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In one experiment, pigeons were taught to discriminate airflow by having availability of reinforcement signalled by its presence and extinction signalled by its absence. After they reached criterion, some were trained on a discrimination reversal. Others were trained on an intradimensional discrimination with a low airflow velocity associated with reinforcement and a higher airflow velocity associated with extinction. All discriminations were learned rapidly, indicating that airflow velocity can function as a discriminative stimulus. In the second and third experiments, naive pigeons were trained to discriminate the presence of a compound stimulus (one of three tonal intensities paired with one of three airflow velocities) from its absence. These pigeons were subsequently given a component stimulus test during extinction on four stimulus values; the two training values, the tone alone, and the airflow alone. High or moderate velocity airflow controlled more responding than any of the three tone intensities. However, low velocity airflow controlled more responding only when a low intensity tone was employed.

A group of mildly retarded adolescents with high rates of antisocial behavior was exposed to two parameters of timeout and response cost within the context of a programmed environment. For five of the six subjects, the two higher values (30 tokens response cost or 30 min timeout) were significantly more suppressive than the lower values (five tokens or 5 min). For the one remaining subject, there was a strong relationship in the opposite direction. Also, the timeout and response cost of higher value became increasingly more suppressive over time, whereas those of lower value did not. There were few appreciable differences between the timeout and response cost of similar magnitude. A discussion of these results is presented in support of the notion that the functional aversiveness of timeouts (and response costs) appears to be critically dependent upon interactions with the environmental conditions in which they are implemented and the reinforcement histories of the subjects.

One‐ and two‐way analysis‐of‐variance procedures are shown logically to be appropriate for testing hypotheses in successive treatment reversal designs for one‐subject and N‐subject experiments, respectively. The applicability of these designs is demonstrated through analyses of typical data.

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The procedures of manipulating consequent events were applied to the problems of teaching composition in a fifth‐grade remedial classroom. Three objective aspects of composition, total number of words, number of different words, and number of new words, were selected for manipulation and reinforcement contingencies were sequentially applied to these components. The writing output of all subjects was greatly increased.

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This study describes techniques for attaching transducers directly to the tools in a sheltered workshop. The resulting automatic recordings of tool usage correlate fairly highly with independent measures of work products completed.

The key pecking of pigeons was reinforced according to a fixed‐interval schedule of reinforcement. The pigeons were also given the opportunity to attack a restrained target pigeon. The attack rates during the sessions of fixed‐interval reinforcement were higher than during the operant level sessions in four of the five pigeons. Most attack occurred during the post‐reinforcement pause in key pecking. It was suggested that a fixed‐interval schedule of positive reinforcement possesses aversive properties, the most aversive of which are located during the post‐reinforcement pause.

Response‐independent pairings of a tone and a brief shock were superimposed on uncued avoidance responding in four groups of rhesus monkeys. For one group, tone presentations were immediately followed by an unavoidable electric shock; for the remaining groups, gaps of 5, 20, and 80 sec intervened between tone termination and shock delivery. These temporal values subsume paradigms usually treated as discrete procedures; the conditioned emotional response procedure (0‐sec gap between tone and shock), trace procedure (5‐sec gap) and safety‐signal training (80‐sec gap). Within each group, tone durations of 10, 20, 40, and 80 sec were examined. A response pattern marked by maximum response rate in the initial 5 sec of the tone followed by deceleration before shock was observed when shock immediately followed the tone, but not when gaps were interposed between the tone and shock. Response rates in the first 5 sec of the tone were a function of both tone duration and duration of the gap. When the gap was 0 to 5 sec, initial response rates were highest in longer duration tones; this relationship between tone duration and initial tone response rate was not observed for longer gaps.