Survey of electromechanical devices for behavior modification.

Abstract

Approximately 50 electromechanical devices presently employed for psychotherapeutic purposes are reviewed under 5 categories of function: monitoring and recording, stimulus transformation, neurological alteration, consequence scheduling, and prompting and teaching. The experimental nature, and in some cases the dubious value, of such devices is noted. It is argued, however, that instrumentation in clinical and social psychology might substantially improve the reliability of certain behavior modification procedures which at present often involve such unmeasured variation that adequate replication is impossible. (4 p. ref.)

BEHAVIORAL ENGINEERING: CONTROL OF POSTURE BY INFORMATIONAL FEEDBACK1

“…An informational stimulus was selected that was private and seemed so apparently nonaversive as to be judged as bland by the experimenters, namely a vibrotactile stimulus to the skin. Previous reports have summarized the evidence for the medical undesirability of slouching (Burt, 1950;Goldthwait, Brown, Swaim, and Kuhns, 1945) and the major rationale and implications of the behavioral engineering approach for many areas of applied psychology (Azrin, Jones, and Flye, 1968;Azrin and Powell, 1969;Jones and Azrin, 1969;Powell and Azrin, 1968;Schwitzgebel, 1968Schwitzgebel, , 1970.…”

Unobtrusive Measures

“…Electronic Equipment t Social scientists have barely begun to exploit the advantages available to them as a result of the micro-miniaturization of electronic devices. More of them should become familiar with the potentials of these devices (Baker, 1968;Schwitzgebel, 1968aSchwitzgebel, , 1968bSchwitzgebel, , 1970Schwitzgebel and Bird, 1970 (Schulman and Reisman, 1959;Lindsley, 1968) Frequency and duration of talk (Hayes and Meltzer, 1967) Trace in location of books (Mueller, 1970) Used to mask sounds when recording descriptions of behavior (Schoggen, 1964) Electronic recording device placed on the floor to measure use of given areas and pathways (Bechtel and Srivastava, 1966) Stress in blind pedestrians (Peake and Leonard, 1971) To measure duration and frequency of sitting and leaving the seat (Haring, 1968) (Rugh, 1970(Rugh, , 1971 To indicate sexual arousal (Bancroft, 1966) Used to measure group activity level (Crawford and Nicora, 1964;Peacock and Williams, 1962) To measure body movement A special class of electronic equipment that has wide applicability in the social sciences is telemetry equipment (Caceres, 1965;Mackay, 1969Mackay, , 1970. The applications in this area are limited only by the researcher's imagination and money.…”