Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing to Increase Vocalizations in Children with Language Delays: a Review

Stimulus-stimulus pairing (SSP) is a procedure used to increase vocalizations in children with significant language delays. However, results from studies that have examined the effectiveness of SSP have been discrepant. The following review of the literature summarizes the results from 13 experiments published between 1996 and 2014 that used this procedure with children with language delays. Studies were analyzed across various participant and procedural variables, and an effect size estimate (nonoverlap of all pairs) was calculated for a portion of the participants in the studies reviewed. Results indicated an overall moderate intervention effect for SSP of speech sounds. Recommendations are provided for future researchers about information to report and potential avenues for future studies.     

Relations Among Spontaneous Preferences,Familiarized Preferences,and Novelty Effects: Measurements With Forced‐Choice Techniques

We here describe a discrete trial, forced‐choice, combined spontaneous preference and novelty preference technique. In this technique, spontaneous preferences and familiarized (postfamiliarization) preferences are measured with the same stimulus pairs under closely parallel conditions. A variety of systematic stimulus variations were used in 16‐week‐old infants to explore the interrelations among spontaneous preferences, familiarized preferences, and familiarization (novelty) effects. Infants were exposed to pairs of 10° red and blue disks of varying colorimetric purity generated on a video monitor. Pairs of disks were identified for which spontaneous preferences were balanced at about 50–50 or unbalanced at about 75–25, and the magnitudes of familiarized preferences were determined. When spontaneous preferences were balanced at 50–50, novelty effects increased with increasing chromatic separation between the 2 stimuli, showing the independence of these variables. When spontaneous preferences were unbalanced, novelty effects were asymmetrical, being large after familiarization to the spontaneously preferred stimulus, but small or nonexistent after familiarization to the spontaneously nonpreferred stimulus. The potential uses of combined spontaneous preference and novelty preference techniques are discussed.     

On becoming a prostitute: An exploratory case‐comparison study

We examined the effects of sexual arousal on cortical somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) elicited by electrical stimulation delivered to the skin over either the dorsal penile or posterior tibial nerve. The electrical stimuli were initiated by the subject pressing a button. In Experiment 1, a single stimulus was delivered immediately upon button press. In Experiment 2, a randomly spaced train of stimuli was delivered after a randomly varying delay. SEPs were obtained during (1) a baseline condition during which subjects viewed a non‐erotic videotape, (2) an arousal condition in which subjects viewed an erotic videotape, and (3) a post‐orgasm condition during which subjects again viewed the non‐erotic videotape. Amplitudes of SEP components elicited by stimulation of either nerve decreased with sexual arousal and tended to return towards baseline values in the post‐orgasm condition. The SEP components that showed these changes included slow potentials generated before and after stimulus delivery, as well as the vertex potentials, N100 and P200.     

The Effects of a Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing Procedure on the Unprompted Vocalizations of a Young Child Diagnosed with Autism

The current study evaluated the effects of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure intended to increase spontaneous vocalizations of a young child diagnosed with autism. A multiple-baseline design across two target phonemes was used to evaluate the effects of the pairing procedure on the frequency of phonemes uttered by the participant. Data were collected during presession, postsession, and follow-up periods across three conditions: Baseline, Control, and Pairing. During the Pairing conditions, a target phoneme was repeatedly vocalized by the experimenter and was systematically paired with preferred stimuli. Results from postsession observations following the pairing condition evidenced no increase in the target sounds. Practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.     

Rules Infants Look By: Testing the Assumption of Transitivity in Visual Salience

What drives infants’ attention in complex visual scenes? Early models of infant attention suggested that the degree to which different visual features were detectable determines their attentional priority. Here, we tested this by asking whether two targets—defined by different features, but each equally salient when evaluated independently—would drive attention equally when pitted head‐to‐head. In Experiment 1, we presented 6‐month‐old infants with an array of Gabor patches in which a target region varied either in color or spatial frequency from the background. Using a forced‐choice preferential‐looking method, we measured how readily infants fixated the target as its featural difference from the background was parametrically increased. Then, in Experiment 2, we used these psychometric preference functions to choose values for color and spatial frequency targets that were equally salient (preferred), and pitted them against each other within the same display. We reasoned that if salience is transitive, then the stimuli should be iso‐salient and infants should therefore show no systematic preference for either stimulus. On the contrary, we found that infants consistently preferred the color‐defined stimulus. This suggests that computing visual salience in more complex scenes needs to include factors above and beyond local salience values.     

Evaluating Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing and Direct Reinforcement in the Establishment of an Echoic Repertoire of Children Diagnosed with Autism

Many children with autism do not imitate adult vocalizations, an important skill in learning to talk. Pairing adult vocalizations with preferred stimuli has been shown to increase free-operant vocalizations but effects are temporary; thus, direct reinforcement may be necessary to establish durable vocal behaviors. In Experiment 1, directly reinforced echoic responses did not increase following stimulus-stimulus pairings in three children with autism. Similarly, pairings did not increase free-operant vocalizations in Experiment 2, a replication of Miguel et al. (2002). Experiment 3 demonstrated that shaping increased vowel frequency for one participant. Results suggest that variables are yet to be delineated that influence effectiveness of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure on vocalization frequency and acquisition of a verbal operant following such pairings.     

Using Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing and Direct Reinforcement to Teach Vocal Verbal Behavior to Young Children With Autism

In this study the effect of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure was used as part of a clinical investigation to increase vocalizations for two young children diagnosed with autism. This procedure involved pairing a vocal sound with a preferred stimulus (e.g., toy) to condition automatic reinforcement. In addition, this study assessed the effects of a direct reinforcement procedure to bring a vocalization under echoic control following the pairing procedure for 1 of the participants. The results showed the pairing procedure was used successfully to increase a vocalization for one of the participants, and the vocalization was brought under echoic control.     

The effect of aging and tennis playing on coincidence-timing accuracy

This study examined the effect of tennis playing on the coincidence timing (CT) of older adults. Young, younger-old and older-old (20-30, 60-69, and 70-79 years old, respectively) tennis players and nonplayers were asked to synchronize a simple response (pressing a button) with the arrival of a moving stimulus at a target. Results showed that the older tennis players responded with a slight bias similar to that of the young players. Two experiments were conducted to determine whether the elimination of age effects through tennis playing was a result of maintaining basic perceptuomotor and perceptual processes or of some possible compensation strategy. The results revealed that the age-related increase in the visuomotor delay was significantly correlated with CT performance in older nonplayers but not in older tennis players. These results suggest that playing tennis is beneficial to older adults, insofar as they remained as accurate as younger ones despite less efficient perceptuomotor processes. This supports the compensation hypothesis.     

Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing of Vocalizations: A Systematic Replication

The current study replicated an enhanced stimulus-stimulus pairing (SSP) procedure used by Esch et al. (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 42: 42–225, 2009) for increasing vocalizations in children with autism. The enhanced SSP procedure consisted of pairing target vocalizations with high-preference items, interspersed target and nontarget trials, an observing response, and the presentation of the vocalizations in “motherese” speech. Results showed substantial increases in target vocalizations above baseline levels and above nontarget vocalizations for two of three participants.     

A Comparison of Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing,Standard Echoic Training,and Control Procedures on the Vocal Behavior of Children With Autism

An alternating treatments design was employed to compare the effect of stimulus-stimulus pairing, standard echoic training, and a control condition on the vocal behavior of 3 preschoolers with autism. Data were recorded during pre- and postsession observations. During the stimulus-stimulus pairing condition, the experimenter''s vocal model was paired with the delivery of a preferred item. During the standard echoic training condition, the experimenter presented a vocal model and delivered a preferred item contingent on an echoic response. During the control condition, the experimenter presented a vocal model and, after a 10-s delay, presented a preferred edible item. Results from the post-session observations during the stimulus-stimulus pairing condition showed an immediate but temporary increase in the target sound for 1 participant only. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.     

10‐Month‐Olds Visually Anticipate an Outcome Contingent on Their Own Action

It is known that young infants can learn to perform an action that elicits a reinforcer, and that they can visually anticipate a predictable stimulus by looking at its location before it begins. Here, in an investigation of the display of these abilities in tandem, I report that 10‐month‐olds anticipate a reward stimulus that they generate through their own action: .5 sec before pushing a button to start a video reward, they increase their rate of gaze shifts to the reward location; and during periods of extinction, reward location gaze shifts correlate with bouts of button pushing. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the infants have an expectation of the outcome of their actions: several alternative hypotheses are ruled out by yoked controls. Such an expectation may, however, be procedural, have minimal content, and is not necessarily sufficient to motivate action.     

The Effects of Calibration Target,Screen Location,and Movement Type on Infant Eye‐Tracking Data Quality

During infant eye‐tracking, fussiness caused by the repetition of calibration stimuli and body movements during testing are frequent constraints on measurement quality. Here, we systematically investigated these constraints with infants and adults using EyeLink 1000 Plus. We compared looking time and dispersion of gaze points elicited by stimuli resembling commonly used calibration animations. The adult group additionally performed body movements during gaze recording that were equivalent to movements infants spontaneously produce during testing. In our results, infants’ preference for a particular calibration target did not predict data quality elicited by that stimulus, but targets exhibiting the strongest contrasts in their center or targets with globally distributed complexity resulted in the highest accuracy. Our gaze measures from the adult movement tasks were differentially affected by the type of movement as well as the location where the target appeared on the screen. These heterogeneous effects of movement on measures should be taken into account when planning infant eye‐tracking experiments. Additionally, to improve data quality, infants’ tolerance for repeated calibrations can be facilitated by alternating between precise calibration targets.     

Infants' Preferences for Familiarity and Novelty During the Course of Visual Processing

At 4 1/2 months, infants were shown a series of brief choice trials between a stimulus that always remained the same and another that was different on every trial. The point when a consistent preference for the novel stimulus commenced was identified for each infant, and their preferences for the familiar and novel stimuli in trials preceding that point were examined. Infants who saw objects or faces as stimuli both exhibited selective attention to the familiar stimulus prior to preferring novel stimuli, although infants shown kaleidoscope patterns did not. These results document a preference for familiarity early in processing with a procedure that is not subject to ambiguities due to individual differences in processing speed or to collapsing data across infants. The results support a nonlinear model for memory formation during infancy and underscore recently voiced concerns that in research on cognitive development, infants' attention to perceptual familiarity‐novelty must be carefully disentangled from conceptual knowledge.     

A comparison of male heterosexual and male homosexual patterns of sexual arousal

We examined both self‐reported and physiologically measured sexual arousal of male heterosexual and homosexual subjects to explore various parameters of sexual response in these two groups. Results clearly support previous work with these groups, demonstrating that films produce more arousal than either slides or audiotaped stimuli and that arousal to lesbian and male homosexual stimuli content were best able to discriminate heterosexual and homosexual arousal patterns for well matched groups of subjects. The previous finding that the correlation between the subjective and physiological measures is lower for male homosexual subjects than for male heterosexual subjects was replicated, but it was demonstrated that this result is a confound of the stimulus content employed. When the level of arousal, pleasantness of the stimulus, or quantity of partner preference cues was controlled, the group differences in correlation were no longer present. Finally, decreased sexual experience and information were found to predict, in both groups, lower concordance between self‐reported and physiological arousal. These results may clarify previous work which has indicated a relationship between the inaccurate tracking of physiological response and sexual dysfunction     

Negative social effects of being a smoker.

Three studies were done to examine the social effects of being a tobacco smoker. In Study 1, 135 subjects rated target persons as dating and marriage prospects. All else being equal, the nonsmoker subjects showed consistent preference for nonsmokers. The subjects' personal preference for nonsmokers was significantly greater than their estimates of the preference of people in general. In Study 2, thirty-five subjects who preferred nonsmokers for marriage provided their reasons. All together, they gave eleven different reasons. In Study 3, which involved sixty-two subjects, the belief underlying each of the eleven preference reasons was found to predict degree of preference for nonsmokers. The results of the three studies are discussed as providing potentially useful information for smoking prevention interventions.     

Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing and Subsequent Mand Acquisition of Children with Various Levels of Verbal Repertoires

Effects of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure on the subsequent acquisition of mand operants were investigated. An attempt was made to shape novel sounds that emerged through the pairing procedure into a mand. Six children, aged two to five years, with moderate to severe language and communication delays, participated. Two conditions were used following the pairing condition: postpairing and direct reinforcement. The emergence of mands was compared across these conditions. An additional analysis was made of the relation between participants'' baseline verbal repertoires and the effects of the pairing and the emergence of mands. Results indicate the possibility of stimulus control from a stimulus-stimulus pairing to mand as shown in two of the participants who had demonstrated high rates of vocal play and low to no verbal repertoire prior to this study. Target vocal sounds during postpairing and direct reinforcement condition remained at zero to low levels for participants with high verbal repertoire and little vocal play, warranting future studies on relations between the pre-existing verbal repertoire and the effectiveness of stimulus-stimulus pairing.     

Emergent Tact Control Following Stimulus Pairing: Comparison of Procedural Variations

We examined emergent tact control following stimulus pairing, using 2 different stimulus presentation arrangements. In the word-first condition, presentation of the auditory stimulus preceded the visual stimulus, and in the image-first condition, the visual stimulus preceded the auditory stimulus. Eight children (2–5 years old) participated. In Experiment 1, 4 children were exposed to 3 sessions in each condition with a new set of stimuli in each session. In Experiment 2, 2 of the same children received repeated exposure to the same stimulus sets. Experiment 3, with new participants, was identical to Experiment 1, except visual and auditory stimuli overlapped during the presentation. Postsession probes documented emergent stimulus control over 1 or more vocal responses for 7 of the 8 participants. Participants were more likely to make echoic responses with the visual stimulus present in the word-first condition; however, emergent tact control was unaffected by the order of the stimulus presentation. Additional research is needed on stimulus-pairing procedures and on the role of echoic responding in emergent tact control.     

Manipulating motivating operations to facilitate the emergence of mands for a child with autism

Research on the functional independence of verbal operants (Skinner, 1957) has demonstrated inconsistent findings. One explanation may be that these studies have not manipulated the motivating operation (MO) to facilitate the emergence of mands (Hall & Sundberg, 1987; Lamarre & Holland, 1985). In the current study, 1 participant, diagnosed with autism, was taught to tact high-preference and low-preference leisure items, and emergence of mands was tested under varying MO conditions. Results showed the emergence of mands following periods of arranged deprivation, and greater maintenance for a highly preferred relative to a less preferred stimulus. However, mands only emerged when presession tact trials were conducted. These results suggest that in a state of deprivation, transfer of stimulus control from discriminative to motivational conditions may occur without direct training.     

Using Eye Tracking to Identify Faking Attempts During Penile Plethysmography Assessment

Penile plethysmography (PPG) is considered the most rigorous method for sexual interest assessment. Nevertheless, it is subject to faking attempts by participants, which compromises the internal validity of the instrument. To date, various attempts have been made to limit voluntary control of sexual response during PPG assessments, without satisfactory results. This exploratory research examined eye-tracking technologies' ability to identify the presence of cognitive strategies responsible for erectile inhibition during PPG assessment. Eye movements and penile responses for 20 subjects were recorded while exploring animated human-like computer-generated stimuli in a virtual environment under three distinct viewing conditions: (a) the free visual exploration of a preferred sexual stimulus without erectile inhibition; (b) the viewing of a preferred sexual stimulus with erectile inhibition; and (c) the free visual exploration of a non-preferred sexual stimulus. Results suggest that attempts to control erectile responses generate specific eye-movement variations, characterized by a general deceleration of the exploration process and limited exploration of the erogenous zone. Findings indicate that recording eye movements can provide significant information on the presence of competing covert processes responsible for erectile inhibition. The use of eye-tracking technologies during PPG could therefore lead to improved internal validity of the plethysmographic procedure.     

Observational Stance as a Predictor of Subjective and Genital Sexual Arousal in Men and Women

Observational stance refers to the perspective a person takes while viewing a sexual stimulus, either as a passive observer (observer stance) or an active participant (participant stance). The objective of the current study was to examine the relationship between observational stance and sexual arousal (subjective and genital) across a range of sexual stimuli that do or do not correspond with a participant's sexual attraction (preferred or nonpreferred stimuli, respectively). Regression analyses revealed that, for men (n = 44), participant stance significantly predicted subjective and genital arousal. Women's (n = 47) observer and participant stance predicted subjective arousal but not genital arousal. Analysis of variance showed that participant stance was greatest under preferred sexual stimuli conditions for all groups of participants, while observer stance scores revealed a less consistent pattern of response. This was particularly true for opposite-sex-attracted women, whose ratings of observer stance were lowest for preferred stimuli. Observational stance does not appear to account for gender differences in specificity of sexual arousal; for men, however, participant stance uniquely predicted genital response after controlling for sexual attractions. Similarities in the relationships between men's and women's observational stance and sexual responses challenge previous claims of gender differences in how men and women view erotica.