Antecedent Variables

(1)

Antecedent

Variables

(2)

Teacher I:

Module 9

(3)

Chapter 16- Motivating Operations Chapter 17-

Stimulus Control

(4)

Chapter 16:

Motivating Operations

(5)

Cooper, Heron, and Heward

Applied Behavior Analysis, Second Edition

Motivating Operations

• Establishing Operations (EO)

• Keller & Schoenfeld (1950)

• Drive concept: relation between environmental variables

• Reintroduced (Michael 1982): any environmental variable that:

• Alters the effectiveness of some object or event as a reinforcer

• Alters the current frequency of all behavior that has been

reinforced by that stimulus, object, or event

(6)

Motivating Operations

• EO commonly used applied behavior analysis

• Motivating Operation (MO) suggested to replace term EO along with the terms:

• Value altering

• Behavior altering

Describe the defining effects in

the original definition of EO

(7)

Value-altering Effects

• Value-altering effects:

• An increase in the reinforcing effectiveness of some stimulus, object, or event

• MO = EO

• A decrease in reinforcing effectiveness of some stimulus, object, or event

• MO = abolishing operation (AO)

(8)

Behavior-altering Effects

• Behavior-altering effects:

• Evocative effect

• Increase in the current frequency of behavior that has been reinforced by some stimulus, object, or event

• Abative effect

• Decrease in the current frequency of behavior that has been

reinforced by some stimulus, object, or event

(9)

Behavior-altering Effects

• Direct and indirect effects

• Frequency of behavior result of:

• Direct evocative or abative effect of the MO on response frequency

• Indirect effect on the evocative or abative strength of relevant S ^D ’s

• Value-altering effects may also occur for

conditioned reinforcers conditioned MO’s

(10)

Behavior-altering effects

• Dimensions of behavior-altering effects

• Not limited to frequency

• Other examples:

• Response magnitude

• Response latency

• Relative frequency

(11)

Motivating Operations

• Behavior-altering effects should not be interpreted as a result of the organism encountering more or less effective forms of reinforcement

• Strong relating exists between MO level & responding in extinction

• MO should evoke the behavior even if it is not at

first successful

(12)

Motivating Operations

• Behavior-altering effects

• Operate on the current frequency of the behavior

• Antecedent variables (i.e. MO’s, S ^D ’s )

• Can evoke or abate responses, but not alter them

• Function-altering effects

• Operate on the future frequency of the behavior

• Consequence variables (i.e. reinforcers, punishers,

extinction procedure, recovery from punishment

procedure)

(13)

Motivating Operations

• Antecedent variables

• MO’s and S ^D ’s

• Alter the current frequency of the behavior

• Operant variables

• Control response frequency due to their relation to reinforcing or punishing

consequences

(14)

Antecedent Variables

• S ^D

• Related to the differential availability of a currently effective form of reinforcement for a particular type of behavior

• MO

• Related to the differential reinforcing effectiveness

of a particular type of environmental event

(15)

Motivating Operations

• Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMO’s)

• Value-altering motivating effects that are unlearned

• Conditioned Motivating Operations (CMO’s)

• Value-altering motivating effects that are a function of

a learning history

(16)

Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMO’s)

• UMO’s for humans:

• Deprivation and satiation UMO’s

• UMO’s relevant to sexual reinforcement

• Temperature changes

• Painful stimulation

(17)

Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMO’s)

• Deprivation and satiation UMO’s

• Deprivation of food, water, oxygen, activity, & sleep = reinforcer-establishing & evocative effects

• Ingestion of food and water, oxygen intake, engaging in

activity, & sleeping = reinforcer-abolishing & abative

effects

(18)

Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMO’s)

• UMO’s relevant to sexual reinforcement

• Learning plays a strong role in the determination of sexual behavior (different from nonhuman mammals), difficult to determine what is unlearned

• For humans organisms:

• Role of hormones & chemical attractants in unclear

• Tactile stimulation of erogenous body areas

• Passage of time since last sexual activity – establishing &

evocative effects

• Sexual orgasm – abolishing & abative effects

(19)

Unconditioned Motivating Operations

(UMO’s) – Temperature Changes

(20)

Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMO’s)

• Painful Stimulation

• Increase establishes pain reduction as reinforcer & evokes escape behavior

• Decrease abolishes effectiveness of pain reduction as a reinforcer & abates behavior that has been reinforced by pain reduction

• Evokes aggressive behavior toward another organism when in the presence

of that organism

(21)

Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMO’s)

• Important considerations:

• Individuals do not have “understand” anything for an MO to have value- altering & behavior-altering effects

• Relevant MO must be in effect in future circumstances if behavior is to occur

(22)

Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMO’s)

• Weakening effects of an EO may be necessary

• Reinforcer-establishing & evocative effects of UMO’s can be temporarily weakened

• Reinfocer-abolishing operations

• Abative operations

• Cannot permanently weaken value-altering effects of UMO’s

• Behavior-altering effects are based on history of

reinforcement

(23)

Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMO’s)

• UMO’s for Punishment

• Value-altering effect does not depend on a learning history

• Most punishers affecting humans are conditioned – involves a learning history

• UMO-CMO relation

• Same MO’s for reinforcers as conditioned punishers

• Reinforcer must be effective if deprivation or removal will

function as a punisher

(24)

Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMO’s)

• Behavior-altering effects are more complex in observing a punishment effect than a reinforcement effect

• Must consider the status of the variable responsible for the occurrence of the punished behavior

• Complex behavioral relations

(25)

Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMO’s)

• Environmental events will have both

• Behavior-altering effects on current frequency of the behavior

• Function-altering effects (as consequences) on future frequency of the

behavior that preceded the onset of the event

(26)

Conditioned Motivating Operations (CMO’s)

• Motivating variables that alter the reinforcing effectiveness of other stimuli, objects, or events, only as a result of the organism’s learning history

• Alter the momentary frequency of all behavior that has been

reinforced by those other events (like UMO’s)

(27)

Conditioned Motivating Operations (CMO’s)

• Three types of CMO’s

• Surrogate (CMO-S)

• Reflexive (CMO-R)

• Transitive (CMO-T)

• All are motivationally neutral stimuli prior to their relation with

another MO or to a form of reinforcement or punishment

(28)

Conditioned Motivating Operations (CMO’s)

• Surrogate CMO (CMO-S)

• Accomplishes what the MO it was paired with accomplishes

• Has the same value-altering and behavior altering effects as the MO it was paired with

• CMO-S

• Can be altered in its effects by through pairing and unpairing

(29)

Conditioned Motivating Operations (CMO’s)

• Reflexive CMO (CMO-R)

• Alters a relation to itself

• Acquires MO effectiveness by preceding some form of worsening or improvement

• CMO-R

• Exemplified by warning stimulus in a typical escape- avoidance procedure

• Establishes its own offset as reinforcement and evokes all

behavior that has accomplished that offset

(30)

Conditioned Motivating Operations (CMO’s)

• Transitive CMO (CMO-T)

• Makes something else effective as reinforcement because of its relation or association to the

unconditioned reinforcer

• Environmental variable that establishes or abolishes the reinforcing effectiveness of another stimulus and evokes or abated the behavior that has been reinforced by the other stimulus

• CMO-T

(31)

Conditioned Motivating Operations (CMO’s)

• Transitive CMO (CMO-T)

• All variables that function as UMO’s also function as

CMO-T for the stimuli that are conditioned reinforcers

because of their relation to the relevant unconditioned

reinforcer

(32)

Conditioned Motivating Operations (CMO’s)

• Transitive CMO (CMO-T)

• Often confused with S ^D

• Distinction between S ^D & CMO-T lies in the relation between reinforcer availability &

presence or absence of the stimulus

• S ^D : if reinforcer is more available in the presence than in the absence of the stimulus

• CMO-T: if reinforcer is just as available in the absence as in the presence of the stimulus

(33)

Conditioned Motivating Operations (CMO’s)

• Transitive CMO (CMO-T)

• Practical implications

• Utilization in language training

• Refinement of differences between S ^D & CMO-T

(34)

Chapter 17:

Stimulus Control

(35)

What is stimulus control?

• Stimulus control occurs when

• The rate, latency, duration, or amplitude of a response is altered

• In the presence of an antecedent stimulus

• Stimulus control is acquired when

• Responses are reinforced only in the presence of a specific stimulus

• Known as the discriminative stimulus (S ^D )

• And not in the presence of other stimuli

• Known as stimulus deltas (S ^Δ )

(36)

The Development of Stimulus Control

S ^D Response S ^R+

Telephone rings Pick up phone and say “hello”

Friendly

conversation

S ^Δ Response S ^O

(37)

Not to be confused with respondent conditioning

UCS Response

Meat powder Dog

salivates

Bell rings Dog

salivates

Response UCS

Neutral S

Meat powder

(38)

Not to be confused with respondent conditioning

CS Response

Bell rings Dog

salivates

Notice the absence of any consequence stimuli in this example.

Salivating is a respondent behavior.

(39)

Stimulus Control and Motivating Operations

• Similarities

• Both events occur before the behavior of interest

• Both events have evocative functions

• However, they are different!

(40)

Motivating Operations

• Remember, a motivating operation is something that changes the value of a stimulus as a reinforcer

• Establishing operation (EO) makes the reinforcer more valuable

• Abolishing operation (AO) makes the reinforcer less valuable

(41)

MOs and Stimulus Control

S ^D Response

Teacher 1 Student

displays aggression

Task break provided

S ^Δ

Teacher 2 Student

displays aggression

Task break withheld

Response

S ^R-

S ^O EO

Difficult Worksheet

EO

Difficult

Worksheet

(42)

Stimulus Generalization

• Occurs when stimuli that share similar physical characteristics with

the controlling stimulus evoke the same behavior as the controlling

stimulus

(43)

Stimulus Discrimination

• Occurs when new stimuli that are similar to the controlling stimulus

do not evoke the same response as the controlling stimulus

(44)

Stimulus Control and Stimulus Generalization are a Continuum

Stimulus Control

Stimulus

Generalization

(45)

Development of Stimulus Control

• Stimulus discrimination training

• Requires one behavior

• Two antecedent stimulus conditions (the S ^D and the S ^Δ )

• Responses that occur in the presence of the S ^D are reinforced (thus, the response increases in the

presence of the S ^D )

• Responses that occur in the presence of the S ^Δ are not reinforced (this, the response decreases in the

presence of the S ^Δ )

• Can also result in a lesser amount or quality of

reinforcement

(46)

The Development of Stimulus Control

S ^D Response S ^R+

Telephone rings Pick up phone and say “hello”

Friendly

conversation

S ^Δ Response S ^O

(47)

Concept Formation

• Not a hypothetical construct or mental process

• Complex example of stimulus control that requires

• Stimulus generalization within a class of stimuli

• Stimulus discrimination between classes of stimuli

(48)

Example: Concept of Red

• Stimulus generalization across all red objects

• Light red to dark red

• Different objects (car, ball, pencil)

• Stimulus discrimination between red and other colors

• Red ball vs. yellow ball

• Red dress vs. blue dress

(49)

Teaching Concepts

• Requires discrimination training

• Antecedent stimuli representative of a group of stimuli sharing a common relationship (examples) are presented, along with…

• Antecedent stimuli from other stimulus classes (nonexamples)

• So that the examples form a stimulus class

(50)

Types of Stimulus Classes

• Feature stimulus class

• Stimuli share common physical forms (i.e., topographical structures)

• Stimuli share common relative relationship (i.e., spatial arrangements)

• Developed through stimulus generalization

• Arbitrary stimulus class

• Do not share a common stimulus feature

• Limited number of stimuli

• Developed using stimulus equivalence

(51)

Stimulus Equivalence

• The emergence of accurate responding to

untrained and nonreinforced stimulus-stimulus

relations following the reinforcement of responses to some stimulus-stimulus relations

• Useful for teaching complex verbal relations

• Reading

• Language arts

• Mathematics

(52)

Testing for Stimulus Equivalence

• Must have a positive demonstration on 3 different behavioral tests that represent the following mathematical statement:

• If A = B, and

• B = C, then

• A = C

(53)

Tests for Stimulus Equivalence

• Reflexivity

• Occurs when in the absence of training and

reinforcement, a participant selects a stimulus that is matched to itself (A = A)

• Matching to sample

(54)

Tests for Stimulus Equivalence

• Symmetry

• Occurs with reversibility of the sample stimulus and the comparison stimulus (if A = B, then B = A)

Teach spoken word “bicycle” =

Present and participant matches to

spoken word “bicycle” (as opposed to “car” or “airplane”)

(55)

Tests for Stimulus Equivalence

• Transitivity

• Requires demonstration of three untrained stimulus- stimulus sequences

A = B relation (spoken name = picture)

“Bicycle” (spoken name presented)

(Child selects picture)

(56)

Tests for Stimulus Equivalence

• Transitivity

• Requires demonstration of three untrained stimulus- stimulus sequences

B = C relation (picture = written word)

(picture presented)

bicycle airplane car

(57)

Tests for Stimulus Equivalence

• Transitivity

• Requires demonstration of three untrained stimulus- stimulus sequences

A = C relation (spoken word = written word)

(spoken word presented)

(Child selects written word)

bicycle airplane car

“bicycle”

(58)

Matching-to-Sample

• Participant observes the sample stimulus

• The comparison stimuli are then presented

• Participant makes a selection response

• Matches are reinforced

• Nonmatches are not reinforced

(59)

Matching-to-Sample

• Conditional discrimination training

• Same selection must be correct with one conditional stimulus, but incorrect with one or more other sample stimuli

Sample

1 Sample 2

(60)

Factors Affecting Stimulus Control

• Consistent use of reinforcers contingent upon correct responding in the presence of the S ^D is critical

• Also important are:

• Pre-attending skills

• Stimulus salience

• Masking and overshadowing

(61)

Pre-attending

• A prerequisite skill for stimulus control

• Looking at instructional materials

• Looking at teacher when responses are modeled

• Listening to oral instructions

• Sitting quietly for short periods of time

• These may need to be taught before stimulus

control procedures are implemented

(62)

Stimulus Salience

• Prominence of the stimulus in the environment

• Increased saliency facilitates efficiency of instruction

(63)

Masking and Overshadowing

• Increase or decrease salience of stimuli

• Competing stimuli may block the evocative function of an S ^D

• To limit the negative effects of these:

• Rearrange the environment

• Make instructional stimuli more intense

• Consistently reinforce behavior in the presence of

instructionally-relevant stimuli

(64)

Using Prompts

• Supplementary antecedent stimuli used to

occasion a correct response in the presence of an S ^D (that will eventually control behavior)

• Response prompts operate directly on the response

• Stimulus prompts operate directly on the antecedent

task stimuli

(65)

Response Prompts

• Verbal instructions

• Vocal

• Non-vocal (e.g., written)

• Modeling

• A demonstration of the desired behavior

• Physical Guidance

• Partially physically guide the student’s movements

In tru si ve ne ss

in cr ea se

s

(66)

Stimulus Prompts

• Movement cues

• Pointing, tapping, touching, looking at

• Position cues

• Place one stimulus closer to the student

• Redundance

• Stimulus or response dimensions are paired with

correct choice

(67)

Transfer of Stimulus Control

• Prompts should be used only during acquisition

• Transfer stimulus control from prompt to naturally-existing stimuli

quickly using fading

(68)

Transferring from Response Prompts

• Most-to-least prompts

• Physically guide participant through entire performance

• Gradually reduce amount of physical assistance

• Modeling

• Verbal instruction

• Natural stimulus

(69)

Transferring from Response Prompts

• Graduated guidance

• Immediately fade physical prompts

• Follow participant closely with hands

• Gradually increase distance between hands and participant

(70)

Transferring from Response Prompts

• Least-to-most prompts

• Provide participant with an opportunity to perform the response with the least amount of assistance on each trial

• Participant receives greater degrees of assistance with each successive trial

without a correct response

(71)

Transferring from Response Prompts

• Time delay

• Varying the time interval between presentation of a natural stimulus and the presentation of a response prompt

• Constant time delay

• Begin with a 0-sec delay

• Then use a fixed delay (e.g., 3 sec)

• Progressive time delay

• Begin with a 0-sec delay

• Gradually and systematically increase delay (e.g., in 1-sec

intervals) according to some rule

(72)

Transferring from Stimulus Prompts

• Stimulus fading

• Highlighting a physical dimension of a stimulus and then gradually fading that exaggerated dimension

Antecedent Variables

Antecedent

Variables

Teacher I:

Module 9

Chapter 16- Motivating Operations Chapter 17-

Stimulus Control

Chapter 16:

Motivating Operations

Motivating Operations

• Establishing Operations (EO)

• Keller & Schoenfeld (1950)

• Drive concept: relation between environmental variables

• Reintroduced (Michael 1982): any environmental variable that:

• Alters the effectiveness of some object or event as a reinforcer

• Alters the current frequency of all behavior that has been

reinforced by that stimulus, object, or event

Motivating Operations

• EO commonly used applied behavior analysis

• Motivating Operation (MO) suggested to replace term EO along with the terms:

• Value altering

• Behavior altering

Describe the defining effects in

the original definition of EO

Value-altering Effects

• Value-altering effects:

• An increase in the reinforcing effectiveness of some stimulus, object, or event

• MO = EO

• A decrease in reinforcing effectiveness of some stimulus, object, or event

• MO = abolishing operation (AO)

Behavior-altering Effects

• Behavior-altering effects:

• Evocative effect

• Increase in the current frequency of behavior that has been reinforced by some stimulus, object, or event

• Abative effect

• Decrease in the current frequency of behavior that has been

reinforced by some stimulus, object, or event

Behavior-altering Effects

• Direct and indirect effects

• Frequency of behavior result of:

• Direct evocative or abative effect of the MO on response frequency

• Indirect effect on the evocative or abative strength of relevant S D ’s

• Value-altering effects may also occur for

conditioned reinforcers conditioned MO’s

Behavior-altering effects

• Dimensions of behavior-altering effects

• Not limited to frequency

• Other examples:

• Response magnitude

• Response latency

• Relative frequency

Motivating Operations

• Behavior-altering effects should not be interpreted as a result of the organism encountering more or less effective forms of reinforcement

• Strong relating exists between MO level & responding in extinction

• MO should evoke the behavior even if it is not at

first successful

Motivating Operations

• Behavior-altering effects

• Operate on the current frequency of the behavior

• Antecedent variables (i.e. MO’s, S D ’s )

• Can evoke or abate responses, but not alter them

• Function-altering effects

• Operate on the future frequency of the behavior

• Consequence variables (i.e. reinforcers, punishers,

extinction procedure, recovery from punishment

procedure)

Motivating Operations

• Antecedent variables

• MO’s and S D ’s

• Alter the current frequency of the behavior

• Operant variables

• Control response frequency due to their relation to reinforcing or punishing

consequences

Antecedent Variables

• S D

• Related to the differential availability of a currently effective form of reinforcement for a particular type of behavior

• MO

• Related to the differential reinforcing effectiveness

of a particular type of environmental event

Motivating Operations

• Indirect effect on the evocative or abative strength of relevant S ^D ’s

• Antecedent variables (i.e. MO’s, S ^D ’s )

• MO’s and S ^D ’s

• S ^D