Toward an applied quantification of effort: correspondence between a concurrent-operants demand assessment and a progressive-ratio scale
Document Type
Thesis
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
Psychology
Degree
M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis
Date Completed
2018
First Committee Member
Bourret, Jason
Second Committee Member
Pinkston, Jonathan
Third Committee Member
Ahearn, William
Abstract
"We applied methods typically used in measuring the effects of consequences in quantifying the effort of tasks in individuals diagnosed with autism. Preference assessments are used to identify items that potentially function as reinforcers in educational and clinical settings. Some experimenters have used the progressive-ratio (PR) schedule to measure relative reinforcing efficacy at progressively-increasing response requirements. In addition to these reinforcers being used clinically for a variety of response requirements, they are also delivered contingent on a variety of response topographies. In basic research, effort has typically been conceptualized as the physical force required to complete a response. Although physical force is an easily manipulated variable in laboratory settings, the relative effort of common tasks proves more difficult to measure. Accurately quantifying the effort required to complete a task may have important clinical implications such as informing selection of lower-effort alternatives to problem behavior in DRA. In the present study, we compared PR breakpoints across a variety of tasks that differ across response dimensions in an attempt to evaluate a singular measure of response effort."
Recommended Citation
Lloveras, Lindsay A., "Toward an applied quantification of effort: correspondence between a concurrent-operants demand assessment and a progressive-ratio scale" (2018). Master’s Theses - College of Arts and Sciences. 149.
https://digitalcommons.wne.edu/castheses/149
