UNT Theses and Dissertations - 411 Matching Results

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Exploring the Efficacy of Percentile Schedules with the Amplitude of Muscular Contractions

Description: Percentile reinforcement schedules have been used to systematically alter inter-response times, behavioral variability, breath carbon monoxide levels, duration of social behaviors, and various other properties of behavior. However, none of the previous studies have examined the effectiveness of percentile schedules in relation to the magnitude of muscular contractions. This control over magnitude of muscular responding has important implications relating to the strengthening of muscles and corr… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Goodhue, Rob
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries

Reliability of Treatment Integrity Assessment with Multiple Observers: Can Agreement Be Assumed?

Description: Interobserver agreement (IOA) was calculated across three participant dyads for a generalized treatment integrity tool. No dyads achieved 80% agreement during baseline. Task clarification was piloted as an intervention for two of the three dyads. Form agreement produced stabilization in both dyads and improvement in one dyad. Time agreement did not improve but demonstrated marked trends in one dyad.
Date: May 2022
Creator: Cohen, Lindsay Anne
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Safe and Fast Deworming Procedure for Horses

Description: Most horse owners administer oral deworming medication to their horses on a set schedule, often six times per year. The deworming process involves using a plastic syringe to inject a thick paste into the horse's mouth. Most horse owners do not specifically train their horses to accept this procedure. Consequently, many horses resist the procedure and some horses engage in behaviors, such as head shaking, pulling away, or even rearing, that may be dangerous to humans or to themselves. This study… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Ward, Jessica Lauren
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 a Hear-Say and See-Say Teaching Procedures during Verbal Behavior Instruction

Description: Establishing effective language intervention for those who struggle to acquire it early on has received significant attention from researchers within the field of behavior analysis. The procedures of the present study were adapted from Spurgin' thesis research from 2021, in which a stimulus specific consequence was used during teaching after participants made correct responses. In this case, the stimulus specific consequence was a label for a picture that participants were required to point to … more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Borquez, Nicholas Paul
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Correspondence between Receptive and Expressive Task Performances: A Further Analysis of Necessary Conditions

Description: This study was a replication and an extension of the 2021 research performed by Spurgin and Borquez on the correspondence between receptive and expressive behavior. Spurgin examined the role of the echoic in a hear-say procedure with adult learners, while Borquez examined the role of the echoic in both hear-say and see-say procedures. Both studies found that receptive and expressive correspondence did not occur consistently across participants. The present study asked if the fading steps used d… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Nachawati, Noor
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries

The Effects of a Contingent S-Delta

Description: This thesis attempted a cross-species replication of Bland, et. al., 2018. Human participants went through a computerized, automated shaping procedure that trained them to click on and discriminate between a blue square (SD) and red square (S-delta) on a VR 12 schedule of reinforcement. Three conditions were then presented to the participants consisting of a baseline, punishment, and control condition. In the punishment and control conditions, the SD was replaced by the S-delta or a novel stimu… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Ochoa, Jules A
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Preliminary Analysis of the Effects of a Training Program to Teach Skilled Dialogue to a Behavior Analyst Working in a Culturally Diverse Setting

Description: Diversity can serve as both a unifying force as well as grounds for intolerance of differences. Behavior analysts working in applied settings often encounter diversity and it is in these settings that meaningful relationships and harmonious collaboration are vital. Skilled dialogue has been recommended as an approach to capitalizing on diverse perspectives so that new solutions and meaningful relationships are developed. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a training… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Reese, Ashlee Keisha-Nikol
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries

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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A Preliminary Investigation of How to Teach Undergraduate Students How to Build Rapport and Create Meaningful Interactions with College-Aged Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Description: University peer-mentoring programs have shown to increase the retention rates of students, including students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and improved satisfaction with the college experience. The perceived quality of a mentee-mentor relationship may predict satisfaction with a peer-mentoring program; therefore, teaching peer mentors to engage in behaviors that could contribute to a high-quality mentee-mentor relationship may be beneficial. The current study identified target outcomes,… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Espericueta-Luna, Williams A
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Use of Instructive Feedback to Promote Emergent Verbal Responses: A Replication

Description: Previous research has incorporated instructive feedback (IF) within mastered listener-by-name trials with two children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Participants in a previous study acquired the secondary targets and also demonstrated emergent responding (i.e., listener-by-feature, tact-by-feature, intraverbal, and reverse intraverbal). The current study replicated a previous study on IF with two children with ASD. Therapists conducted a series of three sessions of mastered lis… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Laddaga Gavidia, Valeria
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Emergence of Receptive and Expressive Language through Stimulus-Specific Consequences

Description: An important question in teaching language is, what accounts for the emergence of either receptive or expressive labels when teaching only one of them? The teaching procedures in the present study were intended to reproduce the natural development of bidirectional naming in which caregivers comment on the items a child is interacting with and children echo those vocalizations they hear. Thus, the only vocalizations presented by the researcher during teaching occurred after the learner pointed t… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Spurgin, Destiny
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Stimulus Equivalence and Competing Behavior: Individual Differences in Accuracy and Reaction Time

Description: The present study investigated how engaging in a behavior that is potentially incompatible with covert verbal behavior, singing aloud, affected the percent of correct responses and reaction time during equivalence tests as compared to engaging in a behavior considered compatible with covert verbal behavior, alternating foot tapping, during testing. Results varied between participants with some participants showing higher accuracies in the incompatible condition and some in the compatible condit… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Lovitz, Elizabeth
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Use of a Virtual Reality Gaming System to Improve Balance in Individuals with Chronic Brain Injury

Description: Wii Fit U games utilize a Wii Balance Board™ (WBB) in a manner that can provide precise feedback contingencies similarly to some forms of balance rehabilitation, thereby potentially increasing the dose of quality therapy with or without the presence of a therapist during post-brain injury rehabilitation. Additionally, an engaging video-game could improve treatment adherence, a critical aspect of making positive functional gains, by potentially increasing the rate and quality of reinforcement em… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Cruz, Selena R
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Development and Disruption of Collateral Behavior and DRL Performances: A PORTL Exploration

Description: One schedule of reinforcement that is used to decrease the rate of a target behavior is differential reinforcement of low rates (DRL). During this schedule, reinforcement is delivered for a target response if it occurs after a certain amount of time has passed since the last instance of this target response. The current study used a table-top game called PORTL and college student participants to investigate how collateral patterns develop and are disrupted during DRL schedules. After the partic… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Herzog, Leah
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Evaluating Variables that Influence Research Staff Performance

Description: Performance analysis, based on operant analysis of behavior, has been utilized since the 1960s to investigate behavioral skills or deficits in the workplace. One type of analytical tool is Carr et al.'s Performance Diagnostic Checklist- Human Services (PDC-HS). This functional assessment allows investigators to pinpoint causes of performance issues (e.g., a training issue, task clarification/prompting, insufficient resources/materials/processes, or performance consequences/effort/competition). … more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Rodriguez, Ana
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Influences of a Topographically and Functionally Unrelated Operant on Response Allocation under Concurrent Continuous Reinforcement Schedules

Description: In the experimental analysis of behavior, response allocation is typically studied under concurrent interval schedules, with two response alternatives, in a static environment. The natural environment of the unfettered organism, however, is dynamic insofar as even frequently visited environments are rarely identical from encounter to encounter. Additionally, natural environments usually offer more than two concurrently available behaviors that are often scheduled for reinforcement contingent on… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Davidson, Alex J
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Selecting Variability in Interlocking Behavioral Contingencies

Description: The current study explored how the variability or lack thereof in interlocking behavioral contingencies (IBC) may be brought under contextual control. Four undergraduates (two dyads) students participated in the current study. Dyads were instructed to play a game on a computer screen with the goal to earn as many "Congratulations" as possible. An ABABAB reversal design was used. A Lag 1 schedule of cultural consequence delivery for IBC topography was set in the variability (VAR) condition. Duri… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Urbina, Tomas, III
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Cultivating Liberation: The Effects of Collective Shaping on Context and Power Dynamics within Social Justice Narratives

Description: Social issues are becoming increasingly apparent. More people are experiencing the impact of social issues directly and through their media consumption. It is important to understand and reflect on our collective impact on the media and how the media affects the collective. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a collaborative workshop (collective shaping) and a verbal community that examined media depictions of social justice and injustice related to context and power… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Morris, Gabrielle N.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Cultivating Liberation within a Verbal Community: Evaluating the Effects of Collective Shaping on Written Narratives and Reflective Statements about Social Issues

Description: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects that a training workshop and collective shaping had on the reflective statements and feeling and emotion labels in a written response to videos relating to social issues. The workshop included a presentation interspersed with videos to help practice dialoguing and guide discussion toward generating discourse for social change. The effects of the workshop were evaluated using a single subject A – B design with multiple probe measures across t… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Perez Glendon, Emily L
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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An Evaluation of Effects of Collective Shaping on Perspective Taking and Social Empathy Statements Related to Social Justice

Description: Prejudice establishes coercive contingencies that restrict human rights and diminish quality of life. Social media has made the oppression experienced by individuals more apparent. Perspective taking and empathy can change prejudicial behavior by fostering relationships and encouraging self-identification with those who are different from ourselves. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a guided collective shaping program on the occurrence of perspective taking and emp… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Love, Alexandra K
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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An Exploration of Cooperation during an Asymmetric Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Game

Description: Researchers investigated how the contingent delivery of a cultural consequence on target culturants in an asymmetric iterated prisoner's dilemma game (IPDG) affected players' choices. The asymmetric IPDG creates an analogue to income disparities created by wage gaps and other cultural practices that create wealth inequalities between different members of the population and allows researchers to explore how these inequalities affect cooperation between players. Six undergraduate students divided… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Lopez, Carlos Ramiro
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

An In-Depth Look at Community Gardens: Practices that Support Community Garden Longevity

Description: Current food production methods in the United States contribute to environmental degradation as well as food insecurity. Food production by means of community gardens has the potential to reduce the deleterious effects of current production methods. However, many community gardens face challenges that hinder their longevity, thereby reducing the likelihood of the support they might provide for environmentally sustainable food production and decreased food insecurity for community members. A beh… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Cran, Stephanie
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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