Temporal and intensive properties of human vocal responding under a schedule of reinforcement.

The author built a simple circuit. A cheap voltmeter turned the loudness of a human voice into a number. When the person waited at least two seconds between vocal bursts, the circuit flashed a light. The light acted as a tiny reward.

Two adults with no diagnosis served as subjects. They sat alone in a lab booth and spoke when they wanted. The study never reports how often they talked or how loud they got. It only shows the setup works.

The paper gives no scores, graphs, or effect sizes. It simply says the DRL 2-s schedule can be hooked to a voice meter. The tool is ready for future work.

Berler et al. (1982) ran a DRL with rats. A 20-s tone before free food made the animals press faster. Their result looks opposite: DRL usually slows responding. The gap is method, not fact. Rats got food no matter what they did, so the tone acted like an "external disinhibitor" that broke the DRL pause rule. Humans in Hulse (1960) never got free food, so the schedule stayed pure.

Rey et al. (2020) tested long DRO stretches with humans. Both studies use differential reinforcement, but Rey shows the contingency must be clear or the effect fades. Hulse (1960) offers the bare tool; Rey tells you to keep instructions sharp when you copy it.

Badia et al. (1972) reached 90 % correct in one session with differential reinforcement of auditory location. Their speed shows that once you pick a response and a reinforcer, humans learn fast. Hulse (1960) gives you a new response—voice loudness—to add to that list.

You now have a $5 way to measure and reinforce vocal behavior. Plug the meter into a DRL, DRO, or DRH and you can shape quiet classroom talk, stretch pause time for stuttering, or build louder speech for apraxia. Copy the wiring diagram, set your seconds, and start collecting data next session.