BEHAVIORAL ENGINEERING: CONTROL OF POSTURE BY INFORMATIONAL FEEDBACK¹

Abstract

The effects of informational feedback on a socially undesirable behavior were studied. The feedback was a mild vibrotactile stimulus and the response was slouching. When subjects slouched, a behavioral engineering apparatus provided vibrotactile stimulation to the shoulder. All subjects slouched less when stimulation was provided. A procedural control revealed that slouching will decrease because of the informational aspect of the stimulus consequence and not because of its aversive properties. When the subjects were instructed to slouch, the effects of feedback were reversed: feedback increased, rather than decreased, slouching. These results indicate that the effect of feedback for a response depends on the subject's motivation to perform that response. It is suggested that informational feedback could be used more widely as a therapeutic procedure to modify human behaviors, but only those behaviors that a patient is strongly motivated to change.

Smart garment for trunk posture monitoring: A preliminary study

“…The preliminary results demonstrated that the subjects could change their posture towards the target posture when feedback signals were provided. A reduction of approximately 26% of time which spent in "poor" posture of the thoracic spine is found in this current study (Figure 5 ) and it is comparable to those reported in the literatures [ 30 , 31 ]. For the lumbar spine, the reduction could be up to approximately 65% depended on the level of threshold (Figure 5 ).…”

MODIFICATION OF NASAL RESONANCE IN CLEFT‐PALATE CHILDREN BY INFORMATIVE FEEDBACK1

“…Although no controls were used to determine the motivational properties of the red and white light, the instructions and information provided by the lights were probably sufficient to change the behavior. This supports the suggestion by O'Brien and Azrin (1970) that undesirable operant behaviors can be reduced or eliminated by simply providing immediate information about their occurrence when the subjects are motivated to change the behavior. In the case of Subject 2, either the motivation was not provided by the subject or the new response was physically difficult to produce.…”

Behavioral Coaching in the Development of Skills in Football, Gymnastics, and Tennis

“…Gross motor behavior of a simplified nature has also been developed in normal adults. In two studies using portable operant apparatus, the posture of adults was improved from a slouching position to a proper postural position (Azrin, Rubin, O'Brien, Ayllon, & Roll, 1968;O'Brien & Azrin, 1970). Further progress in utilizing operant procedures for developing gross motor skills in a normal population was made by Hardiman, Goetz, Reuter, and LeBlanc (1975) with a preschool child (walking longitudinally through a ladder, climbing stairs, sliding down a board, rolling on the ground, climbing a ladder, and walking on a balance board).…”