Um procedimento para medir o estabelecimento de controle de estímulos em uma discriminação simples, baseado em Touchette (1971)

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2005

RESUMO

ABSTRACT Behavior analysts interpret attention as a case of operant stimulus control. Therefore the study of the variables and procedures that promote discrimination are taken as important if one is interested in attention. This interpretation guide many experimental studies on discrimination where experimental concern was the implementation of effective procedures for the establishment of discriminations and the implementation of procedures that showed how and when given stimuli or stimuli dimensions became controlling variables of the discriminative response. The present experiment tested the viability of a procedure that established a series of simple discriminations without errors and that at the same time showed the moment of stimulus control transfer and the kind of control (by S+ and/ or S-) established during training. Six children ages 4 to 5 years with typical development participated in the study. Participants worked in computer equipped with a software that controlled the experimental events and recorded the participants behavior of interest, as well as other events. The experimental response was to click with the computer mouse at one of two stimuli presented at the computer screen. Initially, a discrimination between two colors (one of them assigned as S+ and the other as S-) was established through differential reinforcement. In the 3 following phases 3 new discrimination pairs (of arbitrary unknown stimuli) were trained, using a procedure of delayed cue, where the cue were the colors (as the background) already established as S+ and S-. The colors were presented as the background of the stimulus pair at each trial and after ach correct trial the time delay for the color presentation was increased, until the child responded systematically to the new S+ stimulus alone. Each training of a new discrimination as followed by a test of the control exerted by the S+ and the S-. In each test in extinction the trained S+ was presented with a new stimulus, or the S- was presented with another new stimulus. Each pair of stimulus was presented 3 times. Results showed that for 4 of the 6 subjects the delayed cue procedure lead to discriminations without errors. The test results suggest that 4 of the 6 subjects emitted discriminative responses under the joint control of S+ and S- and one of them seemed to respond under the exclusive control of the S+. Results are discussed in terms of the effectiveness of the procedure employed.

ASSUNTO(S)

psicologia experimental controle de estímulos attention stimulus control atenção stimulus transfer análise do comportamento discriminação discrimination

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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