An example of discovery research involving the transfer of stimulus control.
After kids learn to ask for attention only when cued, you can drop the cues and the timing sticks.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four preschoolers learned when it was okay to ask for teacher attention.
First, colored cards told them: green card meant "teacher available," red meant "wait."
After the kids waited for green only, researchers pulled the cards away.
They used an ABAB design to be sure the kids still waited without the colors.
What they found
The children kept asking only during times the teacher usually gave attention.
Even with no cards, they waited for the right moments.
Their good timing proved the rule had moved from colors to the teacher’s own schedule.
How this fits with other research
Herrnstein et al. (1979) showed fading works best when the final cue is easy to see.
Here, the final cue was hidden—it was simply when attention arrived—yet transfer still happened.
Hawkes et al. (1974) faded kids from one-to-one to group teaching; this study fades out props entirely.
Both works show you can peel away supports once the learner feels the natural pattern.
Why it matters
You can teach clients to read natural routines instead of keeping bulky cues forever.
Start with clear signals, then remove them; the reinforcement rhythm itself keeps the behavior in check.
This saves you from leaving Velcro cards, lights, or timers in place for life.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The initial purpose of the present study was to replicate procedures for teaching preschool children to recruit attention at appropriate times by having an experimenter signal the availability and unavailability of attention (i.e., arrange a multiple schedule involving reinforcement and extinction; Tiger & Hanley, 2004). Following the development of discriminated social responding, the schedule-correlated stimuli were removed (i.e., a mixed schedule of reinforcement was arranged). However, discriminated responding continued during these conditions. Further evaluation suggested that stimulus control over children's social responding had transferred from the schedule-correlated stimuli to the delivery of reinforcement. The effect of a history of reinforcement under multiple-schedule conditions on performance under mixed schedules was then replicated with 2 participants in a reversal design. These findings suggest that following experience with schedule-correlated stimuli, these stimuli may be removed with only modest disruption to discriminated responding.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2005 · doi:10.1901/jaba.2005.139-04