Accuracy versus speed in the generalized effort of learning-disabled children.

Reinforcement of effortful performance in a given academic task has been found to increase the subsequent performance of other academic tasks. The learned-effort hypothesis assumes that individuals learn which dimensions of task performance are correlated with reinforcement of high effort, and generalize across tasks. Therefore, reinforcement of increased effort in a given dimension of one task should result in greater generalized effort in the same dimension of transfer performance than in another dimension. In accord with this view, preadolescent learning-disabled students who received points for high reading accuracy subsequently produced more accurate drawings and stories than did students whose points had been based upon high reading speed or upon mere completion of the reading task. Students who received points for high reading speed subsequently constructed stories more quickly than did children whose points had been based upon high reading accuracy or upon reading-task completion. Consistent with the more explicit and frequent feedback for accuracy than for speed in most academic tasks, generalized accuracy was much more durable than generalized speed.

Discriminative control of generalized effort.

Increasing the degree of effort required for the successful performance of one behavior has been found to heighten the subsequent performance of other behaviors. The present research tested whether discriminative stimuli for effort control the quantity and quality of transfer performance. Two experimenters administered alternately a perceptual task which required college students to identify subtle differences between cartoon drawings. The high-effort experimenter required five identifications per pair of drawings; the low-effort experimenter, one identification. The later assignment of an essay by the high-effort experimenter, as compared to the low-effort experimenter, resulted in a greater essay length and quality. These findings suggest that cues which signal the degree of effort required for reinforcement exert discriminative control over generalized effort.

Species-specific defense reactions and avoidance learning. An evaluative review.

Bolles (1970) proposed a theory of avoidance learning, the species-specific defense reaction (SSDR) hypothesis, which emphasized innate constraints on the response repertoire of rats in aversive situations and minimized the role of reinforcement in avoidance learning. The present paper describes Bolles' (1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1978) development of SSDR theory and reviews the empirical tests of its assumptions and predictions. It is concluded that the SSDRs described by Bolles, along with some others, are highly probable in aversive situations but that the response repertoire is not limited to them. Further, there is strong evidence for reinforcement effects in the establishment and maintenance of at least some avoidance responses.