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open access

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
open access

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
open access

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
open access

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
open access

The Effects of Instructions on Schedule Sensitivity

Description: There are many situations in which human performances appear insensitive to changing contingencies of reinforcement when compared to nonhuman operant performances. Explanations of these discrepancies have appealed to rule-governance and have provided some evidence that instructions produce these differences by restricting response alternatives as well as functioning as discriminative stimuli for other contingencies. In order to further evaluate these potential functions, a canonical study on ru… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Butcher, Grayson M
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries

A Functional Analysis of Sharing in Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Description: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate deficits in social behavior which may hinder them from engaging in social interactions. Results of descriptive analyses suggest that children who engage in prosocial behaviors, such as sharing, likely receive social positive reinforcement from peers in the form of attention. However, functional relations between prosocial behaviors, such as sharing, and their maintaining consequences have yet to be identified. Thus, the purpose of this… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Clubb, Courtney
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
open access

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

An Evaluation of Effectiveness and Efficiency of Matrix Training Permutations

Description: Recombinative generalization is a generative outcome that involves responding to novel stimulus combinations, and it can be facilitated through an instructional approach called matrix training. A learner's history with constituent stimuli and the arrangement of combination stimuli within the instructional matrix may affect the likelihood of recombinative generalization. To investigate this further, the current project assessed recombinative generalization with novel combinations of abstract sti… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Durham, Rebecca
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries

Toward an Experimental Analysis of a Competition between Dimensions of Cultural Consequences

Description: The exponential growth of the human population has contributed to the overuse and degradation of common pool resources. Using science as a tool for informed policy-making can improve the management of our common pool resources. Understanding the conditions that influence groups of individuals to make ethical self-controlled choices may help solve problems related to the overuse and degradation of common pool resources. Ethical self-control involves the conflict of choice between one that will b… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Guerrero, Maria Brenda
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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

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
open access

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
open access

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
open access

Equines Do Not Live for Grass Alone: Teaching Equines with Social Interaction

Description: Most horse training methods heavily rely on negative reinforcement and punishment. However, there is a movement in the horse community to utilize positive reinforcement to meet training goals. Although food has been used effective as a reinforcer with horses, social interaction has also been demonstrated to function as a positive reinforcer for animals. Utilizing social interaction as a reinforcer may lead to several benefits for both the trainer and animal. Some of the benefits can be improved… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Nishimuta, Maasa
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
open access

Encouraging Tolerance of and Cooperation with Dental/Medical Routines

Description: The participant is a 61-year-old woman, diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder and profound intellectual disability who was referred to a behavior-disorders clinic, to increase cooperation with routine dental procedures. I used a behavioral treatment package consisting of stimulus fading, differential reinforcement, and extinction to establish tolerance of, and cooperation with, routine dental procedures. Results showed that cooperative responding varied throughout the progression of tea… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Rawlings, Jordan
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
open access

What Comes Up? Analyzing Patterns of Resurgence using PORTL

Description: The term "resurgence" generally refers to the reappearance of certain behaviors during extinction. Different definitions describe these behaviors as previously reinforced, previously extinguished, or simply previously learned. At first glance, these definitions seem the same. And, researchers have not given much thought to the differences between them. However, these definitions could refer to different initial teaching procedures, and these differences may produce different results during exti… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Sumner, Sarah
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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