Behavioral Allocation in Social Contexts

该项目将对涉及社会干预者的情况下的行为选择进行定量分析，在这里定义为由另一个人的行为介导的积极强化事件（例如，注意力、认可、感情）;以及社会背景，在此定义为由作为社会活动者可用性的可靠线索的刺激所标记的那些（例如，一个熟悉的人的存在）。该项目的目标是制定方法， 最大化对社会强化突发事件的适应敏感性，并最小化社会背景下的适应不良行为分配。一组基础研究将检查在社会和非社会背景下强化突发事件的敏感性。敏感性是指个体在同时可用的替代品中的行为分配与从这些替代品中获得的相对强化量相匹配的程度。如果敏感性高，强化是最大化的行为是重新分配，以响应强化应急的变化。基础研究将在自动化测试环境中进行，其中实验会话中，成人在直接环境中的存在/不存在将被严格控制为实验变量。这些研究将开发方法，以确定个人概况的应急敏感性，在社会与。 非社会背景。我们的假设是，当敏感性不受上下文变化的影响时，适应性行为最大化。我们将通过研究具有一系列社会-行为特征的个体在社会与非社会背景下获得新行为的情况来检验这一假设。我们还将研究在社会和非社会背景下改善适应不良的程序，以及改善对学习的后续影响。第二组研究将审查社会保障功能与有据可查的缺陷， 自闭症及相关障碍儿童的联合注意力发展（PDD-NOS）。联合注意是指使用手势，言语和目光转移来协调与另一个人的注意力，以分享对物体或事件的体验。拟议中的研究将探讨社会行为者的偏好和敏感性的定量测量与联合注意力启动评估结果之间的相关性，并制定针对联合注意力启动特定行为先决条件的培训程序。这些先决条件来自于对联合注意启动的功能分析。随着训练的进行，我们将监测偏好、应急敏感性和联合注意力启动的同时变化。

This project will apply quantitative analyses of behavioral choice to situations that involve social reinforcers, defined here as positively reinforcing events that are mediated by the actions of another person (e.g., attention, approval, affection); and social contexts, defined here as those marked by stimuli that are reliable cues for the availability of social reinforcers (e.g., the immediate presence of a familiar person). The goals of the project are to develop methods for maximizing adaptive sensitivity to social reinforcement contingencies and minimize maladaptive behavioral allocations in social contexts. One set of basic studies will examine sensitivity to reinforcement contingencies in social and nonsocial contexts. Sensitivity refers to the degree to which the individual's behavioral allocation among concurrently available alternatives matches the relative amounts of reinforcement that are obtained from those alternatives. If sensitivity is high, reinforcement is maximized as behavior is re-allocated in response to changes in reinforcement contingencies. The basic studies will be conducted in automated testing environments where experimental sessions in which the presence/absence of an adult in the immediate environment will be rigorously controlled as experimental variable. These studies will develop methods for determining individual profiles of contingency sensitivity in social vs. nonsocial contexts. Our hypothesis is that adaptive behavior is maximized when sensitivity is unaffected by context shifts. We will test this hypothesis by examining the acquisition of new behavior in social vs. nonsocial contexts with individuals who have a range of social-reinforcer profiles. We will also investigate procedures for improving maladaptive profiles in both social and nonsocial contexts, and the subsequent effects of improvements on learning. A second set of studies will examine social reinforcer function in relation to the well-documented deficit in the development of joint attention in young children with autism and related disorders (PDD-NOS). Joint attention refers to the use of gestures, verbalizations, and gaze shifts to coordinate attention with another person in order to share the experience of an object or event. The proposed research will examine correlations between quantitative measures of preference and sensitivity for social reinforcers and the results of assessments of joint attention initiation and develop training procedures that target specific behavioral prerequisites for joint attention initiation. These prerequisites are derived from a functional analysis of joint attention initiation. We will monitor concurrent changes in preference, contingency sensitivity, and joint-attention initiation as training progresses.