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This study demonstrates functional independence in the acquisition of mands and tacts. Some subjects first learned to mand the experimenter's placement of objects with the prepositional phrases "On the left" and "On the right." They were regularly tested for collateral appearance of tacts with these same phrases. Other subjects learned to tact the location of objects with these prepositional phrases and were regularly tested for collateral appearance of mands. All subjects were next trained in the repertoire that had not been trained in the first condition (either tact or mand). After all subjects had learned both to mand and to tact correctly, another assessment of mand-tact independence was undertaken. Mands (tacts) were reversed and testing assessed collateral reversal of tacts (mands). The results demonstrated that tacts and mands, even when incorporating identical response forms, were functionally independent during acquisition. Subsequent modification of one repertoire (by reversal training) produced collateral reversal in three of nine subjects.

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With changing trends in the acute pediatric setting, there is concern that nursing students are not provided with sufficient opportunities to develop required clinical competencies. Peer learning can assist students in achieving learning objectives through efficient and effective use of limited resources. In this study the perceptions of students and clinical instructors in their use of peer learning are described. A qualitative descriptive design with semi-structured interviews was used. A convenience sample included nursing students (n=10) and clinical instructors (n=2). Participants had overall positive experiences with formalized peer learning. The novelty of a learning approach, support, communication and the facilitation of learning were the common emerging main themes; with several subthemes also identified. The results highlighted how the learning process was influenced by the students' status as novice nurses and how peer learning provided much needed emotional and physical support. Implications for clinical education are discussed.

This experiment examined the acquisition and transfer of inhibitory stimulus control in serial feature-negative (A +. X -A -) discriminations in a conditioned suppression situation. A variety of visual and auditory stimuli were used as A and X in separate groups of rat subjects. The choice of the stimuli used as X and A substantially affected the rate of acquisition of those discriminations. But in no case did X inhibit conditioned responding to another excitor that was separately paired with the unconditioned stimulus. These results replicated, over a wide range of acquisition rates and performance levels, Holland and Lamarre's (Learning and Motivation, 1984) observation that the inhibitory stimulus control established to the feature in serial feature-negative discrimination procedures was highly specific to the excitor with which it had been trained. Holland and Lamarre (1984) showed that the nature of inhibitory stimulus control established to the X feature stimulus in an A +, XA -feature-negative (Jenkins & Sainsbury, 1969) or conditioned inhibition (Pavlov, 1927) procedure depended on the temporal arrangement of X and A on the compound trials during training. In a conditioned suppression preparation with rat subjects, we found that if X and A were presented simultaneously in training, X reduced responding to another, previously established excitor (B) when X and B were later presented in compound. But if X preceded A on compound training trials, X did not reduce subsequent test responding to B. These and other data led us to suggest that inhibitors established using the simultaneous procedure may modulate conditioned behavior by acting on a representation of the unconditioned stimulus (US). but inhibitors established with the serial procedure may act on particular CS (conditioned stimulus)-US associations. More casually, an X feature trained within a simultaneous feature-negative procedure may signal a period of safety or the nonoccurrence of the US . Thus, a simultaneously trained feature should inhibit any conditioned behavior mediated by that US (i.e., conditioned responses to any CS associated with that US). Conversely, the serial feature-negative procedure endows X with the ability to negate the action of the A -US association, that is, to indicate that A will not on that occasion be followed by the US. Because X acts on a particular A-US association, it would be expected to inhibit only responding generated by that association, that is, responding to A.In this experiment, we extended Holland and Lamarre's (1977) found that the use of similar A and X stimuli in an A +, X -A -procedure facilitated the acquisition of second-order conditioning to X (note that the intermixing of A + "refresher" trials with X-A secondorder trials renders the second-order conditioning procedure identical to the serial feature-negative discrimination procedure) . Furthermore, Nairne and Rescorla (1981) suggested that the use of similar stimuli changed the character of that second-order conditioning: "S-S" associations be...