A PARAMETRIC VARIATION OF DELAYED REINFORCEMENT IN INFANTS

This study is an exploration of the parameters of delayed reinforcemen t with 6 infants (2 to 6 months old) in two experiments using single-s ubject repeated-reversal designs. In Experiment 1, unsignaled 3-s dela yed reinforcement was used to increase infant vocalization rate when c ompared to a ferential-reinforcement-of-other-than-vocalization condit ion and a yoked, no-contingency comparison condition. In Experiment 2, unsignaled 5-s delayed reinforcement was used to increase infant voca lization rate when compared to an alternating-treatments comparison co ndition. The alternating-treatments comparison consisted of 3-min comp onents of differential reinforcement of other behavior and 3-min compo nents of a nontreatment baseline. Successful conditioning was obtained in both experiments. These results contrast with those of previous in fancy researchers who did not obtain conditioning with delays of 3 s a nd who attributed their findings to the limitations of the infant's me mory capacity. We present an alternative conceptual framework and meth odology for the analysis of delayed reinforcement in infants.