Projector slide changing and focusing as operant reinforcers.
Sharp, colorful images work as powerful reinforcers for people of any age.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Adults sat at a machine and pressed a button.
Each press changed or focused a slide.
Clear, colorful pictures followed the press.
The team counted how often people pressed to see nice images.
What they found
People pressed a lot when the picture was sharp and colorful.
They pressed less for fuzzy or black-and-white images.
When the pictures stopped, pressing almost stopped too.
How this fits with other research
Hall et al. (1968) moved the idea into a first-grade class.
Teacher praise worked like the colorful slides: kids studied more.
Lydersen et al. (1974) used tokens instead of pictures.
Reading work rose and disruption fell, showing the same law in action.
Quilitch et al. (1973) proved it even works for picking up trash.
All studies show: if a consequence is valued, the behavior before it grows.
Why it matters
You now know that pretty visuals can reinforce behavior.
Use short video clips, stickers, or a peek at a favorite photo as rewards.
This is handy when edible or social reinforcers stop working.
Try it during DTT, breaks, or while teaching waiting skills.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Uninstructed subjects choose to view, in sharp focus where possible, projected visual images in preference to various simpler auditory and visual stimuli (e.g., buzzers of flashing lights). The rate of responding on the lever rapidly increased above the operant level (projector inoperative) even though the stimuli were nonsense syllables. When focusing also was made contingent on responses, the subjects promptly started sharpening the focus of legible but blurred nonsense syllables. When the visual material was colored landscape scenes, the rates of slide-changing generally decreased, because of increased viewing time relative to the nonsense syllables, at the same time that the latencies of focusing decreased. Both the sharpness of focus and the total time spent with the image in sharp focus increased greatly with the colored slides, establishing that the subjects were under control of the stimulus events. Extinction of both responses occurred very rapidly when the controls became inoperative.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1967 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1967.10-479