The effect of observing response procedures on the reduction of over-selectivity in a match to sample task: immediate but not long term benefits.
Pointing or naming every picture fixes over-selectivity right now, but you must keep the prompt in place or the skill disappears.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Crane et al. (2008) asked adults without disabilities to play a matching game. Each card had three pictures. The adults had to pick the card on the bottom that matched the card on top.
Some adults only looked at one picture. This is called over-selectivity. The team told the adults to point to each picture or say its name before matching. They wanted to see if this simple act would help the adults notice all the pictures.
What they found
When the adults pointed or named every picture, they stopped being over-selective. Their matching scores jumped right away.
But when the team took away the pointing rule, the adults went back to ignoring most pictures. The gain did not last.
How this fits with other research
Farmer-Dougan et al. (1999) saw the same quick boost with adults who had ID. Their gains also vanished when the prompt stopped. Together, the two studies show the fix is fragile for both groups.
McAleer et al. (2011) showed that over-selectivity is learned. Training with busy, nine-part pictures teaches learners to ignore details. Crane et al. (2008) gives a short-term fix, but McAleer et al. (2011) warns us to start with simpler pictures so the problem does not form.
Gomes‐Ng et al. (2023) went one step further. They found that after you cut over-selectivity, briefly removing reward from the favored picture can help the ignored pictures gain control—but only if the learner was highly over-selective to begin with. This update tells us to check how strong the bias is before we plan the next step.
Why it matters
You can slash over-selectivity today by telling the learner to point to or name every item. Just do not expect the skill to stick without help. Keep the observing response in place, or fade it slowly, and mix in simple stimuli so the learner does not relearn the bad habit.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Stimulus over-selectivity occurs when only one of potentially many aspects of the environment comes to control behavior. In three experiments, adult participants with no developmental disabilities were trained and tested in a match to samples (MTS) paradigm. Participants in Experiment 1 were assigned to one of two conditions, which differed on whether an observing response procedure was in place. Findings indicated that an MTS procedure can induce over-selectivity in this population if a time delay is included between sample and comparison. Over-selectivity emerged significantly more in the group who did not use an observing response procedure. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants were exposed to a re-test phase, in which the initial stimuli were presented again, but without the use of an observing response in either group. The observing response procedure only reduced over-selectivity when in place, but performance did not remain high following its withdrawal. This effect was noted regardless of the type of observing response procedure used (pointing versus naming). These findings suggest that an observing response procedure may be effective in reducing over-selectivity, however, these effects do not last post intervention, and that this may limit the clinical usefulness of the technique.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2008 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2007.04.001