Foundational Knowledge Flashcards

A behavior analyst is working with a client who exhibits self-injurious behavior (SIB) maintained by automatic reinforcement. After conducting a functional analysis, the analyst implements a competing stimulus assessment. Which outcome would BEST indicate that a competing stimulus has been identified for use in treatment?

Answer: The client engages in the competing stimulus 80% of the time and SIB drops to near-zero levels during assessment sessions

A competing stimulus is considered effective when it competes successfully with the automatic reinforcement maintaining the SIB. High engagement with the stimulus (80%+) combined with near-zero SIB indicates the stimulus is providing sufficient competing reinforcement to suppress the self-injurious behavior — the core criterion from the competing stimulus assessment methodology developed by Piazza et al.

During a multiple baseline across behaviors design, a practitioner introduces the intervention to Behavior B before Behavior A shows a stable baseline trend. Which of the following BEST describes the primary threat to internal validity this creates?

Answer: Sequence effects confounding the demonstration of experimental control

In a multiple baseline design, the logic of experimental control depends on behaviors remaining stable until the intervention is sequentially introduced. Introducing the intervention to Behavior B before Behavior A's baseline is stable violates the staggered logic — if Behavior A also changes without intervention (due to carryover or the mere presence of intervention elsewhere), you cannot demonstrate that the intervention, not some other variable, caused the change. This is a sequence-effects confound, undermining the design's internal validity.

A client's token economy specifies that tokens are exchangeable for backup reinforcers on a fixed schedule. Over time, the tokens lose their conditioned reinforcing value. According to behavioral principles, which procedure is MOST likely responsible for this loss of value?

Answer: Repeated pairing of tokens with backup reinforcers that have become satiated

Conditioned reinforcers (tokens) derive their value through pairing with unconditioned or established reinforcers (backup reinforcers). If the backup reinforcers themselves have lost their reinforcing value due to satiation, the repeated pairing of tokens with now-weak backup reinforcers degrades the tokens' conditioned reinforcing value. This is the most direct behavioral mechanism — the conditioning chain weakens when the terminal reinforcer loses potency.

Which of the following scenarios BEST exemplifies the concept of 'behavioral contrast' as distinguished from an extinction burst?

Answer: A rat lever-presses at a higher rate in a stimulus context where reinforcement was never changed after reinforcement is eliminated in a second, alternating context

Behavioral contrast occurs when a change in reinforcement contingencies in one stimulus context produces an opposite change in response rate in a different context where contingencies have not changed. The classic example involves a multiple schedule: when reinforcement is reduced or eliminated in one component, responding increases in the unchanged component. An extinction burst, by contrast, is a temporary increase in the behavior being extinguished within the same context.

A behavior analyst is evaluating a client's verbal behavior. The client, upon seeing a glass of water, says 'water' and reaches for it. Later, when thirsty and a glass is absent, the client says 'water' and an adult provides it. Which of the following MOST accurately classifies the SECOND instance of 'water'?

Answer: Mand modified by a motivating operation

In the second instance, the verbal behavior 'water' is evoked by a motivating operation (thirst/deprivation) in the absence of a nonverbal discriminative stimulus (the glass), and is reinforced by receiving water (the specific reinforcer relevant to the MO). This meets Skinner's definition of a mand: verbal behavior under the functional control of an MO that specifies its own reinforcer. The first instance is a tact (evoked by the glass as a nonverbal SD).

An analyst uses a changing criterion design to increase a student's daily reading minutes from 5 to 30. The criterion is raised from 5→10→15→20→25→30 minutes. After reaching 20 minutes, the analyst decides to test experimental control by temporarily returning the criterion to 10 minutes. The student's reading time drops to 10 minutes. What does this reversal MOST directly demonstrate?

Answer: That the design has an internal replication demonstrating the criterion — not maturation — controls responding

In a changing criterion design, experimental control is demonstrated when behavior tracks the criterion level. A temporary reversal of the criterion (lowering it mid-sequence) followed by behavior tracking downward provides an internal replication — it shows the behavior is functionally controlled by the criterion itself rather than by maturation, history, or other extraneous variables. This is a methodological strength added to the design to bolster the demonstration of experimental control.