trials, increasing the likelihood of selecting the correct stimulus without seeing the incorrect ones. In contrast, in the reject‐control condition, the correct stimulus was revealed third on at least 75% of the trials, forcing the display of both incorrect stimuli. This procedure successfully generated both select and reject control, which increased progressively with the accuracy during baseline training trials. Select control was more prominent than reject control, but both led to the formation of equivalence classes. This finding suggests that reject control does not hinder control by the correct stimulus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early readers who have learned letter–sound correspondences do not always learn to read words through best practice reading instruction. This suggests a missing stimulus control for textual responses and the literature lacks an intervention to address this problem. Five kindergarten students who did not learn textual responses from reading instruction participated in this study. We used a combined pre- and posttest and multiple probe design to test the effects of a composite-to-component vocal phoneme segmentation (CtCVPS) intervention on the number of correct untaught (a) textual responses, (b) dictated written spelling responses, (c) vocal phoneme blends, (d) abstracted vocal phoneme segmentations, as well as (e) cumulative correct textual responses during reading instruction before and after the intervention. During the CtCVPS intervention participants were taught to listen to a set of composite words and vocalize the component phonemes. Correct responses emerged across all variables for all participants as a function of the intervention and all participants learned new textual responses from reading instruction after the CtCVPS intervention. These findings demonstrated that acquiring a generalized vocal phoneme segmentation repertoire through the CtCVPS intervention established necessary stimulus control for textual responding. Implications on the role of acquiring composite-to-component responses through the vocal phoneme segmentation intervention in learning to read and write are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early reading materials commonly include the simultaneous presentation of pictures and text. Despite the ubiquity of picture-text compounds, several researchers have found that this arrangement may impair the word-reading performances of young children. Specifically, a learner may accurately respond when the picture and text are presented together but show reduced accuracy when the text is presented alone. Additional research has not reported these same effects; yet, given the considerable range in participants, procedures, and experimental designs in this literature, it is unclear when or for whom picture-text compounds may impede reading performance. This descriptive review provides a synthesis of articles that compared participants' word-reading performance during picture-text compound and text-only arrangements. Participant characteristics, target description, training and testing procedures, experimental design, and findings were coded for each article. A total of 37 experiments met the inclusion criteria, the small majority of which reported detrimental effects of picture-text compounds on word-reading performance (64.9%). Null findings were most common in experiments that utilized between-subjects designs, although procedural arrangements and participant descriptions varied considerably across experiments. Additional research is needed to better describe the conditions that may promote or inhibit control by the text in picture-text compounds and learner characteristics or histories that might predict these or similar overselective performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a transcription of Murray Sidman's presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior in May 1998. It describes the development (from 1965 to 1975) of behavior‐change programs implemented outside the animal laboratory to benefit humans before such application was established formally as an entity derived from the experimental analysis of behavior. The presentation illustrates the use of an inductive method in practice, where working with a fluid behavior stream entails making intervention decisions on the spot. Examples include fading and backward‐chaining procedures in the establishment and stimulus control of novel actions. Sidman also discusses the certification of practitioners and the interaction between client and therapist and between basic and applied endeavors. The latter define what is contemporaneously described as translational intervention. It is noteworthy that Sidman's presentation was at a meeting attended by both practitioners and scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Stimulus control is part of the widely used cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia. However, there is a lack of knowledge about its mechanisms of action and effectiveness when used alone. This systematic review with network meta‐analysis aimed to evaluate stimulus control efficacy when used alone compared with cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia or its components. The review also documented stimulus control mechanisms of action proposed by the authors. A search was conducted in several bibliographic databases (MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Embase, CINAHL, Psychology Behavioural Sciences Collection, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library) and in two registers from 1972 to June 2022. Randomised studies with adult participants presenting a diagnosis of insomnia and including at least one stimulus control instruction in a treatment group were included. Risk of bias was assessed with the Quality Assessment of Controlled Intervention Studies. Twenty‐three studies were included and three network meta‐analyses were conducted. The quality of included studies was generally poor. Results indicate that stimulus control is an effective intervention to improve insomnia compared with control conditions. Not all stimulus control instructions seem essential, especially those known to recondition the bedroom for sleep. The review challenges the classical conditioning hypothesis. Results should be interpreted cautiously given the small number of studies included, bias risk, and inconsistencies in the network meta‐analysis. Rigorous research is needed in evaluating stimulus control efficacy and mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worry postponement, also called stimulus control, is a simple and easy to administer intervention that often forms part of cognitive-behavioural treatments for worry. We conducted a meta-analysis to test if worry postponement is effective in reducing daily worry. Data from 7 randomized trials were included providing a total of 999 participants, of which 250 experienced worry as a burden and of which the majority was women. When comparing worry postponement to the mere registration of worries small effect sizes were observed for worry duration (d = 0.313) and for worry frequency (d = 0.189). Moderation analyses showed that the intervention yielded larger effect sizes in studies including more women. However, long-term follow-up studies are still lacking. Worry postponement, practiced between a week or a maximum of a month, was found to effectively reduce the frequency and duration of worry in daily life. This suggests that a simple intervention is available for people whose worries (temporarily) spiral out of control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Comportamentalia is the property of Instituto de Psicologia y Educacion de la Universidad Veracruzana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Goal‐directed and habitual actions are clearly defined by their associative relations. Whereas goal‐directed control can be confirmed via tests of outcome devaluation and contingency‐degradation sensitivity, a comparable criterion for positively detecting habits has not been established. To confirm habitual responding, a test of control by the stimulus–response association is required while also ruling out goal‐directed control. Here we describe an approach to developing such a test in rats using two discriminative stimuli that set the occasion for two different responses that then earn the same outcome. Performance was insensitive to outcome devaluation and showed stimulus–response specificity, indicative of stimulus‐controlled behavior. The reliance of stimulus–response associations was further supported by a lack of sensitivity during the single extinction test session used here. These results demonstrate that two concurrently trained responses can come under habitual control when they share a common outcome. By reducing the ability of one stimulus to signal its corresponding response–outcome association, we found evidence for goal‐directed control that can be dissociated from habits. Overall, these experiments provide evidence that tests assessing specific stimulus–response associations can be used to investigate habits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autoclitics are secondary verbal operants that are controlled by a feature of the conditions that occasion or evoke a primary verbal operant such as a tact or mand. Qualifying autoclitics extend, negate, or assert a speaker's primary verbal response and modify the intensity or direction of the listener's behavior. Howard and Rice (1988) established autoclitics that indicated weak stimulus control (e.g., "like a [primary tact]") with four neurotypical preschool children. However, generalization to newly acquired tacts was limited. In Experiment 1, we addressed similar behavior as in Howard and Rice but with autistic children while using simultaneous teaching procedures, and we observed generalization across sets and with newly acquired tacts. In Experiment 2, we evaluated the effects of multiple‐exemplar training on generalization of autoclitics across sets of naturalistic stimuli. Across participants, gradual increases in the frequency of autoclitics occurred with untaught stimuli after teaching with one or more sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children who are deaf and hard of hearing and received cochlear implants when exposed to equivalence-based instruction (EBI) exhibit improvements in speech accuracy in picture naming. The density of tests can be a variable. The present study investigated whether interspersing picture naming and reading tests between steps of an instructional curriculum (i.e., EBI) affects speech accuracy in naming tasks in two 7-year-old girls who were deaf and hard of hearing and had cochlear implants in the process of literacy. The children (Ran and Bia) were exposed to a computer-assisted curriculum that sought to teach reading. The curriculum was divided into four units and 17 teaching steps. Picture naming and reading tests were included between teaching steps in two of the four teaching units that were counterbalanced between participants. After teaching, speech accuracy in naming increased 47 percentage points for Ran and 14 percentage points for Bia. A unit-by-unit analysis showed that vocalizations tended to be more accurate in units where probe density was greater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This preliminary study sought to examine stimulus control influences on navigation behaviors of adult human participants in a virtual simulation of a maze. The maze design was adapted from Morris's (Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 11, 47–60, 1984) "water maze" typically used with rats. In our study, in a "simple" condition, participants navigate the same open-field maze across a fixed number of trials until encountering a hidden platform to escape. In a "complex" condition, invisible walls are placed in the maze, constraining the participant's movements. Participants learned to rely more on distal cues in the simple condition compared to the complex condition, as measured by the percentage of viewing angles above a given threshold. The quantification of these observing responses provides an objective measurement towards delineating types of navigational strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three pigeon dyads were exposed to a two‐component multiple schedule comprised of two tandem variable‐interval 30‐s interresponse time (IRT) > 3‐s schedules in the presence of different stimuli. Pecks to keys by both pigeons of a dyad occurring within 500 ms of one another were required for reinforcement under one tandem schedule (the coordination component), and such coordinated responses were not required under the other (the control component). The terminal link of each schedule ensured that the reinforced coordination response was an IRT > 3 s. Rates of coordinated IRTs > 3 s and total rates of coordinated responses (composed of IRTs > 3 s and IRTs ≤ 3 s) were higher in the coordination components than in either of two different control components in which coordination was not required for reinforcement. This difference in coordinated responses in the presence and absence of the coordination requirement under stimulus control transitorily deteriorated and then was reestablished when the relation between the stimulus and the coordination contingency or its absence was reversed. The results show coordinated responding to function as a discriminated social operant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 60% of college students are poor-quality sleepers, and many have inconsistent weekday and weekend sleep patterns. Technology usage (e.g., cellphone, computer, television) may contribute to poor sleep, but there is limited experimental research. In a comparison trial, 60 college students (mean age = 18.76, 86.7% female, 53.3% White) were randomly assigned to a 4-week sleep hygiene and stimulus control (SHSC) intervention or an enhanced intervention including technology stimulus control instructions (SHSC-E). Both groups showed improvements in sleep hygiene practices, perceived barriers to stimulus control, sleep quality, general technology usage, and technology usage before bed. However, the SHSC-E group did not have greater improvements compared to SHSC group as hypothesized, which suggests that the combination of sleep hygiene and stimulus control is a robust enough method for reducing self-reported technology usage. A longer intervention period might be necessary to observe the benefits of technology stimulus control procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stimulus overselectivity describes strong control by one stimulus element at the expense of other equally relevant elements. Research suggests that control by underselected stimuli emerges following extinction of the overselected stimulus ("revaluation") and the emergence is larger when overselectivity is greater. We compared such revaluation effects with a control compound or condition in two experiments. Human participants chose between compound S+ and S‐ stimuli. Then, to assess control by compound‐stimulus elements, participants chose between individual elements in a testing phase without feedback. The S+ element chosen most often (the overselected element) underwent revaluation, during which choice of that element was extinguished and choice of a novel element reinforced. Thereafter, participants completed a retesting phase. Revaluation reduced choice of the overselected element. Choice of the underselected element decreased for participants with low overselectivity but increased for participants with high overselectivity. This was not the case for a control compound that did not undergo revaluation (Experiments 1 and 2) or in a control condition in which the overselected element continued to be reinforced during revaluation (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that overselectivity levels may modulate revaluation effects, and they also highlight the importance of the contingency change in postrevaluation changes in stimulus control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental property of place cells in the hippocampus is the anchoring of their firing fields to salient landmarks within the environment. However, it is unclear how such information reaches the hippocampus. In the current experiment, we tested the hypothesis that the stimulus control exerted by distal visual landmarks requires input from the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC). Place cells were recorded from mice with ibotenic acid lesions of the MEC (n = 7) and from sham‐lesioned mice (n = 6) following 90° rotations of either distal landmarks or proximal cues in a cue‐ controlled environment. We found that lesions of the MEC impaired the anchoring of place fields to distal landmarks, but not proximal cues. We also observed that, relative to sham‐lesioned mice, place cells in animals with MEC lesions exhibited significantly reduced spatial information and increased sparsity. These results support the view that distal landmark information reaches the hippocampus via the MEC, but that proximal cue information can do so via an alternative neural pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important that tacts are controlled by stimuli across all senses but teaching tacts to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often limited to visual stimuli. This study replicated and extended a study on the effects of antecedent‐stimulus presentations on the acquisition of auditory tacts. We used a concurrent multiple probe across sets design and an embedded adapted alternating treatments design to evaluate acquisition of auditory tacts when auditory stimuli were presented alone (i.e., isolated) or with corresponding pictures (i.e., compound‐with‐known and compound‐with‐unknown) with two school‐aged boys with ASD. Both participants' responding met the mastery criterion no matter the stimulus presentation with at least one set, but one participant failed to acquire one set of stimuli in the isolated condition. The isolated condition was rarely the most efficient. We conducted post‐training stimulus‐control probes, and we observed disrupted stimulus control in the isolated condition for one participant. Implications for arranging auditory tacts instruction are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptual behavior represents a type of complex stimulus control where an organism differentially responds to examples and nonexamples of instances within a stimulus class. Different species have demonstrated conceptual behavior both in their natural environments and through experimental investigations. The current paper investigates preliminary methods to teach conceptual behavior to gray wolves (Canis lupus). The researchers used a match‐to‐sample arrangement to teach three shapes: a triangle, square, and cross varying in size, color, and positions. Probe trials used a novel set of stimuli to test for the emergence of conceptual behavior. Although the wolves did not show an immediate transfer to novel stimuli following initial match‐to‐sample training, they did show improvement after explicit discrimination training. We discuss the implications of these results as well as future methods that may enhance experimental procedures investigating concept learning in canids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluated two procedures to teach auditory-visual conditional discriminations (receptive labeling) to children with autism. The procedures evaluated a modified Structured Mix (SM) procedure and a modified Counterbalanced Random Rotation (RR) procedure. The modified SM procedure was based on the logic of simplifying the task by breaking it down into smaller, successive steps and by requiring mastery of each step before introducing the next. Compared to previous studies, the modified SM procedure contained fewer steps, less prompting, and a less stringent mastery criterion. The modified RR procedure targeted all three stimuli simultaneously by presenting them across consecutive trials, both during training and error correction. Sample stimuli were presented in a counterbalanced random order and the comparison stimuli were presented in counterbalanced random positions. Participants were nine children with autism. An adapted alternating treatments design was used. Results showed that the modified SM procedure was more efficient for four of the nine participants, the modified RR procedure was more efficient for one of the nine participants, both procedures were equally efficient for two participants, and neither procedure was effective for two of the nine participants. The modified SM procedure appeared more efficient than the SM procedure employed in previous studies. Despite results, further research is warranted to examine within subject comparisons between original discrimination training procedures and modified procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detection dogs are used at border controls as an antecedent intervention to deter the smuggling of contraband. However, there is little research that has explored how the presence of dogs might affect passenger behavior. We observed passengers' behavior at a port when there was an officer alone, an officer with a dog, and an officer with a dog wearing a florescent yellow jacket with "police" written on it for increased salience. We measured eye contact, vocal‐verbal interactions, facial expressions, and nonvocal verbal gestures toward the officer and dog, and changes in passenger direction. Passengers looked, talked, and had the highest frequencies of positive facial expressions when the dog was not wearing a jacket. However, passengers looked toward the dog the quickest and had the highest frequency of negative facial expressions and gestures when the dog was wearing a jacket. We discuss how these findings might inform antecedent interventions to address undesirable behavior such as smuggling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a 72-year-old man with Alzheimer's disease and a Mini-Mental Status (MMS) score of 25 participated. The participant was presented for class-formation sorting tests and conditional-discrimination training sequences and tests with portraits of close family members, their names, and family relationships as stimuli. The purpose of the study was to identify intact relations between stimuli, stimulus control issues and thereafter reestablish relations between stimuli. In the sorting tests, intact and weakened stimulus relations were identified. In addition, the results showed how correct stimulus control was reestablished after tailoring the conditional-discrimination training after the participant had shown systematical incorrect responding to some of the presented stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Comportamentalia is the property of Instituto de Psicologia y Educacion de la Universidad Veracruzana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Estes (1944) reported that adding electric shock punishment to extinction hastened response suppression but that responding increased when shock was removed. This result contributed to a view that reinforcement and punishment are asymmetrical processes because punishment has only indirect and temporary suppressive effects. Azrin and Holz (1966) suggested the result might be interpreted instead as shock serving as a discriminative stimulus for the absence of reinforcement. Here, to further examine potential stimulus control by punishment in a similar preparation, two groups of rats initially responded for food plus punishment and a third group for food alone. Reinforcement was then removed for all groups for the remaining three phases. With P and N denoting punishment and no punishment, the four phases for the three groups were: P‐P‐N‐N, P‐N‐P‐N, and N‐P‐N‐N. We found some evidence for stimulus control by shock deliveries for group N‐P‐N‐N (as suggested by Azrin and Holz), but all other changes in responding appeared due to introduction or removal of the aversive properties of shock. Although punishment may indeed have temporary effects under many circumstances, we argue that the view that this implies asymmetrical reinforcement and punishment processes was based on the flawed assumption that reinforcement has direct strengthening effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equivalence classes are defined according to the substitutability, or functional similarity, of the stimuli within a stimulus class. Several studies have demonstrated that the degree of functional similarity between stimuli in a class is dependent, in part, upon the number of nodes (intervening stimuli) between the stimuli. Higher nodal number is related to lower functional similarity. This effect is referred to as "nodality." There are three key factors that have not been simultaneously controlled for in the relevant studies: priming effects, reinforcement during training, and multiple stimulus functions of stimuli (sample, comparison, or both). In the present experiment, controlling for these factors, two 6‐member, 4‐node equivalence classes were established, and a within‐class preference assessment was used to evaluate nodality. Of 12 participants, five achieved criterion accuracy (90%) during testing. These participants demonstrated nodality, showing preference for stimuli that were nodally proximal to a sample in the preference test. When distal comparisons were chosen, participants took longer, on average, to make the selection compared to selections of proximal stimuli. These findings are consistent with earlier studies demonstrating nodality, which suggests that nodality is a robust phenomenon and not an artifact of the factors that were controlled for in the present study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In animal training, there is disagreement regarding whether a conditioned reinforcer, such as the sound of a clicker, should always be followed by an unconditioned reinforcer, such as a treat. Proponents for clicking without always giving a treat argue that the click can substitute for the reinforcer, due to Pavlovian conditioning and the partial reinforcement effect. Those who advise always following the click with a treat argue that the clicker will become an unreliable predictor of food if it is not always followed by an unconditioned reinforcer. In this study, a within‐subject reversal design with two dogs was used to compare the behavioral effects of always following a click with food (one click condition) and only sometimes following a click with food (two clicks condition). Results showed that the two clicks condition disrupted the frequency, accuracy, and topography of the behavior and increased noncompliance and other unwanted behaviors. While the detrimental effects of this condition may seem paradoxical at first, they can be explained by the discriminative properties of the conditioned reinforcer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many approaches for reducing unwanted behavior use punishment, extinction, or noncontingent reinforcement. Other methods focus on teaching and reinforcing alternative behaviors that can replace the unwanted behavior. Another strategy can be to change the stimulus control of the unwanted behavior. The present study investigated if conditional discrimination training using positive reinforcement could reduce undesirable behaviors in a pet dog. After conditional discrimination training, two unwanted behaviors (jumping and mouthing) occurred reliably in the presence of new discriminative stimuli, while other behaviors occurred in the presence of the discriminative stimuli that had previously produced these unwanted behaviors. This experiment demonstrates that conditional discrimination training can be an effective way to control the frequency of an unwanted behavior by controlling the frequency of the presentation of a discriminative stimulus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditioned stimuli (CS) associated with alcohol ingestion are thought to play a role in relapse by producing a craving that in turn increases motivation to drink which increases ethanol-seeking and disrupts other ongoing behavior. Alternatively, such CS may provide information indicating a likely increase in the density of the paired unconditioned stimulus and simultaneously elicit behavior that may be incompatible with other ongoing behavior, i.e., approach toward the CS. To explore these possibilities, rats were trained to respond for ethanol or food in two different components of the same session after which a light above the ethanol-lever was lighted twice during each component and each light presentation was followed by ethanol delivery. The duration of this CS was 10 s initially and then increased to 30 s, then to 100 s, and finally returned to 30 s. The change in responding for ethanol or food was compared to a matched period immediately preceding CS presentation. The CS presentation increased responding to ethanol, and this effect increases with longer CS presentations. In contrast, the CS presentation decreased responding to food, and this effect decreases with longer CS presentations. These results appear to support the informational account of CS action rather than simply a change in the motivation to seek and consume ethanol. This suggests that craving as it is commonly understood likely represents multiple behavioral processes, not simply increased desire for alcohol and that reports of craving likely reflect labeling based upon past experiences rather than a cause of future drug-taking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differential reinforcement of a target response is a necessary component of stimulus control transfer procedures. Recent research has further considered the timing (i.e., onset) of differential reinforcement of unprompted correct responding. To date, the onset of differential reinforcement has been inconsistently controlled in studies comparing skill acquisition programs for individuals with developmental disabilities. The current study serves as a systematic replication of prior comparative research to examine the effects of immediate and delayed differential reinforcement onset on the efficiency of acquisition for three individuals with developmental disabilities. The delayed onset of differential reinforcement required the fewest number of exposures to mastery per target across all comparisons. These findings failed to replicate those of prior research on differential reinforcement onset, possibly due to differences in participant characteristics, target tasks, or other required procedural modifications. Considerations for future research on differential reinforcement procedures in skill acquisition programs are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional classes, formed by the partition of a set of stimuli, can be expanded by the direct training of new stimuli. Unknown, however, is whether new stimuli can be added to classes through indirect training procedures. The present study investigated whether functional classes can be expanded with the inclusion of new stimuli from exclusion procedures. In Study 1, 20 undergraduate students and 20 children learned three simple visual simultaneous discriminations. After successive reversals of the stimulus functions, an exclusion test was conducted with two new stimuli, followed by three class expansion tests, with the presentation of the pair of new stimuli and reversals of the stimulus functions. One third of the two groups exhibited performance by exclusion. Most of the students attributed the new stimuli to the classes in a way that was unrelated to their performance in the exclusion test. The children responded irregularly to the new stimuli in the class expansion tests. In Study 2, an exclusion test was added to the procedure, prior to the successive reversals. The participants, seven undergraduate students, responded by exclusion in the first test, but only three did so in the second test. Participants who responded by exclusion in the second test exhibited expansion of the classes, including the new stimuli into the classes. Successive reversal procedures interfere with the stability of the function of the stimuli in the class, which hinders the performance of participants in exclusion probes. We discuss the implications of studying the expansion of functional classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditioned stimuli (CS) associated with alcohol ingestion are thought to play a role in relapse by producing a craving that in turn increases motivation to drink which increases ethanol-seeking and disrupts other ongoing behavior. Alternatively, such CS may provide information indicating a likely increase in the density of the paired unconditioned stimulus and simultaneously elicit behavior that may be incompatible with other ongoing behavior, i.e., approach toward the CS. To explore these possibilities, rats were trained to respond for ethanol or food in two different components of the same session after which a light above the ethanol-lever was lighted twice during each component and each light presentation was followed by ethanol delivery. The duration of this CS was 10 s initially and then increased to 30 s, then to 100 s, and finally returned to 30 s. The change in responding for ethanol or food was compared to a matched period immediately preceding CS presentation. The CS presentation increased responding to ethanol, and this effect increases with longer CS presentations. In contrast, the CS presentation decreased responding to food, and this effect decreases with longer CS presentations. These results appear to support the informational account of CS action rather than simply a change in the motivation to seek and consume ethanol. This suggests that craving as it is commonly understood likely represents multiple behavioral processes, not simply increased desire for alcohol and that reports of craving likely reflect labeling based upon past experiences rather than a cause of future drug-taking.

One experiment in instrumental conditioning studied the effect of delayed reinforcement on attention, considered as the stimulus control produced by each element of a compound sample stimulus (CSS). A two-element (shape and color) CSS indicated the response to be reinforced between three comparison stimuli in an online matching-to-sample task with human participants. Forty-eight university students were assigned to three groups with different reinforcement delays: 0 s, 8 s, and 16 s (D0, D8, and D16). After learning the task, a separate test took place, with the elements of the CSS presented separately. Group D0 responded more to the shape. The D8 group responded to both elements, while the D16 group responded more to the color. Results showed that attention to each element of the CSS changes as reinforcement delay increases. These findings are similar to those of Urcelay and Miller (2009) on Pavlovian conditioning, pointing out similarities between Reynolds' findings and Pavlovian overshadowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]