| Abstrakt: |
The purpose of this study was to examine whether distorted music stimuli would affect the demonstrated reinforcing effect of undistorted music stimuli on the acquisition of eye contact in a severely retarded, institutionalized individual. An ABACAB reversal design was employed. Sessions were typically conducted 5 days per week, one session per day. Each session consisted of 20 eye contact training trials. Data consisted of the number of trials the subject made eye contact with the therapist. After Baseline (A), Treatment B (Normal Music) consisted of 10 seconds of normal music stimuli each time the subject made eye contact with the therapist. Treatment C (Normal Plus Distorted Music) consisted of 10 seconds of normal music stimuli each time the subject made eye contact with the therapist, and 10 seconds of distorted music stimuli each time he failed to make eye contact. The subject was praised for eye contact in all conditions. The results of this study indicated that normal music stimuli constituted an effective positive reinforcer for the acquisition of eye contact. There was no apparent difference in the mean number of positive responses obtained during Treatment B and Treatment C phases, suggesting that distortion was not discriminated. Therefore, distorted music stimuli were not functional in producing a change in the subject's behavior. It is not clear whether the distorted music functioned as a neutral stimulus, although it did not act to raise or lower inappropriate responses within the constraints of the experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
