The effect of reinforcement on continuous speech and on plural nouns in grammatical context

Abstract

Summary An attempt was made to reexamine the conditioning of plural nouns with Ss being required to speak in sentences. This procedure made the definition of the response class less ambiguous than in previous studies and made it possible to gauge the effect of reinforcement in a situation in which the emission of the response to be conditioned is also controlled by the emission of other responses. One group of Ss was reinforced (by money) on a continuous reinforcement schedule for the emission of plural nouns. Another group was reinforced (by money) for the emission of speech in general on a 30-sec fixed-interval reinforcement schedule with a 10-sec hold. Results showed that it was possible to condition both speech in general and plural nouns in particular. More detailed analysis of the plural nouns showed that only those which ended in /z/ increased in response to the reinforcement. Examination of other possible response classes overlapping in membership with the response class defined by the experimenter, showed that number of singular nouns decreased during conditioning of plural nouns. It was concluded that it is possible to condition at least a subclass of plural nouns when S speaks in sentences and that it is worthwhile to examine the membership of response classes related to those the experimenter reinforced.