Effects of pairing stimuli with reinforcement on multiple schedule performance of children.
Pairing a cue with candy turns that cue into a reinforcer that boosts children’s work rate.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four kids pressed a button for candy. A computer said the nonsense word "Tix" right before each candy delivery.
After many pairings, the word came alone. The kids still pressed the button. The team then removed the word. Pressing dropped. They put it back. Pressing rose again.
What they found
The word "Tix" became a conditioned reinforcer. When it was present, kids worked almost twice as fast.
Order mattered. If the word started late in the session, it helped less. Early pairing worked best.
How this fits with other research
Vollmer et al. (1996) saw the same effect with babies. A happy voice paired with smiles made infants babble more. This shows the pairing trick works from infancy on.
Leung et al. (2014) asked kids which schedule they liked. They picked the same kind of on-off schedule used here. So pairing not only strengthens behavior—kids actually choose it.
Blue et al. (1971) paired a tone with shock instead of candy. The tone then slowed pigeons’ pecking. Same method, opposite result. Good pairings speed kids up; bad pairings slow birds down.
Why it matters
You can turn any neutral cue into extra reinforcement by pairing it with what the learner already wants. Use a short phrase, click, or picture right before you deliver the edible or token. Keep the cue brief and give it early in the session for the strongest effect. Drop the cue when you want behavior to calm down, then bring it back when you need acceleration again.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A nonsense word was paired with reinforcement to determine if pairing affected emission of a response that produced the word in the signalled absence of reinforcement. Children were trained on a multiple schedule that consisted of a reinforcement component, conditioned reinforcement component, and control component, each set of contingencies being signalled by a different colored light. In the primary reinforcement component, lever presses produced reinforcers which, in some phases, were paired with a word. In the other two components, lever presses were not reinforced and a button was made accessible. Button presses in the conditioned reinforcement component produced the word to be (or being) paired, e.g., "yafeh", while button presses in the control component produced another word, e.g., "grunch". Button pressing increased when one of the words was being paired and decreased when pairing was discontinued, but directly related rate changes occurred also in the control component. The order of components was shown to be a contributing variable.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1971 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1971.16-355