Joseph J. Pear

A social constructivist approach to computer-mediated instruction

A computer-mediated teaching system, called computer-aided personalized system of instruction (CAPSI), has been developed that incorporates a social constructivist approach. This educational philosophy maintains that human learning occurs primarily through a socially interactive process. In CAPSI, course material is divided into study units, and the instructor prepares study questions on each unit. The study questions require verbally composed answers. In addition, the study questions in CAPSI often do not specify any one correct answer; instead the quality of the answer depends on how well it is argued as judged by the feedback it evokes from others. All students receive feedback on their performance from more advanced students. In addition, the more advanced students learn from the answers of the less advanced students. Data presented in this report show that, consistent with social constructivism, students in a CAPSI-taught course receive and give a large amount of substantive feedback.

Lever attacking by rats during free-operant avoidance.

Rats pressed a lever to avoid shock on a free-operant avoidance schedule. Some subjects were also exposed to extinction in which the response-shock contingency was eliminated while the shock-shock contingency remained in effect. A specially constructed lever was used that registered not only presses, but also biting attacks on the lever. Throughout various phases of the study, shocks often elicited lever biting as well as post-shock responding. The results suggested that shock-elicited attacks that are forceful enough to activate the operandum might account for some of the responding that occurs in experiments on free-operant avoidance behavior. In particular, shock-elicited operandum attacking might account for post-shock response bursting during free-operant avoidance and the extreme persistence of responding sometimes noted when shocks are delivered during the extinction of avoidance behavior. To the extent that this is true, these phenomena should not be characterized as operant behavior in interpreting the results of experiments on free operant avoidance.

Effects of prior response-contingent reinforcement on superstitious behavior

Three pigeons were exposed to fixed-time (FT) 15 sec, fixed-interval (FI) 15 sec for performing an arbitrary response, a reversal back to FT 15 sec, and then extinction (no reinforcement). During each phase, a computer-controlled tracking system continuously recorded the position of the bird’s head as it moved freely in the experimental chamber. During the first exposure to FT 15 sec, all 3 birds developed a pattern of feeder-wall-directed behavior with occasional circular excursions from the feeder immediately following reinforcement. During FI 15 sec, all birds performed the arbitrary operant, which consisted of contacting a virtual target sphere near the rear of the chamber, and did not engage in feeder-wall-directed behavior. During the reversal back to FT 15 sec, the birds developed a behavior sequence consisting of moving in the direction of the target sphere after reinforcement, followed by feeder-wall-directed behavior prior to the next reinforcement. During extinction, either moves toward the target sphere or wall-directed behavior occurred separately, interspersed with reappearance of the two as a sequence, followed by cessation of both members of the behavior sequence. These findings indicate that prior reinforcement of an arbitrary response can affect the location and form of superstitious behavior that develops near the beginning of the interreinforcement interval, but that other factors (e.g., immediacy of reinforcement) affect the location and form of the behavior near the end of the interval. The findings can be interpreted in the context of superstitious chaining.

On Cognitive and Behavioral Orientations to the Language of Behavior Analysis: Why be Concerned Over the Differences?

These papers were presented in a symposium held at the annual convention of the Association of Behavior Analysis, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 30, 1982. Dr. Moore was the chair of the symposium and assisted in the editorial preparation of the papers for the journal; Drs. Wasserman, Marr, and Pear were invited participants; Dr. Schnaitter served as the discussant. The chair extends his gratitude to the participants and discussant for their scholarly contributions to the symposium, and to the editor of the journal for his encouragement.

Signal classification through multifractal analysis and complex domain neural networks

This paper describes a system capable of classifying stochastic self-affine nonstationary signals produced by nonlinear systems. The classification and the analysis of these signals are important because these are generated by many real-world processes. The first stage of the signal classification process entails the transformation of the signal into the multifractal dimension domain, through the computation of the variance fractal dimension trajectory (VFDT). Features can then be extracted from the VFDT using a Kohonen self-organizing feature map. The second stage involves the use of a complex domain neural network and a probabilistic neural network to determine the class of a signal based on these extracted features. The results of this paper show that these techniques can be successful in creating a classification system which can obtain correct classification rates of about 87% when performing classification of such signals without knowing the number of classes.

A comparison of the effects of interspersal and concurrent training sequences on acquisition, retention, and generalization of picture names

A comparison was made between an interspersal and a concurrent procedure in teaching picture names to three mentally handicapped children. During the interspersal procedure a picture thats name was being trained was alternated with pictures already known; during the concurrent procedure a picture thats name was being trained was alternated with other pictures thats names were unknown. An ABA design with counterbalancing (BAB) was used. The children learned naming responses more rapidly when trained by the interspersal procedure than by the concurrent procedure. Weekly retention tests on pictures learned to criterion during the week showed no consistent difference between the two procedures in percentage of learned picture names retained. Weekly generalization tests showed that picture names that were retained in both conditions tended to generalize equally to a different setting and tester, and to the objects depicted in the pictures.

Performance measures in courses using computer-aided personalized system of instruction

Archived data from four courses taught with computer-aided personalized system of instruction (CAPSI) - an online, self-paced, instructional program - were used to explore the relationship between objectively rescored final exam grades, peer reviewing, and progress rate - i.e., the rate at which students completed unit tests. There was a strong positive correlation (r=.68, p<.01) between rate of progress and the amount of peer reviewing students did. This was predictable because peer reviewers had to be further along in the course than the students whose unit tests they reviewed. Students who completed all the units tended to obtain higher final exam scores than those who did not. For students who completed all the units there was little difference between the final exam performance of those who had a high progress rate and those who had a low progress rate. Considering all students together there was a moderate correlation between progress rate and final exam performance (r=.36, p<.01). In addition, there was a moderate positive correlation (r=.33, p<.01) between the amount of peer reviewing students did and their performance on the final exam. This correlation was substantially reduced (r=.13, p<.20) when rate of progress was partialed out. Thus, overall, students who progressed more rapidly through the course did more peer reviewing and learned more as measured by final exam performance. Interestingly, there were students who showed good learning without much participation in course related behaviors such as completing unit tests and peer reviewing. It is concluded that the CAPSI instructional program provides a good learning environment for students who utilize its components but it also accommodates other learning styles. In addition, there may be a distinction between students who complete all assigned units and those who do not regardless of their tendencies to procrastinate.

Self-imposed time-out by autistic children during an operant training program

Two autistic boys, Garry and Peter, each received training on a verbal and a printing task. Correct responses were reinforced with tokens exchangeable for popcorn on a 5/1 ratio. When E allowed Garry voluntarily to impose 30-sec time-outs from the training tasks, Garry did so but was attentive during the remainder of the session time. When E discontinued the 30-sec time-outs, Garrys inattentiveness increased. A return to the time-out condition led to a reinstatement of Garrys voluntary time-outs and a decrease in his inattentiveness. Peter did not impose time-outs when the token/reinforcer ratio was 5/1. Gradually increasing the ratio to 65/1 still did not cause Peter to touch the time-out bar, but it did cause an increase in Peters inattentiveness. Replicating the increasing ratio replicated its relationship to Peters inattentiveness.

Stereotypy of spatial movements during noncontingent and contingent reinforcement

The degree of stereotypy in the movement patterns of 3 pigeons during noncontingent and contingent periodic food reinforcement was quantified by analyzing the distribution of turning angles, and by using information and Fourier analyses. The results indicated that (1) movement patterns were less stereotyped during noncontingent than during contingent reinforcement, (2) a reversal to noncontingent reinforcement resulted in a degree of stereotypy comparable to that during the first phase of noncontingent reinforcement, (3) movement patterns were maximally stereotyped immediately after food withdrawal and generally became less stereotyped as reinforcement approached, regardless of whether reinforcement was noncontingent or contingent, and (4) higher frequency movements generally accounted for more variance in the movements during contingent than during noncontingent reinforcement. Greater stereotypy in the movements during contingent reinforcement was likely due to a greater probability that similar movements were reinforced during contingent reinforcement. Momentary changes in the stereotypy of the movements within the interfood interval might reflect changes in the level of arousal.

Three-dimensional spatiotemporal imaging of movement patterns: Another step toward analyzing the continuity of behavior

Computer-aided spatiotemporal imaging techniques, like those that are proving to be important in many other scientific fields, are being used to represent and study movement patterns of animals exposed to basic reinforcement contingencies. Data from a video-tracking system that provides real-time tracking of the position of an experimental animal as it moves about in a three-dimensional space can be plotted in up to three dimensions. When the data are plotted in two spatial dimensions and the time dimension, behavior is captured as continuous patterns or structures in space-time. Spatiotemporal imaging of movement patterns permits regularities to be observed that are not seen as readily in other ways such as watching videotapes of the experimental sessions or simply examining rate of responding. By providing a concise spatiotemporal representation of the movement patterns that occurred in a given experimental preparation, the imaging techniques described here represent an advancement in the scientific study of continuously flowing behavior. Although we concentrate here on movement patterns produced by basic reinforcement contingencies, the spatiotemporal imaging technology is applicable to any research topic in which movement patterns are of interest, such as foraging, place learning, sign language, and limb movement.