Feedback in behavior modification: an experimental analysis in two phobic cases.
Real-time duration feedback keeps exposure therapy moving upward.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Two adults with strong fears entered a room with the scary object. The therapist timed how long they stayed. Each time they beat their last score the therapist told them the new number.
The researchers then took the feedback away for a while. Later they gave it back. This ABAB design showed if the numbers alone kept the people in the room longer.
What they found
When the therapist stopped giving the duration score, progress froze. When the score came back, both adults stayed in the room longer again.
The feedback was not extra praise or candy. Just hearing "You lasted 4 minutes" was enough to push the next try upward.
How this fits with other research
Peters et al. (2013) later used the same idea with preschoolers scared of dogs. Ten short sessions with feedback erased the phobia, showing the trick works across ages.
Vorbeck et al. (2020) swapped the score for a clicker sound while teaching handstands. The click alone sped up skill, proving feedback works in sports too.
Neuringer et al. (1968) ran a twin study the same year. They used edible rewards, not feedback, to teach greetings. Together the papers show early ABA discovering that any clear consequence—numbers, clicks, or candy—can drive big clinical change.
Why it matters
You can add a simple timer to any exposure session. Tell the client the exact seconds they stayed. If progress stalls, check if you accidentally stopped giving the number. One sentence of data can replace piles of praise.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Two illustrations of single-case research are described in which an isolated therapeutic variable was sequentially introduced, withdrawn, and reintroduced while changes in a clinically relevant behavior were measured. A claustrophobic patient and a knife-phobic patient received graduated practice in facing their phobic stimuli; length of time the claustrophobic patient stayed in a small dark room per trial, and length of time the knife-phobic patient kept knife exposed per trial were measured. In both experiments, when feedback of these time scores was withdrawn, ongoing progress was retarded. Reinstatement of feedback led to renewed improvement. In Experiment 2, adding and removing contingent verbal praise against a constant background of precise feedback did not significantly alter rate of progress.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1968 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1968.1-131