Biomaterial Database

Improving profoundly mentally retarded adults' performance on a position discrimination. 1984

J Bell, and G Richmond

The relative importance of stimulus manipulations antecedent to or consequent on the response was investigated in three experiments related to position discrimination. In the first experiment, two different stimuli (either a piece of candy or a toy cat) were hidden under one of three boxes in full view of 2 profoundly mentally retarded adults. The behavior of uncovering the hidden object was measured using a combined multiple baseline and reversal design. In Experiment II, an entire unit of profoundly retarded adults was screened to determine the prevalence of the effects observed in Experiment I. In Experiment III, an attempt was made to determine whether the difference in antecedents (candy vs. kitty) or consequences accounted for the superior performance when the candy was hidden. In this experiment, using a reversal design with four profoundly retarded adults, we found that the antecedent manipulation (hiding the candy vs. hiding the toy cat) resulted in better performance than did the manipulation of the consequence (handing subjects the candy or allowing them to uncover and consume it).

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D008297	Male		Males
D008875	Middle Aged	An adult aged 45 - 64 years.	Middle Age
D009042	Motivation	Those factors which cause an organism to behave or act in either a goal-seeking or satisfying manner. They may be influenced by physiological drives or by external stimuli.	Incentives,Disincentives,Expectations,Disincentive,Expectation,Incentive,Motivations
D009949	Orientation	Awareness of oneself in relation to time, place and person.	Cognitive Orientation,Mental Orientation,Psychological Orientation,Cognitive Orientations,Mental Orientations,Orientation, Cognitive,Orientation, Mental,Orientation, Psychological,Orientations,Orientations, Cognitive,Orientations, Mental,Orientations, Psychological,Psychological Orientations
D011597	Psychomotor Performance	The coordination of a sensory or ideational (cognitive) process and a motor activity.	Perceptual Motor Performance,Sensory Motor Performance,Visual Motor Coordination,Coordination, Visual Motor,Coordinations, Visual Motor,Motor Coordination, Visual,Motor Coordinations, Visual,Motor Performance, Perceptual,Motor Performance, Sensory,Motor Performances, Perceptual,Motor Performances, Sensory,Perceptual Motor Performances,Performance, Perceptual Motor,Performance, Psychomotor,Performance, Sensory Motor,Performances, Perceptual Motor,Performances, Psychomotor,Performances, Sensory Motor,Psychomotor Performances,Sensory Motor Performances,Visual Motor Coordinations
D003463	Cues	Signals for an action; that specific portion of a perceptual field or pattern of stimuli to which a subject has learned to respond.	Cue
D004193	Discrimination Learning	Learning that is manifested in the ability to respond differentially to various stimuli.	Discriminative Learning,Discrimination Learnings,Discriminative Learnings,Learning, Discrimination,Learning, Discriminative
D004495	Education of Intellectually Disabled	The teaching or training of those individuals with subnormal intellectual functioning.	Education of Mentally Defective,Education of Mentally Retarded,Education, Mentally Retarded,Mentally Retarded Education,Disabled Education, Intellectually,Disabled Educations, Intellectually,Intellectually Disabled Education,Intellectually Disabled Educations,Mentally Defective Education
D005260	Female		Females
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man