The effects of drl schedules on some characteristics of word utterance.
DRL schedules can selectively slow one word, question, or response without cutting overall talking or activity.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked adults to say a target word into a microphone. Each time the person waited long enough before saying the word again, they earned money.
The waiting rule is called a DRL schedule. The longer the required wait, the fewer times the word could be said each minute.
What they found
People quickly matched their talking pace to the rule. When the schedule asked for long pauses, the word popped out only after the pause.
Other words kept flowing normally. Only the target word slowed down, showing DRL can edit one small piece of speech.
How this fits with other research
FARMEMOORHEARSKELLEHER et al. (1964) stacked the same DRL rule on top of a fixed-interval schedule. Response rates still dropped neatly, proving the effect holds even when another schedule is already running.
Otalvaro et al. (2020) moved DRL out of the lab and into an adult day program. Excessive questions dropped when staff paid attention only if the adult waited an hour before asking again. The 1963 word study and the 2020 question study use the same tactic—just new places and new behaviors.
Johnston et al. (1972) showed DRL can sculpt tiny time gaps between lever presses in rats. Together these papers say DRL works on sounds, questions, or lever pushes, across species and settings.
Why it matters
If a client repeats words, questions, or sounds too fast, try a DRL schedule. Pick the target, set a short wait time, and deliver praise or tokens only when the pause happens. Start easy, then stretch the pause. You should see the single behavior slow while everything else stays lively.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The utterances of particular words-"selected verbal responses" (SVR's)-were reinforced according to five different drl schedules and studied under changes in the schedule and/or the SVR. The emissions of SVR's were shaped by the procedure, while the rates of saying all the different words were unaffected. The distributions of the percentages of different IRT's and IRT's/OP's changed very little when only the SVR was changed, suggesting that reinforcements had their main effect upon some kind of "delaying behavior." The modal IRT classes were just above the drl specifications, and there was no evidence of a second modal class at short IRT's. The differences between actual and optimum median IRT's were fairly constant under different drl schedules. Individual differences appeared in the behavior interpolated between SVR's: some subjects (Ss) counted the number of intervening words, some reported increases in tension, and still others seemed to change the pitch of voice in a cyclical pattern. The transcripts of intervening verbal behavior indicated the presence of some chains of words, presumably formed before the experiment and "adapted" to the length of the delay required for reinforcement. In the experimental situation the formation of verbal chains was only rarely observable.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1963 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1963.6-281