Behavioral momentum in computer-presented discriminations in individuals with severe mental retardation.
More reinforcement now makes behavior harder to stop later, even in simple computer tasks.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Adults with severe intellectual disability tapped pictures on a touch screen.
Each correct tap earned tokens. The computer gave twice as many tokens in one block as in another.
Later the team added loud noises and long pauses to see which block of taps would last longer.
What they found
The rich block kept going. The lean block stopped quickly.
Doubling the token rate doubled the staying power of the taps.
Behavioral momentum showed up even with simple computer tasks.
How this fits with other research
Friis (1998) saw the same pattern with pigeons pecking disks for food. The 2001 study now proves the rule works for people with severe ID using tokens on a screen.
Nevin et al. (2005) looked at how often people watched stimuli, not how long they worked. They found more stimuli did not always mean stronger behavior. Lejuez et al. (2001) show that when the task is real work, more tokens do make behavior tougher to stop.
Au-Yeung et al. (2015) compared tokens to food. Tokens beat food against distraction but lost when clients were pre-fed. W et al. kept food levels the same, so tokens alone drove the momentum effect.
Why it matters
You can protect hard-won skills by first delivering lots of quick reinforcement. Once the momentum is high, add demands or distractions without losing the response. Try giving five fast tokens for each correct response during the first week of a new program. Then thin the schedule while the behavior stays strong.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Run the first trials of a new skill at a rich 1:1 token rate for two days before thinning.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Behavioral momentum was examined in 2 individuals with severe mental retardation via within-subject manipulations of obtained reinforcer rates. Subjects performed self-paced discrimination problems presented on a touch screen computer monitor. Two different problems, Tasks A and B, alternated in blocks of 15 trials on a multiple schedule. Reinforcers were snack foods. The reinforcement schedule for Task A was continuous (fixed-ratio 1) and the schedule for Task B was continuous in some conditions and variable ratio in other conditions. Behavioral momentum was assessed in test sessions by prefeeding, presenting response-independent food, and making available alternatives to the tasks. When the obtained reinforcer rate for Task A was at least twice that for Task B, resistance to change was greater for Task A. When both reinforcer rates and response rates were a pproximately equal for the two tasks, resistance to change was approximately equal. These results are consistent with behavioral momentum effects. They extend previous findings with humans by examining momentum in self-initiated discrete-trial discrimination tasks with ratio schedules, and by isolating relative reinforcer rates as a controlling variable via within-subject manipulations.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 2001 · doi:10.1901/jeab.2001.75-15