This investigation examined the effects of stimulus complexity on the verbal behavior of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and a control group of nondiagnosed individuals. The participants were 20 adults with schizophrenia and 20 nonschizophrenic adults that were matched on age and education. Each participant vocally responded to nine stimuli displayed on a computer screen, with three stimuli at each of three levels of complexity. Each experimental session was recorded on video, as well as on cassette tape. Contextually inappropriate responses were tallied by using a partial interval recording system, and were analyzed by counting the number of intervals in which a contextually inappropriate response occurred. A 2 x 3 x 3 factorial design was used to determine differences in responding between the two groups across the type of picture and level of complexity. Overall, the results indicated that there was not a significant difference between the responses of the schizophrenic individuals when compared to the nondiagnosed individuals.

Educators and practicing professionals in many fields emphasize the importance of critical thinking for effective decision-making. However, critical thinking skills are not usually directly taught in traditional educational settings. A subset of these skills, identifying logical fallacies, could be amenable to direct instruction using procedures that establish conditional discriminations, such as equivalence-based instruction (EBI). EBI procedures have been shown to be effective and efficient when teaching a variety of skills, including the identification of logical fallacies, when compared with no-instruction and self-instruction control groups. The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of web-based EBI procedures to a more traditional lecture-based instruction format, with and without requiring participants to actively respond to the material, for teaching undergraduate students to identify logical fallacies. Participants were assigned to one of three groups: equivalence-based instruction, lecture-based instruction or lecture-based instruction with active responding. Using a pretest-train-posttest design, performance on multiple-choice tests that target relations among logical fallacy names, descriptions, and examples were compared. The results of this study suggest that EBI is an effective instruction method for teaching college students to identify logical fallacies. When compared to both lecture-based instruction teaching methods, EBI resulted in consistently higher posttest scores following instruction and more consistent acquisition of the nonprogrammed relations (i.e., BA, CA, CB, BC).

This thesis documents a series of experiments designed to investigate the mechanisms subserving sub-second duration processing in humans. Firstly, duration aftereffects were generated by adapting to consistent duration information. If duration aftereffects represent encoding by neurons selective for both stimulus duration and non-temporal stimulus features, adapt-test changes in these features should prevent duration aftereffect generation. Stimulus characteristics were chosen which selectively target differing stages of the visual processing hierarchy. The duration aftereffect showed robust interocular transfer and could be generated using a stimulus whose duration was defined by stimuli invisible to monocular mechanisms, ruling out a pre-cortical locus. The aftereffects transferred across luminance-defined visual orientation and facial identity. Conversely, the duration encoding mechanism was selective for changes in the contrast-defined envelope size of a Gabor and showed broad spatial selectivity which scaled proportionally with adapting stimulus size. These findings are consistent with a second stage visual spatial mechanism that pools input across proportionally smaller, spatially abutting filters. A final series of experiments investigated the pattern of interaction between concurrently presented cross-modal durations. When duration discrepancies were small, multisensory judgements were biased towards the modality with higher precision. However, when duration discrepancies were large, perceived duration was compressed by both longer and shorter durations from the opposite modality, irrespective of unimodal temporal reliability. Taken together, these experiments provide support for a duration encoding mechanism that is tied to mid-level visual spatial processing. Following this localised encoding, supramodal mechanisms then dictate the combination of duration information across the senses.

Plusieurs auteurs ont suggéré que les mécanismes de l'identification absolue(IA) reposent sur l'utilisation de points de comparaison appelés points d'ancrage.Cette recherche comporte deux expériences et vise à déterminer certaines conditions expérimentales influençant la position de ces points d'ancrage dans l'espace psychologique. La première expérience porte sur l'IA de tonalités visuelles (couleurs) et la seconde porte sur l'IA d'intensités sonores. Chaque expérience comporte deux conditions. Dans la première condition, l'ensemble stimulus forme un continuum ininterrompu. Dans la deuxième condition,l'ensemble stimulus présente une coupure ou discontinuité au centre du continuum. Le temps de réponse et la probabilité de réponse correcte sont utilisés comme indicateurs de performance. Les résultats obtenus montrent que des points d'ancrage peuvent se former à proximité des discontinuités de l'ensemble stimulus. De plus, nous observons que les manipulations expérimentales ont une influence différente pour les modalités visuelles et auditives.

When learning conditional discriminations, it is possible that faulty sources of control develop and interfere with acquisition. In 2021, Bergmann et al. reported the effects of different integrity levels (i.e., to what degree an intervention is implemented correctly) on undergraduate students' mastery of an arbitrary matching to sample task. They found that participants in the reduced integrity conditions at or below 80% were more likely to show stimulus biases (i.e., selecting a particular incorrect stimulus in the presence of a sample stimulus) than participants in integrity conditions at or above 85%. Bergmann et al. did not investigate whether participants were likely to show responding that was biased by position. A position bias is a type of faulty stimulus control that involves allocating more responses to one or a few positions (e.g., first, second, middle, left). We conducted a secondary analysis of data from Bergmann et al., and we used a chi-square goodness of fit test to identify which participants showed a position bias. We found 25 participants out of 168 with potential position biases. We used a chi-square test of independence to analyze the distribution of participants with biased responding by condition and did not find a statistically significant difference. We discussed potential explanations for these findings and describe connections to behavior-analytic practice.

Current research indicates that the inability to spontaneously communicate needs or wants may result in the acquisition of unconventional forms of requesting such as aggression and tantrums. This in turn limits the amount of access that students with autism have to neurotypical peers and social environments. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of using a stimulus control transfer procedure on the acquisition of spontaneous mands. Four school-aged children with autism, two boys and two girls, participated in the study. A multiple baseline design across participants was utilized to demonstrate a functional relation between the stimulus control transfer procedures and the rate of spontaneous mands. Measurement variables included the frequency of spontaneous versus multiply-controlled mands during discrete trial training on a variety of verbal operants. Effectiveness of the intervention was analyzed through visual analysis and the magnitude of effect was assessed through effect size. Visual analysis indicated that three of the four participants learned to spontaneously mand for items out of view and demonstrated generalization across targets, staff and environments. The effect size for three participants were large (d = 1.94; d = 2.2; and d = 1.4), whereas the outcome of intervention for one participant (d = 0.98) indicated moderate effect. The overall (d = 1.15) outcome demonstrated a large effect of the intervention on the rate of mands. Based on the results of this study, it is recommended that early and intensive behavior intervention programs for children with autism incorporate this type of procedure for socially significant outcomes.

A common goal of instructional techniques is to teach skills effectively and efficiently. Matrix training techniques are both effective and efficient as they allow for the emergence of untrained responding to novel stimulus arrangements, a phenomenon known as recombinative generalization. However, it is unclear which type of matrix arrangement best promotes recombinative generalization. The current study compared two common matrix training approaches, an overlapping (OV) design and a non-overlapping (NOV) design, with respect to arranging relations targeted for training. We conducted a replication evaluation of a Wilshire and Toussaint study, and taught two typically-developing preschoolers compound object-action labels in Spanish and used either an OV or NOV matrix training design. Results from both studies demonstrated the participant trained with an OV design produced recombinative generalization and participants trained with a NOV design produced significantly low levels of emergence or none at all. These results suggest that an OV matrix design facilitates recombinative generalization more effectively than a NOV design. Implications for instructional arrangements are discussed.

Social hållbarhet är ett ämne som är mer aktuellt nu än någonsin, även om det sällan diskuteras i samband med estetik i den bebyggda miljön. De miljöer vi bygger är också de platser där vi tillbringar majoriteten av vår tid, och de påverkar hur vi mår. I takt med att städer växer och blir tätare så blir gestaltningen av dessa platser allt viktigare. Estetiken utgör en stor del av den bebyggda miljön och vår upplevelse när vi rör oss i städerna. Studier visar på att människor föredrar vissa estetiska element framför andra, och att både kropp och hjärna reagerar på estetiska stimuli. I den här uppsatsen utforskas sambandet mellan vad den forskning som finns kring exteriör byggnadsestetik säger, och hur estetiska preferenser inkluderas och diskuteras i stadsbyggnadsprojektet Rosendal i Uppsala i Sverige. / Social sustainability is discussed more today than ever before, but seldom in the context of aesthetics in the built environment. The environments we build are where we spend most of our time, and they affect our wellbeing. With cities growing faster and becoming denser, how we design our home becomes more and more important. Aesthetic variables are a large part of what the built environment is, and constitute much of what we experience on a daily basis when moving around our city. Studies suggest that some aesthetic elements are preferred over others, and that both body and brain respond to aesthetic stimuli. This thesis explores the relationship between what has been found on the subject of building exterior aesthetics so far, and how evidence on aesthetic preferences is addressed in the development project of Rosendal in Uppsala, Sweden

This thesis explores the field of light, space and human perception. Human perception is an active, information-seeking process, but when this information is not clear our mind tries to fool us by filling the emptiness. This unclear structure is also called the Ganzfeld effect. When being exposed to the Ganzfeld effect hallucinations may occur. The experiment set up for this thesis was to see if a stimulus of light could be used to prevent the mind drifting off into hallucinations and keeping a clear understanding of the space. Based on previous literature research two experiments were set up. In the first experiment I expored myself how the Ganzfeld in nature affected me. In the second experiment six participants including myself experienced the Ganzfeld effect combined with a low light stimulus.  This thesis concludes that an exposure to the Ganzfeld effect in combination with a low light stimulus prevents from complete hallucinations. When using a light stimulus an inbetween world is created. A clear description of this reality in spatial terms was attempted. Without the light stimulus the mind was able to drift off and went into an unreal world. When a light stimulus was given, the mind went back to the real and the space could be clearly understood.

No description available.