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This study investigated the effects of candy reinforcement on I.Q. test scores in first and second graders of above‐average intelligence. Thirty‐six subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups and either given candy contingent on correct responses, noncontingently, or not given candy. After measuring all subjects on Form L of the revised Stanford Binet, each subject in the contingent group was given an M & M immediately following each correct answer on Form M, while a yoked‐comparison subject received the same number of M & M's before responding to a question and therefore without regard to correctness of answers. It was expected that both types of candy administration would produce higher I.Q. change scores than the no‐candy control group, but there were no statistically significant differences among the three treatments. The differences between the first and second test scores were 4.17 (contingent), 4.67 (noncontingent), and 1.00 (no reinforcement). Reasons for this failure to replicate previous findings were discussed.

The present study explored the effects of different reinforcement conditions on the number of correct responses on the Raven Progressive Matrices. Four groups of 11‐ to 18‐year‐old multihandicapped deaf children matched on the basis of mean age and pretest scores were used. The groups were randomly assigned to any of four posttest conditions: end‐of‐session reinforcement, noncontingent reinforcement, delayed reinforcement, and immediate reinforcement. The mean posttest score of subjects tested under the immediate‐reinforcement condition was significantly higher than that of any other group. No significant differences were observed between the mean posttest scores of the three other groups. The practical implications of using reinforcement procedures for testing purposes are discussed.

Two male, albino rats were trained on a two‐valued, self‐paced, discrete‐trials auditory discrimination. In the presence of a high‐intensity stimulus (90 decibels SPL, 4 kiloHertz), response A was reinforced; in the presence of a low‐intensity stimulus (50 decibels SPL, 4 kiloHertz), response B was reinforced. When discrimination performance was asymptotic, stimuli intermediate in intensity were presented with the training stimuli in a maintained generalization paradigm. Generalization gradients were derived from the relative frequencies of response A in the presence of each stimulus. A relative frequency of 0.50 was then determined and used as the bisection point of the intensity interval defined by the 90‐ and 50‐decibel stimuli. The bisection point varied with the distribution of the stimuli presented in generalization. This effect was similar to context effects seen in human psychophysics.

The impact of applied behavior analysis on various disciplines and areas of research was assessed through two major analyses. First, the relationship of applied behavior analysis to the general area of “behavior modification” was evaluated by examining the citation characteristics of journal articles in JABA and three other behavior‐modification journals. Second, the penetration of applied behavior analysis into diverse areas and disciplines, including behavior modification, psychiatry, clinical psychology, education, special education, retardation, speech and hearing, counselling, and law enforcement and correction was assessed. Twenty‐five journals representing diverse research areas were evaluated from 1968 to 1974 to assess the extent to which operant techniques were applied for therapeutic, rehabilitative, and educative purposes and the degree to which methodological desiderata of applied behavior analysis were met. The analyses revealed diverse publication outlets for applied behavior analysis in various disciplines.

Unobtrusively marked items of litter were placed among existing trash on the grounds of a federal youth correctional facility. Inmates voluntarily collected trash and deposited it at a central location, where they were given money or special privileges for each piece of marked litter found. A multiple‐baseline design with litter counts in three areas revealed successive reductions of 55%, 88%, and 71% after 17, 22, and 36 days of baseline, respectively. A fourth area served as a baseline‐only control, and revealed no systematic changes. Advantages of the procedure over previously devised techniques were discussed and applications in other areas of pollution control suggested.

The initial objective was to determine whether an increase in cooperative responses (minimal cooperation) was also accompanied by an increase in the degree of correspondence in the number of reinforcers of the two subjects (maximal cooperation). Correct matching‐to‐sample responses of seven pairs of male adolescents were reinforced with money. On each trial, a subject could (1) give the matching‐to‐sample problem to his coactor (give or cooperative responses), or (2) take the problem for himself (take responses). The first member of the pair to respond made the choice. Correspondence did increase under this procedure as compared to a baseline where problems were distributed randomly. However, the increased correspondence usually resulted from take responses rather than cooperative give responses. This equitable method of problem distribution, designated as sharing, was characterized by the subjects alternately taking problems. The spacing of daily sessions may have been partly responsible for the high degree of correspondence, because correspondence did not increase within the usual number of sessions when the sessions were massed, i.e., all in one day. Daily sessions require cooperative responses, i.e., each subject has to show up each day for the other to earn money, and this dependency upon the coactor's behavior may facilitate some sharing or cooperation to ensure the coactor's attendance.

Three experiments used similar methods to investigate the pigeon's perception of saturation of monochromatic lights. This trial‐wise procedure consisted of brief presentations of positive and negative stimuli in random sequence. Pecks to the positive stimuli were occasionally reinforced on a low fixed‐ratio schedule. The first study determined absolute thresholds for “white” and monochromatic lights by establishing a discrimination between lights of various radiances and a dark key. Experiment II investigated generalization from a white light to various monochromatic lights under conditions that minimized the use of luminance as a cue. The third experiment examined discrimination of various monochromatic lights along a colorimetric purity continuum; responses to white light were reinforced, while responses to lights that combined white and monochromatic lights in various proportions were not. The results indicated that lights of different wavelength differ in saturation, but that all are discriminable from white. Wavelengths between 550 and 600 nm are least saturated for the pigeon, and saturation increases markedly as wavelength decreases below this region of the spectrum.

The effect of food reinforcement schedules on the reinforcement value of drinking water was evaluated. Food‐deprived rats were exposed to concurrent, identical variable‐time schedules of food presentation, the food thus being delivered independently of the rats' behavior. When the relative amount of time spent in a schedule component stabilized, an opportunity to drink water was introduced into one schedule component. The value of the variable‐time schedules was varied from 60 to 90 to 270 sec. The relative amount of time spent in the schedule component associated with drinking water was a decreasing function of food frequency for two animals and remained constant for the third. Drinking rates were direct functions of food frequency, and the amount of water drunk per pellet was an inverse function of food frequency. The reinforcement value of drinking water, according to the Matching Law, was a direct function of the frequency of food presentation. It was concluded that food reinforcement schedules indirectly influence rates of drinking by altering the reinforcement value of drinking water and that certain properties of schedule‐induced drinking can be accounted for in terms of the reinforcement value of drinking water, the rate of drinking, and the frequency of food presentation.

Pigeons were trained to peck on a fixed‐interval schedule of food reinforcement and then exposed to three schedules in which there was either no, or an indirect, relation between pecking and food delivery: (a) a conjunctive schedule in which food was delivered at fixed intervals, providing at least one peck was emitted in the interval; (b) a recycling version of the conjunctive schedule that essentially eliminated occasional peck‐food contiguities (recycling conjunctive); (c) delivery of food at fixed intervals independently of the birds' behavior (fixed time). The rates and patterns of pecking sustained by these procedures depended on interfood interval and relative proximity of pecks to food.

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