Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Lotfizadeh, Amin D.
• McCoy, Eric
• Kazemi, Ellie
• Ringdahl, Joel E

Titel

Robots as Behavior Change Agents: Can Robots Teach Behavior Technicians to Implement Differential Reinforcement?

Ist Teil von

• Behavior analysis (Washington, D.C.), 2024-08, Vol.24 (3), p.150-162

Ort / Verlag

Educational Publishing Foundation

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Quelle

PsycARTICLES

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Behavior analysts have used various tools to facilitate the training of behavior technicians. Recently, researchers demonstrated the utility of humanoid robots for facilitating such training by having a researcher implement the intervention while the humanoid robot served as the operandum for the participants. It is also possible for robots to mediate the intervention and serve as both an operandum and as a behavior change agent. In the present study, we evaluated this possibility by having a humanoid robot mediate the intervention that the researcher implemented to teach behavior change procedures to college students. A humanoid robot served as the operandum, wherein the participants provided instructions to the robot and implemented a differential reinforcement procedure. When the participants implemented the differential reinforcement procedure correctly, the researchers activated the robot to provide praise statements. Contingent on incorrect participant responses, the researchers withheld the praise statement and activated the robot to provide specific feedback. The robot-mediated intervention was effective at teaching the target clinical skill; however, certain hardware limitations and software programming complexities limited how independently the robots could implement the behavior change procedures. These findings provide proof for the concept that robots can mediate training for behavior technicians, but additional replications with more reliable hardware are needed for widespread adoption.