Many years ago a psychologist, working with mentally challenged children who could not speak, decided to evaluate a new method of teaching them how to speak. He chose two groups of 10 children each who were carefully matched on age, sex, and symptoms of disability. One group was taught by "conventional" psychiatric methods. The other group was taught by the "new" method as follows: -

Initially each child received a small candy for every noise he/she made after the experimenter spoke a word. After a week of this, the child received a candy if the noise he made was anything similar to what the experimenter said. As time went on, the candy was given only when each sound made by the child was recognized as a word. Eventually the child was receiving a candy every time he spoke a word correctly. Finally, having acquired the ability to speak words, the child received the candy only after an average of 20 words spoken.

After 6 months of this procedure another psychologist conversed with each child and recorded the average number of words spoken per minute by each child.

The following results were obtained: -
“Conventional” Group 3, 7, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 3, 8, 6 “New” Group 6, 3, 9, 7, 8, 10, 8, 4, 15, 13

1. Did the “New” group speak significantly more words?

A) no – the differences are too small to make any difference 


B) yes 


C) incomplete data – we would never be able to tell with just this information 


D) we won’t know until we do an inferential test 


E) none of the above 


2. Which of the methods has the larger standard deviation?

A) conventional 


B) "new" 


C) incomplete data, unable to determine 


D) both are equal, no difference in SD 


E) it is impossible to calculate with only 10 subjects in each group. 


3.What is the specific reinforcement used in the group taught by the "new" method?

A) noise made by the child 


B) the number of words spoken by the child 


C) the candy 


D) the control technique used 


E) the words spoken by the experimenter 


4.The reinforcement is

A) positive & secondary 


B) negative & secondary 


C) positive & primary 


D) negative & primary 


E) positive & generalized 


5.This study is a[n]___________study: -

A) correlational 


B) case 


C) participant observational 


D) experimental 


E) survey 


6.The two major variables in this study are: -

A) methods of teaching and number of words spoken 


B) methods of teaching and the giving of candy 


C) number of words spoken and symptoms of disability 


D) number of words spoken and giving of candy 


E) the conventional method and the "new" method 


7. The type of learning demonstrated in this study is: -

A) classical conditioning 


B) operant conditioning 


C) cognitive learning 


D) observational conditioning 


E) latent learning 


8. The procedure used in the "new" method to initially get the child to speak a word is called: -

A) generalization 


B) discrimination 


C) shaping 


D) classical conditioning 


E) biological predisposition 


9.The fact that the child was, at first, given a candy every time he spoke a word means that the child was being reinforced on a __________ schedule of reinforcement.

A) continuous 


B) partial 


C) fixed-interval 


D) positive 


E) negative 


10.The fact that later the child was given one candy after an average of 20 words spoken would indicate that the child was on a partial schedule of reinforcement called: -

A) fixed-interval 


B) variable-interval 


C) fixed-ratio 


D) variable-ratio 


E) continuous reinforcement 


11.The main reason for now giving the child one candy after an average of 20 words spoken is: -

A) to make the learning resistant to extinction 


B) to help the child continue to learn faster 


C) to aid in discrimination 


D) to reduce the chances of tooth-decay 


E) to prevent future spontaneous recovery