Effects of operant level, interview with experimenter, and awareness upon verbal conditioning of chronic schizophrenics.

The present research attempted to (a) cross-validate N. D. Vestre's (1961, 1965) findings that medium-operant-level pronouns can be conditioned by "good" in a chronic schizophrenic population, (b) test whether or not high-operant-level pronouns can be conditioned by "good" in a chronic schizophrenic population, and (c) compare the conditionability of high-operant-level with that of medium-operant-level pronouns. It was hypothesized that schizophrenics would be more conditionable following a brief, friendly, personal interview than in the absence of any preconditioning interview. It was expected that awareness of the response-reinforcement contingency would favor conditioning. Both the operant level and interview with experimenter variables were investigated to see whether or not either differentially affected (a) the number of aware Ss and (b) the performance of aware Ss. "Good" functioned as a reinforcer for about 1/4 of the Ss in this study. The most important factor contributing to performance was awareness of the response-reinforcement contingency. Also, reinforcement tended to be more effective when Ss had no (instead of a S-min) preexperimental interview with E. Medium-operant-level pronouns were conditionable, and results of conditionability comparisons between high- and medium-preference pronouns depended upon how performance was measured. The negligible conditionability of high-preference pronouns was discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)