Machine definition of ongoing silent and oral reading rate.
Turn reading into an operant by letting the learner press a switch to see each new line—rate becomes a cumulative curve you can reinforce or analyze.
01Research in Context
What this study did
GOLDIAMOND (1962) built a tiny reading window that moves text only when the reader presses a micro-switch.
Each press advances one line, so the machine counts rate like a stopwatch that never blinks.
The setup works for silent or out-loud reading and gives a clean line on a cumulative recorder.
What they found
The paper shows the blueprint, not new data.
It proves you can treat reading speed as an operant response you can reinforce, punish, or chart over time.
How this fits with other research
Gilchrist et al. (2018) and Keintz et al. (2011) swap the slit reader for cheap accelerometers to track stereotypy at 80–90% accuracy.
Bigby et al. (2009) later asked which math formula best agrees when two people watch the same fast behavior—exact agreement can cheat high-rate acts, so time-window scoring is safer.
DAVIS (1961) built a lickometer the year before; both papers turn tiny human or rat movements into electrical clicks for the same cumulative recorder.
Why it matters
If you need a pure, child-controlled measure of reading fluency, copy the slit idea: let the learner decide when the next word appears and log every press.
The same logic now tracks hand flapping with a wristband, showing that any repeatable movement can become data if you let the participant drive the sensor.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A procedure is described by which a machine defines the ongoing silent and oral reading rates, and thus subjects them to environmental control and experimental analysis. Reading is considered as a form of monitoring in which response sequences are linear and successive. Applications for other types of monitoring are considered.A page is projected on a screen, and the subject is required to read, aloud or silently. Through the same optical system, an opaque loop is presented that masks the projection, and a transparent slit on the opaque loop exposes part of a line of type. With each frame, the slit moves linearly and sequentially, exposing successive reading material. Recycling the loop triggers the presentation of another page. The subject controls the loop by pressing a micro-switch to advance the frame, thereby explicitly defining a monitoring response. The procedure is sensitive to variables such as signal-noise ratio, item difficulty, transient and long-term effects, reinforcement schedules (pay-offs), and age. Monitoring rates are extremely steady, suggesting their use as a base line. Procedures are suggested for training subjects to be differentially attentive to different parts of a complex display.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1962 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1962.5-363