UNT Theses and Dissertations - 387 Matching Results

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Stimulus Control Effects of Changes in Schedules of Reinforcement

Description: Sometimes, changes in consequences are accompanied by a clear stimulus change explicitly arranged by the experimenter. Other times when new consequences are in effect, there is little or no accompanying stimulus change explicitly arranged by the experimenter. These differences can be seen in the laboratory as multiple (signaled) schedules and mixed (unsignaled) schedules. The current study used college students and a single-subject design to examine the effects of introducing signaled and unsig… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Abdel-Jalil, Awab
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Increasing Exercise in Sedentary Adults Using a Contingency and Technology-Based Management Package to Begin and Sustain New Levels of Activity

Description: Using a multiple baseline across participants with a changing criterion, this study explored and evaluated the effects of the individualized contingency management package (goal-setting, education, etc.) with sedentary typical adults while focusing on the mentoring component and the use of the technology of the exercise tracker to increase and sustain physical exercise to a level that increased health-benefiting physical activity. During initial mentoring meeting prior to the start of baseline,… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Adams, Kristen Lea
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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The Effects of Contingency Type on Accuracy and Reaction Time

Description: Positive and negative reinforcement contingencies have been compared in terms of preference, but the differential effects of positive and negative reinforcement on reaction time and accuracy with other variables controlled remain unclear. Fifteen undergraduate students participated in a sound discrimination task that involved random mixed-trial presentations of positive and negative reinforcement contingencies. The participants' goal was to correctly identify whether the tone was shorter or lon… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Adams, Owen James
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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Tales by Moonlight: An Exploratory Analysis of the Effects of a Storytelling Interview Package for Youths and Elders in an Historically Black Community

Description: Storytelling is a practice that is used to pass down important information about culture, environment, and history. From a behavior analytic perspective, the process of storytelling involves contingencies and can be viewed within the framework of the Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior. For each listener, based on their history of learning and experiences, stories enable a unique type of learning about reinforcers, punishers and cultural context. In African American oral tradition, storytelli… more
Date: August 2022
Creator: Akinwale, Oluwabukola Elizabeth
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Why Dance? The Effects of a Group Dance Period on Social Attending, On-Task Behavior, Affect, Stereotypical Behavior, and Disruptive Behavior of Clients of an Autism Treatment Program

Description: Dance is an enjoyable activity that children can engage in across the lifespan. Many children with autism have limited leisure activity, such as dance, and also have challenges in terms of overall health related to physical activity. Previous research suggests that there are both immediate and prolonged benefits of exercise. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a group dance period on on-task behavior, social attending, affect, stereotypic behavior, and disruptive beh… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Allen, Emerald Elizabeth
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Behavioral Economic Analysis of Different Reinforcers: Sound-Clips Versus Points Exchangeable for Money

Description: Human operant studies frequently use points exchangeable for money as reinforcers. Some studies employ more immediately consumable reinforcers to emulate properties of food reinforcers. This study examined demand for points/money and for sound-clips to compare their economic characteristics. Across four participants, demand was often higher and less elastic for points/money than for sounds. During subsequent exposures at each response requirement, demand for sounds often decreased to a greater … more
Date: December 2000
Creator: Alvey, Debi A.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Behavior Analytic Account of Humor Responses: Taking a Joke Way Too Seriously

Description: Compared to other examples of human behavior, humor responses have received relatively little attention from the scientific community and by the behavior analytic community in particular. This study investigated what some of the controlling variables for humans to emit a humor response may be. Participants were randomly presented two types of word sequences/jokes: one with a matching punchline and one without a matching punchline. Participants rated whether the jokes were funny or not funny, an… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Amezquita IV, Edward Brandon
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Comparing Indices of Happiness during Teaching Interactions

Description: The measurement of happiness has received increasing attention in behavior analytic literature. Happiness in individuals with developmental disabilities has been assessed by 1) counting a specific behavior, or 2) sampling constellations of behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine the two approaches while observing nine child and teacher dyads at an autism treatment center. Results showed that, overall, a constellation of behaviors can yield similar patterns when compared to a specifi… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Anderson, Claire Therese
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An examination of the effects of accuracy+rate versus accuracy+observing response training methods on matching-to-sample performance.

Description: The relative efficacy of training procedures emphasizing accuracy versus those which add a rate criterion is a topic of debate. The desired learning outcome is fluent responding, assessed by measures of retention, endurance, stability, and application. The current study examined the effects of these two procedures on fluency outcomes using a matching-to-sample paradigm to train participants to match English to Japanese characters. An explicit FR-3 observing response was added to an accuracy-onl… more
Date: May 2007
Creator: Anderson, Jesse
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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A Proposal for a Training Program to Support Culturally Responsive Professional-Family Interactions

Description: Behavior analysts often work with families from diverse cultural backgrounds. Ideally, behavior analysts and families interact in ways that are responsive to the family's culture and valued outcomes. The data indicate that most behavior analysts, however, come from one dominant cultural group. This is a proposal for training program and evaluation method to support culturally responsive professional-family interactions. This proposed study is designed to be conducted via Zoom-- a cloud-based vi… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Anegbeh, Cynthia Momoh
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Discriminative Control of Behavioral Variability in Video Game Play

Description: Creativity can be a useful skill in today's classrooms and workplaces. When individuals talk about creativity, it's unclear what the controlling variables are when we tact behavior as "creative." Research in understanding the processes behind behaviors that are considered "creative" would assist in identifying functional relations and provide insight on how to teach creativity. Since creativity is often described as doing something different from the norm, behavioral variability may be a potent… more
Date: May 2023
Creator: Arias, Gabriela Isabel
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Contingency Management of Physical Rehabilitation: The Role of Feedback

Description: Modern advances in technology have allowed for an increase in the precision with which we are able to measure, record, and affect behavior. These developments suggest that the domains in which behavior analysis might contribute are considerably broader than previously appreciated, for instance the area of behavioral medicine. One way the field of behavior analysis can begin to address problems in behavioral medicine is with biosensor technology, like surface electromyography (sEMG). For sEMG te… more
Date: December 2018
Creator: Armshaw, Brennan P
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Effects of Voluntary and Involuntary Muscle Recruitment Training on the Strength of Isometric Muscle Contractions

Description: Approximately 50% of individuals who undergo total knee arthroplasty (TKA) fail to achieve a full functional recovery. Current physical therapy practices commonly utilize neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) to passively activate quadriceps muscles. This passive approach does not directly reteach the lost response, but can strengthen the atrophied muscle. Study 1 compared surface electromyography with biofeedback (sEMGBF) with a changing criterion design to NMES alone. Study 2 compared s… more
Date: December 2022
Creator: Armshaw, Gabriel Luke
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Variability in the Natural World: An Analysis of Variability in Preschool Play

Description: Children acquire many skills through play. These range from fine and gross motor skills, social skills, problem-solving, to even creativity. Creativity or creative engagement is frequently a component in early preschool curricula. A pivotal repertoire to engage in behaviors deemed creative, such as art, storytelling, problem-solving, and the like, is the ability to vary one's responses regardless of the specific repertoire. Researchers have developed methods to produce response variability. How… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Armshaw, Jared T
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Effects of Biofeedback and Verbal Feedback on the Training and Maintenance of Diaphragmatic Breathing

Description: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a computer program on the training and maintenance of diaphragmatic breathing. The biofeedback portion was visual computer training and the results were displayed concurrently with participants' breathing responses to monitor display. The verbal feedback portion was praise that was given and recorded when participants responded with predominantly diaphragmatic breathing at the scheduled moment and response instruction that was given when … more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Armstrong, Earl E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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Correspondence between Multiple-Respondent Anecdotal Assessments and Functional Analysis: Analyses of Rank-Order, Magnitude-of-Difference, and Overall Outcomes

Description: We administered the Motivation Assessment Scale (MAS) and the Questions About Behavioral Function (QABF) to five raters and compared the results with functional analysis outcomes for 12 cases in which agreement was obtained for at least four out of five raters on either anecdotal assessment. The scores for functional categories on the MAS and QABF were ranked by averaging the scores for the raters who agreed on the primary maintaining variable. Functional analysis results were ranked by examini… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Arnalds, Holmfridur Osk
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Immediate and subsequent effects of response blocking on self-injurious behavior.

Description: Abstract In many institutional settings, blocking, response restriction (e.g., restraint, protective equipment), and re-direction procedures are used extensively as intervention for self-injurious behavior (SIB) and other forms of problem behavior. In the current study, a three component, multiple-schedule analysis was used to examine the immediate and subsequent effects of blocking on SIB that persisted in the absence of social reinforcement contingencies. During the first and third component… more
Date: August 2006
Creator: Atcheson, Katy
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Finding Out How to Teach the Operant Quadrant: Content and Error Analysis

Description: The goal of this study was to use a nonlinear approach to create a program to teach positive and negative reinforcement and punishment. A specific interest was to determine whether the program and its testing allowed for specific recommendations for future iterations of the program. The tests and program developed for this study were completed by 18 participants. Pre-test and post-test data showed that participants learned the most about positive contingencies, nonexample items, and ambiguous c… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Auzenne, Jessica L
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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An Evaluation of a Waiting Period and DRL on Reducing Mands serving as Precursors to Self-Injurious Behavior

Description: Extensive research has been conducted demonstrating the utility of differential reinforcement as an effective intervention for self-injurious behavior. However, the majority of this literature requires teaching an alternative response to access reinforcement. Further evaluation of treating self-injurious behavior in individuals that already possess the repertories to contact reinforcement appropriately. Prior to initiating the study, functional assessments were completed for both participant th… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Baak, Sara Ann
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Effects of Cumulative Consumption Feedback On Demand For Money As A Commodity

Description: Behavioral economic theory describes a relation between response requirement and magnitude of reinforcement, and combines these variables into one independent variable (unit price) affecting operant behavior. This study investigated the relative effects of cumulative feedback on consumption for money as a commodity. Subjects were exposed to ranges of unit prices with or without a cumulative feedback bar on the computer screen indicating monetary earnings. For all participants in this study, con… more
Date: May 2001
Creator: Bailey, Kathleen
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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Shall We Dance? Teaching Parents the Communication Dance to Enhance Generalized Communication in Their Children

Description: Children diagnosed with autism exhibit deficits in communication that impact their ability to control their immediate environment. Recent research on mand training has been criticized for producing a limited number of mand topographies over a long span of time with limited generalization to novel environments. There is a body of research, however, that successfully establishes larger repertoires. Training parents as change agents may mediate generalization by teaching under naturally maintainin… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Baker, Jacqueline R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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Exploring Functional Interdependence of Mands, Tacts, and Intraverbals after Brain Injury

Description: One goal of this study was to evaluate the emergence of mands and intraverbals following tact acquisition for individuals with aphasia due to acquired brain injury. A second goal was to evaluate the transfer of shortened latencies as a function of tact training across untrained operants. In Study 1, the dependent measure was accuracy of responding and in Study 2, the dependent measures were rate and latency of responding. Participants for Study 1 were two uninjured adults (pilot) and two adults… more
Date: August 2022
Creator: Baltazar-Mars, Marla
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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The Effects of Fluency-Based Instruction on the Identification of Component Reading Skills

Description: This study examined the effects of fluency-based instruction on the identification of six component-composite relations for early reading skills. Five participants (ages 5-8) who struggled with reading participated. A multiple probe design was used to assess the effects of frequency building on prerequisite skills on the emergence of composite reading skills. The results show that the prerequisite skills taught did not have an effect on the composite skill probes but did have an effect on the a… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Bandy, Darren
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Effects of Descriptive Praise on Instructional Control Over Varied and Stereotyped Play of a Five-Year-Old Boy

Description: This study investigated the effects of instructional cues on varied and stereotyped play responses of one typically developing 5-year-old child. Responses were observed across four sets of play materials: blocks, DUPLO® blocks, markers and paints. Training included praise contingent upon forms consistent with the instruction. Two instructions were each trained with corresponding instruction signs, "Try something different" (on blue paper) and "Do the same thing" (on yellow paper) for block and … more
Date: December 2004
Creator: Bank, Nicole L.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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