Abstract
In an attempt to provide suggestive support for Mowrer’s “autistic” theory of imitative speech, food reward was differentially paired with taped presentations of verbal phrases (response-correlated stimuli) from the vocabularies of two talking mynah birds. Monitoring of free speech subsequent to daily experimental sessions indicated that verbal response hierarchies were changed from baseline in the predicted direction of a secondary reinforcement effect for both Ss in the first training phase, and for one bird in an attempted replication.
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The authors wish to recognize the major assistance of Mrs. Fred Coulter in this research.
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Rohrbaugh, M., Zaynor, W.C. & Grosslight, J.H. Reinforcement control of “autistic” verbalization in the mynah bird. Psychon Sci 11, 91–92 (1968). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03328149
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03328149