Three common and potentially errorless stimulus-control procedures are fading (Terrace, 1963a), superimposition (Terrace, 1963b), and stimulus shaping (Bijou, 1968 and Sidman and Stoddard, 1966). The successful use of these three procedures depends on the programmer’s choice of the right element of the stimulus to emphasize at any given time. Various experimenters have suggested effective methods for choosing the correct element. Bijou (1968) has argued that in the absence of research showing which of the many possible fading techniques should be used, the part of the stimulus containing “the cue essential to the discrimination” should be the one manipulated. Newman’s study with pigeons, reported by Baron (1965), indicated that one should eliminate any other cue in the stimulus that is not critical to the final discrimination, especially if that cue is higher in the organism’s attending hierarchy than the critical cue. In other words, there may be some cues in a stimulus complex that are more readily responded to (color as opposed to white lines, with pigeons for example), due to the nature of the organism or its past history. These cues, although readily responded to, nevertheless may not aid a final discrimination. If such a cue is within the initial stimulus complex, then the organism may attend to it and not to the critical cue.

This chapter illustrates many different ways to make the environment achieve the kind of behavior change which call conceptual development. It describes the strategies of behavior analysis and cognitive science. Behavior analysts define cognitive behavior in observable and measurable terms, then observe and measure it, and try to relate it to the environment in which it occurs or has occurred in the past. A cognitive orientation often explains that pattern of child behavior as "cognitively immature" and that pattern of teacher behavior as the natural result of being unable to teach the intended lessons. A behavior-analytic approach would not guess about internal unreadiness. It would instead observe that the way the child's behavior relates to the environment is a prescription for the child's not learning the skills offered. In B. F. Skinner's The Technology of Teaching, education is viewed as a technology emanating directly from the experimental analysis of behaviour.

These papers were presented at a symposium held at the 93rd annual convention of the American Psychological Association, August, 1985, Los Angeles, CA. The papers, in order, address the following topics: the history of operant research with human subjects with particular attention to the type and quantity of research conducted since the mid-1950s; interpretation versus experimentation in the experimental analysis of human behavior (EAHB) with particular emphasis on rule-governed behavior; the historical and current roles of children as subjects in operant research; the relation between basic laboratory research with humans and applied behavior analysis; and the need for future research concentrating on complex human behavior. Each of these papers is discussed in the final section of the proceedings.

To determine how stimulus control of eye orientation was established and how that process affected learning, an analysis of normal preschool children's eye orientations and pointing responses to each of two simultaneously presented stimuli (S+ and S-) was conducted. Using a probe design to test for acquisition, each subject was trained on two tasks. In one task, S+ (selections of this stimulus produced reinforcement) was held constant at the final criterion level while S- (selections of this stimulus never produced reinforcement) was manipulated using stimulus shaping procedures. The second task was programmed with the opposite method (S+ shaped while S- held constant). Results showed that more pointing response errors, more occurences of eye orientations, and longer durations of eye orientations characterized conditions where S+ was held constant and S- was shaped. The individual analysis of the eye orientation data indicated that differences in eye orientation to stimuli under the two programs were largely due to relatively higher frequency of orientation to the S- stimulus under program condtions that shaped S- and held S+ constant.

The need for developing a technology of teaching that equals the current sophistication of microcomputer technology is addressed. The importance of utilizing principles of learning and behavior analysis in the development of such a technology is emphasized. The potential role that stimulus control and precise error analysis have in educational program development as well as in the prescription of specific learning sequences for children is provided.

Stimulus overselectivity, previously described as restricted stimulus control, was examined in preschool children. Twenty-seven subjects, after being trained to respond to a two-component auditory stimulus (S+) and not to respond to a different two-component auditory stimulus (S−), were tested to determine which stimulus elements of the complexes exerted control. Subjects that met the operational definition of overselectivity were found to have exhibited a hierarchy of stimulus control. What differentiated the subjects who would not be labeled “overselective” from those who would be was the placement of S+ and S− elements within the hierarchy, not that one type of subject had restricted stimulus control and another did not. The results indicate that the current conception of stimulus overselectivity may require revision. Treatment and research implications are discussed.

Different procedures have been used in the past to control the correspondence between verbal and its related nonverbal behavior. This study proposes a variant of these procedures for controlling that correspondence. This variant caIls for reinforcement contingent on related intermediate behaviors. Intermediate behaviors are those that occur between verbal behavior and its related nonverbal behavior. Ten preschool chiIdren ranging in age from 3 to 5 years, served as subjects. In this study, reinforcement was applied either to promises to engage in a certain activity later or to a series of intermediate behaviors specified for each of four preschoo1 activities. Consistently higher levels of correspondence occurred after reinforcement of intermediate behaviors in comparison to reinforcement of promises.

Procedures are delineated for assessing children's problem solving-skills to determine the stimuli that control responding during discrimination acquisition. Emphasis is placed upon: (a) requiring children to respond overtly rather than covertly during problem-solving; and (b) analyzing incorrect as well as correct responses in terms of their relationship with the various dimensions of the complex stimuli involved in the learning task. Examples of error analyses and complex stimulus analyses are presented. It is indicated that problem solving skills of children are now more frequently recorded as a result of a developing measurement technology that provides methods for determining if children are responding to the stimuli designated by the environment as corrent and, if not, to what other stimuli they respond. Information provided by such a learning-based assessment directly leads to the development of intervention techniques.

Children were trained on a visual discrimination by stimulus shaping, stimulus fading, or trial-and-error. Those who did not acquire the conditional discrimination received a second, different training. More children initially trained by stimulus shaping acquired the conditional discrimination than did those initially trained with stimulus fading or trial-and-error. After a history of fading or trial-and-error training, children were less likely to acquire the conditional discrimination even after the more successful procedure of shaping was later used.

A method for choosing effective teaching procedures for difficult-to-teach children is proposed. Assessment of child responses duringteaching that involves gradually increasing environmental support in the learning setting is the basis for choice. The levels of environmental support in which child responses are assessed are (1) trial-and-error procedures; (2) increased environmental support involving analyses of reinforcement systems, incompatible responses, and prerequisite skills, as well as the most effective use of instructional control; and (3) errorless-learning procedures. Effects of instructions upon learning are discussed in terms of instructional detail and pacing, as well as with respect to the role of instructions in feedback and progressively delayed cue procedures. Stimulus shaping and stimulus fading are discussed in terms of the effectiveness of each for teaching children who have difficulty learning with more traditional procedures. The importance of the incorporation of criterion-related cues when utilizing stimulus shaping or fading is emphasized. It is proposed that an assessment of child responses should be made with respect to the three general levels of environmental support, as well as from sublevels within these, in order to choose the simplest but still effective alternative procedure for teaching difficult-to-teach children.