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| Data Analysis |
| Tuesday, May 31, 2005 |
| 12:00 PM–1:20 PM |
| Boulevard A (2nd floor) |
| Area: EAB |
| Chair: Robert L. Shapiro (HMEA) |
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| Using Sonic Feedback to Enhance Task Accuracy and Efficiency: An Application of Data Sonification |
| Domain: Basic Research |
| ROBERT L. SHAPIRO (HMEA) |
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| Abstract: Data sonification is a tool that can be used to convey information when visual representation is either impossible or impractical. One instance where this is pertinent is in the use of real-time data representation, or sonic feedback. Data presentation can be enhanced or conveyed entirely by sound, thus allowing data recipients to focus visually on essential task requirements, rather than dividing visual attention. This has the potential to improve performance on many tasks where attention may need to be divided among competing stimuli. Using an alternating treatments design, this study compared task efficiency and accuracy when subjects were provided with no feedback, auditory feedback alone, visual feedback alone, or a combination of the two. The addition of auditory feedback proved to be useful in improving subject performance, both in conjunction with and in absence of visual feedback. Implications, including applications in employment and community settings, are discussed. |
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| Comparing Response Rate Components of Two Multiple Schedule Arrangements Using a Log Survivor Plot Analysis of Interresponse Times. |
| Domain: Basic Research |
| WENDY DONLIN WASHINGTON (Auburn University), M. Christopher Newland (Auburn University) |
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| Abstract: Components of response rate were examined by comparing two multiple schedule arrangements. One group of rats was exposed to a Multiple RI 30s (with feedback) RI 30" (without feedback) schedule of reinforcement in which the components differed according to whether a lever press was followed by a brief tone. Another group of rats was exposed to a similar multiple RI schedule, but lever presses were eligible for reinforcement under a percentile IRT 10:0.5 schedule; an IRT had to be shorter than the median of the previous ten IRTs, with the brief tone signaling responses that met this criterion in the feedback component. A log survivor plot analysis (Shull and Grimes, 2003) of IRTs was used to provide independent measures of within-bout response rate, bout-initiation rate and bout length. Overall response rates were highest under the percentile schedule, due to higher within-bout response rates and longer bout lengths. Bout-initiation rates and post-reinforcement pause lengths were not different between the arrangements. For the percentile schedule, individual differences in response rates were influenced primarily by variations in bout lengths and within bout rates, while under the simple RI-only schedule, response rate differences were influenced by the post reinforcement pause length and bout-initiation rate. |
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| Magnifying Individual Operant Occurrences: A Powerful Tool |
| Domain: Basic Research |
| FRANCIS MECHNER (The Mechner Foundation), Laurilyn Dianne Jones (The Mechner Foundation) |
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| Abstract: A new technique that magnifies individual occurrences of operants makes it possible to address a wide range of questions that cannot be addressed when the operant occurrences are recorded as all-or-none events. This new operant utilizes lines drawn on a graphics tablet. For each line drawn, the computer records such noncriterial attributes as the line's length, slope, duration, speed and pressure applied by the stylus. This technique was adapted to the task of defining nine operant classes that are equivalent in the sense that subjects showed no prior preference among them, a condition necessary to prevent the effects of the intended independent variables from being contaminated.Among the issues that can be addressed, for some of which data have been collected, are the effects on the characteristics of an operant of such history variables as: number of times the operant was repeated during learning, how recently it was learned and practiced, changes that occur in the operant's characteristics as a function of time passage within the interval during a fixed interval performance, effects of monetary reinforcer presentations during a shaping procedure, and effects of unconditional time-scheduled reinforcer presentations on a stream of operants. |
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