THE EFFECTS OF ESTABLISHING OPERATIONS ONPREFERENCES FOR TANGIBLE ITEMS

DAVID B. MCADAM

LINDENS NEUROBEHAVIORAL STABILIZATION PROGRAM

KEVIN P. KLATT AND MIKHAIL KOFFARNUS

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–EAU CLAIRE

ANTHONY DICESARE

BANCROFT NEUROHEALTH

KATHERINE SOLBERG AND CASSIE WELCH

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–EAU CLAIRE

AND

SEAN MURPHY

BANCROFT NEUROHEALTH

Researchers have demonstrated that both deprivation and satiation can affect the outcome ofpreference assessments for food. In the current study, paired-stimulus preference assessments fortangible items were conducted under three conditions: control, deprivation, and satiation. Threepersons with developmental disabilities and 3 typically developing preschool children served asparticipants. The results demonstrated that deprivation and satiation influenced the outcome ofpreference assessments of leisure items or toys.

DESCRIPTORS: preference assessment, deprivation, satiation, establishing operations

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Recently, researchers have examined thedegree to which procedural manipulations influ-ence the outcome of preference assessments.Gottschalk, Libby, and Graff (2000) examinedthe effects of deprivation and satiation on theresults of preference assessments for food. Theirresults demonstrated that both deprivation andsatiation influenced the outcome of preferenceassessments, suggesting that access to the fooditems included in a preference assessment shouldbe held constant. The purpose of this study was

to replicate and extend the study by Gottschalket al. by evaluating the effects of deprivation andsatiation, potential establishing operations, on theresults of preference assessments for leisure itemsor toys.

METHOD

Participants and Setting

Six individuals participated in the currentstudy. Three participants had either moderateor severe mental retardation and had beenadmitted to a neurobehavioral unit for thetreatment of their problem behaviors. Keith,David, and Debbi were 17, 18, and 12 yearsold, respectively. Three typically developingchildren who attended a university-based pre-school also participated. Ann, Helen, and Timwere 3, 4, and 4 years old, respectively.doi: 10.1901/jaba.2005.112-03

Requests for reprints should be directed to David B.McAdam, who is now at the University of RochesterMedical Center, Golisano Children’s Hospital at StrongCenter for Developmental Disabilities, Autism SpectrumDisorders Program, 601 Elmwood Avenue, Box 671,Rochester, New York 14642, or to Kevin P. Klatt,Psychology Department, University of Wisconsin–EauClaire, Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54702.

JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS 2005, 38, 107–110 NUMBER 1 (SPRING 2005)

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Response Measurement and ReliabilityA choice was defined as reaching towards

and picking up one item (Fisher et al., 1992).During each session, data were collected on thenumber of choice responses for each item. Thepercentage of trials in which each item waschosen was calculated by dividing the numberof times the item was chosen by the number oftrials in which that item was presented andmultiplying by 100%. For each participant, asecond observer simultaneously and indepen-dently collected data on the item chosen for atleast 20% of the sessions, and interobserveragreement for choice responses was 100%.

Experimental ConditionsPreference assessments were conducted using

the paired-choice format described by Fisheret al. (1992). A total of 13, 14, or 15 preferenceassessments were conducted for each partici-pant. Initially, three to four preference assess-ments were conducted to identify high- andmoderate-preference stimuli prior to the manip-ulations. Based on visual inspection of thecombined results of the initial assessments, twohigh- and two medium-preference items foreach participant were selected for inclusion inthe control, deprivation, and satiation condi-tions described below (a more detailed descrip-tion of the procedures and initial preferenceassessment data are available from the authorsupon request).

Thereafter, control assessments (two forHelen; three for David, Ann, Keith andDebbi; and four for Tim), four deprivationassessments (one per stimulus), and four satia-tion assessments (one per stimulus) were con-ducted with each participant in the mannerdescribed below. No more than one preferenceassessment was conducted per day, and the datawere collapsed across assessments.

Control. During the control condition, theparticipants received regulated (equal) access toeach of the four items by allowing either 10-min (participants with developmental disabil-ities) or 20-min (typically developing children)

access to each item immediately prior toconducting the preference assessment.

Deprivation. During the deprivation condi-tion, the participants received either 10 min or20 min of regulated (equal) access to three ofthe four items immediately prior to the start ofthe preference assessment. The participantswere deprived of the fourth item for 24 to144 hr (range, 24 to 48 hr for persons withdisabilities; range, 24 to 144 hr for typicallydeveloping children) prior to the preferenceassessment.

Satiation. In the satiation condition, theparticipants were provided with either a 10-minor 20-min period of free access to one of thefour items immediately prior to conducting thepreference assessment. The participants weredeprived of the other three items for 24 to144 hr.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results are presented in Figure 1. Depri-vation resulted in increased selection of thatitem for at least one item for all of the parti-cipants and at least three items for 4 of theparticipants. For several items, however, thepercentage of trials in which the item wasselected was not entirely out of the range of thevariability observed during the control condi-tion. This suggests that some of the differencesin the percentage of times in which an item wasselected might be due the natural fluctuationthat occurs across repeated preference assess-ments. For David and Helen, the deprivationmanipulation resulted in the selection of anitem that was never chosen during the controlor satiation conditions.

The satiation manipulation also affected theitems chosen. For each participant, at least twoitems were chosen less frequently following thesatiation condition compared to the controlcondition. In addition, at least one item wasnever selected by each participant following thesatiation manipulation, although all the itemswere either highly or moderately preferred

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Figure 1. Cumulative percentage chosen across, deprivation, satiation, and control conditions for the typically

developing children and persons with developmental disabilities. The range bars indicate the variability in selectionpercentages during the control conditions.

PREFERENCE ASSESSMENTS 109

based on the results of the initial preferenceassessments.

These results suggest that behavior analystsshould further explore the influence of depriva-tion on the various items included in interven-tion packages designed to increase engagement.For example, DeLeon, Anders, Rodriguez-Catter, and Neidert (2000) found that provid-ing a rotating set of toys (i.e., crayons andcoloring book or dolls) more effectively reducedthe self-injury of an 11-year-old girl with adevelopmental disability than did a single set oftoys (i.e., crayons and coloring book), suggest-ing that satiation limited the effectiveness of thesingle set of toys. The results of DeLeon et al.and the current study suggest that researchersshould examine the use of both deprivation andsatiation on environmental enrichment inter-ventions designed to increase the engagementand to reduce problem behaviors (e.g., compet-ing items in intervention packages). Thesystematic use of deprivation also might allowresearchers to design interventions whose effectswill be maintained over an extended period oftime, providing a strategy to program main-tenance.

Finally, some limitations of the current studyshould be acknowledged. First, the effect ofdeprivation and satiation on a relatively smallnumber of high- and medium-preference tan-gible items was examined. Second, a reinforcerassessment was not included in the current

study, so the ability of the items used to main-tain or increase behavior was unknown. Third,the deprivation periods used in this study rangedfrom 24 to 144 hr. However, Klatt, Sherman,and Sheldon (2000) found few differencesbetween deprivation periods longer than 24 hron the engagement of persons with disabilitiesin functional activities, suggesting that the rangeof deprivation periods used in the current studywas not problematic.

REFERENCES

DeLeon, I. G., Anders, B. M., Rodriguez-Catter, V., &Neidert, P. L. (2000). The effects of noncontingentaccess to single- versus multiple-stimulus sets on self-injurious behavior. Journal of Applied BehaviorAnalysis, 33, 623–626.

Fisher, W., Piazza, C. C., Bowman, L. G., Hagopian,L. P., Owens, J. C., & Slevin, I. (1992). Acomparison of two approaches for identifying rein-forcers for persons with severe and profounddisabilities. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 25,491–498.

Gottschalk, J. M., Libby, M. E., & Graff, R. B. (2000).The effects of establishing operations on preferenceassessment outcomes. Journal of Applied BehaviorAnalysis, 33, 85–88.

Klatt, K. P., Sherman, J. A., & Sheldon, J. B. (2000).Effects of deprivation on engagement in pre-ferred activities by persons with developmentaldisabilities. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 33,495–506.

Received August 4, 2003Final acceptance October 19, 2004Action Editor, Iser DeLeon

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