Arthur W. Staats

Evaluative meaning words as reinforcing stimuli

An experiment was conducted to test the possibility that evaluative (affective) meaning words will serve as reinforcing stimuli. Words previously rated by other Ss as having either positive, neutral, or negative evaluative meaning were presented contingent upon a motor response. Response-contingent positive evaluative meaning words strengthened the motor response, negative evaluative meaning words decreased the strength of the response, and neutral words had an intermediate effect.

Operant Conditioning of Serially Ordered Verbal Responses

Abstract : This study investigated the possibility that the existence of serially-ordered word associations is a variable underlying the formation of a word class; that is, words which are related in a serial order should be strengthened in a situation if the individual responses making up the chain are reinforced. The effect of reinforcement for emitting serially-ordered responses was studied under four treatment conditions, a serial, an alternating, a random, and a control (nonchained) order of presentation. Results indicated that the conditioning was greatest for the serial order of presentation, and declined in a significantly linear fashion as the order of presentation moved systematically from a serial to a random order. No effect was obtained where Ss had not learned the nonsense words as serially-related responses. The number of individual Ss who exceeded chance results, and the percentage of aware Ss within each group, also decreased as the conditions became more unlike the serial order of presentation. Thus word responses that are serially-associated would be expected to operantly condition as a response class. (Author)

Operant conditioning of a class of word associates.

Abstract : The 25 most common word associates to the word MUSIC were presented, one at a time, to a group of Ss, each MUSIC associate being paired with two control words. Ss were instructed to say aloud one of the words on each card. Experimental Ss were reinforced each time they emitted one of the word associates to MUSIC; none of the responses of control Ss were reinforced. The results indicated that the associates to the word MUSIC constitute a response class, i.e., reinforcing certain of these associates increases the probability of further associates occurring. A tentative S-R analysis of this phenomenon was suggested in terms of complex interassociations among these word associates. (Author)