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Pigeons and rats were used in a yoked‐control design that equated the reinforcement distributions of differential‐reinforcement‐of‐low‐rate and variable‐interval schedules. Both a between‐subjects design and a within‐subjects design found response rate higher for the variable‐interval schedule than for the differential‐reinforcement‐of‐low‐rate schedule, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of the differential‐reinforcement‐of‐low‐rate contingency. The interresponse‐time distributions were unimodal for all subjects under the variable‐interval schedule and bimodal for pigeons under the differential‐reinforcement‐of‐low‐rate schedule. The interresponse‐time distributions for rats under the differential‐reinforcement‐of‐low‐rate schedule were also bimodal in three of four cases but the height of the modes at the shorter intenesponse times were small in both absolute value and in relation to the height of the modes at the shorter interresponse times of the pigeons' distributions.

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A series of experiments was carried out to compare several administrative systems at Achievement Place, a family style behavior modification program for pre‐delinquent boys. One aspect of the motivation system at Achievement Place was the token economy in which the youths could earn or lose points that could be exchanged for privileges. Several arrangements for assigning routine tasks and for providing token consequences for task performance were compared for their effectiveness in accomplishing the tasks and for their preference by the boys. The independent variables studied included: (1) individually assigned tasks versus group assigned tasks; (2) consequences for individual performance versus consequences for group performance; (3) a peer managership that could be earned by the highest bidder versus a peer managership that could be determined democratically by the peers. The results suggested that among those systems studied the system that best met the criteria of effectiveness and preference involved a democratically elected peer manager who had the authority both to give and to take away points for his peers' performances.

One of the goals of many treatment programs for pre‐delinquent youths is the development of the skills involved in the democratic decision‐making process. At Achievement Place, one aspect of the treatment program is a semi‐self‐government system whereby the seven pre‐delinquent youths can democratically establish many of their own rules of behavior, monitor their peers' behavior to detect violations of their rules, and conduct a “trial” to determine a rule violator's guilt or innocence, and to determine the consequences for a youth who violates a rule. Two experiments were carried out to determine the role of some of the procedures in the boys' participation in the self‐government system. Experiment I showed that more boys participated in the discussion of consequences for a rule violation when they had complete responsibility for setting the consequence during the trials than when the teaching‐parents set the consequence for each rule violation before the trial. An analysis of the rule violations in this experiment indicated that the boys in Achievement Place reported more of the rule violations that resulted in trials than reported by the teaching‐parents or school personnel. The boys reported rule violations that occurred in the community and school as well as at Achievement Place, including most of the serious rule violations that came to the attention of the teaching‐parents. In Experiment II, the results indicated that more trials were called when the teaching‐parents were responsible for calling trials on rule violations reported by the peers than when the boys were responsible for calling trials. When the youths earned points for calling trials the average number of trials per day increased, but more trivial rule violations were reported. These results suggest that aspects of the democratic decision‐making process in a small group of pre‐delinquents can be studied and variables that affect participation can be identified and evaluated.

In two independent parent training projects (Kansas and Mississippi), mothers of deviant young children were observed to follow almost all child behaviors with attention. The mothers were then trained to use differential attention procedures to increase their child's appropriate behaviors and to decrease deviant behaviors. Contrary to expectations, the differential attention procedure produced substantial increases in deviant behavior for four of the children. This adverse effect was maintained over many sessions and was replicated in single organism, reversal designs. A fifth child showed no change. A sixth child showed some improvement. However, this effect was not recovered in a second application of differential attention, and the child became worse. The results underline the importance of subject generality in applied behavior analysis and strongly suggest that service programs using operant techniques must carefully evaluate their effects on behavior.

Pigeons were trained under a schedule consisting of a number of fixed‐ratio 100 components followed by a single fixed‐ratio 10 component. The proportion of fixed‐ratio 100 to fixed‐ratio 10 components was varied according to several ascending and descending series within the range of 99:1 to 1:1. When this proportion was reduced to about 20:1 and below, the pause following each fixed‐ratio 100 gradually decreased in length. Primes, a burst of responses at the start of the fixed‐ratio 100 component, increased in frequency, and then decreased when the proportion became extremely low. Also, when the relative frequency of fixed‐ratio 10 components was very high, primes were seldom observed in the first fixed‐ratio 100 component following a fixed‐ratio 10 component, but were distributed evenly throughout the remaining fixed‐ratio 100 components.

A stuttering therapy program in which adult stutterers were hospitalized and treated in small groups (n = 4) under token economy conditions is described. The Token System reinforced reductions and penalized increases in stuttering during conversation. The therapy program was divided into three stages. Initially, subjects were treated by the token system, which was then integrated with a delayed auditory feedback schedule designed to instate and shape a prolonged speech pattern into normal fluent speech. Finally, subjects passed through a speech situation hierarchy while under token control conditions. Experiments conducted in the first two stages of treatment are described. The first‐stage experiments examined the design of the token system; the second‐stage experiment assessed the effect of a contingent punishment schedule integrated with the delayed auditory feedback procedure in order to shape rate of speaking as well as fluency.

Retarded subjects were taught generative pluralization rules concurrently in both the receptive and productive modalities of language. Receptive training established correct pointing to either one or a pair of objects, in response to a spoken singular or plural label of the object(s); productive training established correct spoken labels of one or a pair of objects presented visually. However, these pluralization rules were established in each modality only for a specific class of plurals: those ending in ‐s for one modality, those ending in ‐es for the other modality. This training was successful in establishing generative, or rule‐governed behaviors, such that untrained examples of singulars and plurals were usually responded to correctly. Nevertheless, despite this concurrent, generative behavior, probes revealed little generalization between modalities: three of four subjects did not generalize clearly from receptive training with one class of plurals to correct productive use of that class, nor did they generalize from productive training of the other class of plurals to correct receptive response to that class. The fourth subject, however, did show strong generalization of both these types. It was concluded that automatic generalization between receptive and productive language is not necessarily an inevitable result of language training in such subjects, and therefore may require explicit, if temporary, programming, such as by direct reinforcement.

Key pecks by six pigeons were reinforced on concurrent fixed‐interval fixed‐ratio schedules. The value of the fixed‐interval was held constant at 4 min while the fixed‐ratio varied from 25 to 450 responses. All of the pigeons responded on, with pecks reinforced under, both of the schedules over most of the concurrent pairings, and four of the six distributed responses between the schedules such that matching was obtained between the proportions of responses and reinforcements. Previous studies using concurrent variable‐interval schedules have shown that when response‐reinforcement matching occurs, a comparable match of time to reinforcement proportions is obtained. In the present study, time devoted to each response alternative was measured from the first response on that alternative to a subsequent response on the other alternative. Using that measure, large differences existed in the local rates of responding on the two schedules, and a time‐reinforcement match was not produced. These results indicate that in a situation where response‐reinforcement and time‐reinforcement matching are incompatible, the measurement of response proportions is the better means of evaluating the effects of reinforcement.