Button Pushing Research Articles

Learned helplessness in groups

Group learned helplessness is demonstrated in Experiment I. Groups of 2 tried to turn off noise by their joint action. In the solvable group (S), noise offset was contingent on their sequence of button pushing. In the yoked, unsolvable group (U), noise offset was independent of all sequences of button pushes they produced. In a practice group (O). subjects practiced coordinated sequences of button pushes with their partners, but heard no noise. Later, all 3 groups were tested in pairs in a shuttlebox which required coordinated joint responding to turn off noise. The unsolvable group escaped more poorly than the other 2 groups, paralleling helplessness effects with individuals. Experiment 2 and 3 found no transfer from individual helplessness training to group testing and no transfer from group helplessness training to individual testing. We suggest that the same mechanism, the expectation of response ineffectiveness, may mediate both individual and group learned helplessness.

Automated directory listing retrieval system based on isolated word recognition

Automated directory listing retrieval has been a goal of the Bell System and others for a long time. Recent attempts at implementing such a system relied on button pushing on the part of the user. Since the Touch-Tone <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">®</sup> keyboard does not contain a unique key corresponding to each letter of the alphabet, the button pushing system had some drawbacks. In an attempt to alleviate these problems and to provide a more natural form of communication for the user, the use of spoken spelled names was proposed in place of pushing buttons. An early form of this directory listing retrieval system was a speaker trained system (i.e., it had to be trained to each user individually) and it used a simplified directory search algorithm. Subsequent improvements and modifications to both the recognition algorithm and the directory search procedure have led to the current implementation in which the overall system is speaker independent and can automatically find the name (or names) in the directory which provides the best acoustic match to the spoken name. The new system can automatically detect and correct simple (i.e., single letter) anomalies in the spelling of the name, including letter substitutions, inversions, deletions, and insertions. If a conflict in the detected name occurs (e.g., 2 or more names with the same or close acoustic distance scores), the system automatically requests additional information to help resolve the ambiguity. In evaluational tests on an 18 000 name Bell Laboratories directory, the directory listing retrieval system found the unique correct name in 98.3 percent of the trials, on average, even though the acoustic recognizer provided the correct letters only about 70 percent of the time.

Stroop effect: interference and facilitation with verbal and manual responses.

Two groups of 12 volunteers manually (button pushing) or verbally identified the ink color of 5, randomly ordered and tachistoscopically presented, kinds of stimulus conditons, specified by the nature of the noncolor information and the relationship between color and noncolor information: Congruent Color Words, Noncolor Words, Scrambled Color Words, Nonword Geometric Shapes, and Noncongruent Color Words. With verbal response, facilitation of reaction time occurred for Congruent Color Words compared to Scrambled Color Words and Noncolor Words but not when compared to the Nonword Control, while with manual response facilitation appeared for all comparisons. Interference appeared for both groups, with Noncongruent Color Words having the slowest reaction time. The present design corrected for inadequacies in previous studies and more firmly established the conclusion of parallel perceptual processing of color and noncolor information, with facilitation/interference effects being localized in postperceptual decision operations of signal summation and response competition.

An Automated Form of Speech Audiometry

An automated audio visual system has been devised which is capable of making certain measurements of a subject's perception of speech using a binary, button pushing, response situation. Information is obtained concerning recognition (or reaction) times in addition to data on subject errors in identification and stimulus intensity. Data output is compatible with the on or off line use of a computer for data analysis. The system is adaptive in operation in that both the subject trajectory through the test material and the stimulus intensity can be made dependent on subject performance. The stimulus material has been in the form of C(consonant) V(vowel) C(consonant) words but consideration has been given to the use of other material. The reaction time data from unimpaired subjects has been fitted to a model of the perception of speech at the syllabic level and the effect of distinctive features on the response times demonstrated in certain circumstances. Following this some conclusions have been drawn about ...

Reaction time measurements in speech discrimination tasks—an automated system with closed response sets

A fully automated audio visual system has been designed and built which is capable of making measurements of a subject’s perception of speech using a binary choice, button pushing response situation. Information concerning reaction times is obtained in addition to confusional and intensity data. The system is adaptive in operation and the stimulus material has been in the form of minimal pairs of C (consonant) V (vowel) C (consonant) words. Calibration has been to audiometric standards for possible use with the hearing impaired and data output is compatible with the on or off line use of a computer for analysis. The reaction time data from normal listeners has been fitted to a model of the perception of speech at the syllabic level and the effect of distinctive features on recognition times demonstrated in certain circumstances. This data is discussed in relation to the possible structure of the internal lexicon. Asymmetries between right and left hand response times are present under certain conditions and the relation of these to cerebral dominance for speech has been considered.

Time-Out as a Punishment for Button Pushing

Three normal-speaking adults were assigned the task of speaking spontaneously for fifteen 40-minute sessions. During baserate, the subjects simultaneously performed a motor task that consisted of depressing one or the other of two buttons on signal—one button push each seven seconds. During treatment sessions, each depression of the predetermined criterion button activated a red light. The light remained on for seven seconds, after which it was extinguished automatically until the next depression of the criterion button. Prior to each treatment session the subjects were told to stop speaking immediately when the red light came on and to remain silent for as long as the light was on. For all three subjects, arranging the circumstances such that time-out from speaking for seven seconds was made contingent on pushing the criterion button resulted in a marked decrease in the frequency of criterion button pushes.

The role of incentive in discrimination learning in children.

Many of the experiments involving the effects of different incentives on children's learning have employed relatively complex tasks (0, 3). In order to provide for more rigorous experimental control, more incentive studies involving children's learning of simple concepts need to be done. Then, as we improve our experimental methods, we can more satisfactorily study the effects of incentives on the learning of more complex tasks. Accordingly, the experiment reported here is the second in a series designed to study the effects of various incentives on simple discrimination learning and transposition in children. In a previous study (5), the differential effects of five incentives on the acquisition and transposition of a button pushing response to the of two three-dimensional geometric objects were studied. The five incentives employed were praise, immediate candy, reproof, delayed candy, and light flash. In this earlier problem, the Ss, preand elementary school children, assigned to the immediate candy incentive condition learned the concept larger significantly more quickly than did the Ss of all other groups, and transposed more consistently than did any of the other groups except the delayed incentive Ss. The nonsignificant difference in performance of the immediate and delayed groups on the transposition test was somewhat surprising. Even more surprising, perhaps, was the fact that, under the delayed incentive condition, the younger Ss, fourand five-year-olds, learned just as quickly and transposed just as consistently as the older Ss, eightand nine-year-olds. This is contrary to reports of casual observation made by teachers and other supervisors of children's learning. It was believed that the nature of the delayed reward facilitated learning and transfer. The Ss transferred a dried bean from one jar to another after each correct response, and were told that as soon as they had transferred enough of the beans they could trade