title: Automatic reinforcement and automatic punishment in infant vocal behavior.
abstract: Two female infants, aged 11 and 14 months, were exposed to a procedure in which an experimenter-emitted vocal response was paired with an established form of reinforcement (positive condition). One of the subjects was also exposed to a procedure in which an experimenter-emitted vocal response was paired with a neutral stimulus (neutral condition), and a procedure in which an experimenter-emitted vocal response was paired with a mild aversive stimulus (negative condition). An AB design was used with pre- and post-pairing measures. The results showed that after the positive pairing the targeted responses increased in frequency in 75% of the sessions. Responding remained constant during the neutral condition, but dropped sharply in the negative condition. These data suggest that a critical variable related to an infant's native language acquisition is the stimulus-stimulus pairing process that occurs when parents or caretakers speak to their infants.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Michael
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Sundberg