Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
372001 | Research in Developmental Disabilities | 2009 | 11 Pages |
Three adults with intellectual disabilities participated to investigate the effects of reinforcer deprivation on choice responding. The experimenter identified the most preferred audio–visual (A–V) stimulus and the least preferred visual-only stimulus for each participant. Participants did not have access to the A–V stimulus for 5 min, 5 and 24 h. Following deprivation, responses produced 1-s access to either stimulus on a concurrent continuous reinforcement continuous reinforcement schedule. A combination multi-element/multiple-baseline-across-participants design showed that two participants emitted fewer responses for the preferred A–V stimulus following 5-min deprivation relative to 5- and 24-h deprivation. Higher values of deprivation did not increase the proportion of choice responses allocated to the A–V stimulus for any participant and could be attributed to preference shifts during the study.