← ABA Inside Track
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- [00:00]
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Foreign.
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Hey, everybody. Welcome to ABA Inside Track, the podcast that's like reading in your car, but safer. I'm your host, Robert Perry Crews, and with me, as always, are my fabulous co hosts.
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A
Oh, hey, Robert Perry Crews. It's Jackie McDonald.
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B
Fancy meeting you here.
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A
Hello.
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C
And it's me, Diana Perry Cruz.
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B
How. When did you show up?
- [00:33]
C
I've been here the whole time.
- [00:33]
B
Oh, my goodness. So much fun. You know what, guys? As much as I love podcasting about behavior analysis and behavior analytic research, picking topics, discussing them at length, and relevant research articles, I think I just love being with people and engaging in social interactions, whether it's physical or vocal. Those are just my faves. I'd do anything for those. What do you say?
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A
You definitely would. Out of all of us, you're number one. I'm number two.
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B
You're number one.
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A
You love talking to people.
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B
I just love talking. I just love talking.
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A
That's true.
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B
I don't even want to respond. Just sit. They just sit there.
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A
People not included. Right.
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C
You actually have three people sitting here today listening to you. It's not just us.
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B
What?
- [01:17]
D
Oh, great.
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B
It's my favorite episode. Right? Talk and talk and everyone has to listen. If you are one of those people who love our intros and say, what is this topic actually going to be? And sometimes our segues are nonsense and sometimes they're actually on topic. Well, if you picked on topic, you're right, because we're not just going to talk about talking and social interactions. We're going to talk about, when do social interactions actually serve as reinforcers? And how would we know? Well, we always know our best chance for reinforcers use preference assessments. So let's talk about social preference assessments. And to do that, we're welcome back to the show, friend of the podcast, previous guest, Dr. Casey. Clay. Casey, thank you so much for coming back to talk to us about social preference assessments.
- [02:02]
D
Yeah, thanks for having me back. If I go too long without talking to you guys, I also miss a social interaction. So we need to. We need to make sure we. We keep. Keep in touch and. And keep our social interactions at a frequent pace.
- [02:16]
B
Casey just been. He's just been sitting still, like, waiting for this for like, a couple months now, I think, you know, it's just nothing going on till. But now we're here, so now he's gonna be talking, talking a lot as our special guest. Very exciting.
- [02:28]
D
Yeah, absolutely. And I noticed that you guys are celebrating a birthday. Is that true? Is it 10 years?
- [02:36]
B
Yep.
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D
Congratulations.
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C
Thank you.
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B
Thank you very much. What'd you get us?
- [02:42]
D
Oh, good question. I guess I'll, I'll have to think about that. Maybe your favorite social interaction. Next time we'll do a quick preference assessment and I'll deliver that for your birthday.
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B
All right. You better hope that one shows up high on the list or it's gonna be rough. So we're going to be talking today all about social preference assessments. We're going to be talking about, you know, what they might entail, how they run. Hopefully we're going to get some good stories of, you know, Casey's research into the area and then as well as sort of, you know, what does that mean for practice. Diana, what are the articles that we'll be discussing today?
- [03:16]
C
Oh, sure. Well, we have a few different articles to inform our discussion today, some of which were written by our guest speaker. And those include Assessing Preference for and Reinforcing Efficacy of Components of Social Interaction in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder by Clay, Samaha and Bogov. That was in Learning and Motivation 2018. But before that happened, they talked about Assessing Preference for Social Interactions by Clay, Samaha, Bloom, Bogev and Boyle. And that was in Research and Developmental Disabilities 2013. And then we have a different article written by two different people, a Comparison of Methods for Assessing Preference for Social Interactions by Morris and Vollmer. Java 2020.
- [04:04]
B
Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. So, Kasey, before we get into it, and I didn't write this on the question list, so I hope you're ready for it because you've been on the show before, but it's been a little while since we talked, we talked about virtual reality. And in case folks have not heard that episode so they missed your bona fide. Would you mind giving us a little, giving the listeners a little background about yourself?
- [04:27]
D
Yeah, definitely. So I am an assistant professor at Utah State University, and I guess for that I was a clinical director at Children's Hospital of Orange County. Before that I was a professor at University of Missouri. And I, I've been in the field of ABA for probably what, 20, a little over 20 years now. Got my start in ABA as a, a young undergraduate student working in a, a preschool for kids with autism. And after that I, I found the science of behavior analysis and the appreciation, the love for it, and I kind of ran down that track and tried to study and learn as much as I could about it.
- [05:11]
B
All right. Well, we are glad to have you back. We're talking about a very virtual reality. We're talking about, like, not actually being with other human beings. And now we're like it's a 180. We're talking about being with other humans in the presence of other people now.
- [05:26]
D
Yeah, absolutely. The research lines kind of wax and wane over the years and I think, you know, virtual reality research line and social interactions, they, they, they, they have a lot in common but also some differences. But I'm, I'm glad for this kind of preference assessment and social interaction research line to talk to you guys about today.
- [05:47]
B
So I guess the kind of, the first. Let's, let's kick off with, you know, we have a pretty robust technology preference assessment for identifying, you know, likely reinforcers in sort of the edible and tangible areas of the world. And when it comes down to it, why bother with social preference assessment? Right. We all know that if you give people food and iPad, they're going to, you know, do everything we could ever ask for. So who cares if they'll, you know, do. If they'll, you know, get their work done or clean up their room for, you know, tickles or head scratches or whatever.
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D
Right, right.
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B
This is a pointless episode is what I'm saying, isn't it?
- [06:22]
D
Yeah, no, I think, you know, if it's only for, you know, those high sugary treats or we're only using those, or high calorie foods that aren't as healthy, you know, we, we kind of pigeonhole ourselves in terms of what reinforcers we have to use. And, and so I think social interactions is something, you know, sort of out of the ordinary, most people don't think about. But I think, you know, they're cheap, they're, well, they're free, you know, to, to a large degree. And you know, so it, using those instead of maybe unhealthy snacks or even other reinforcers that can't be delivered, going to a movie or something like that, that's why we, I think we need to use them more frequently and you know, have research that helps us understand, you know, what preferences and using the highest preferred reinforcer,
- [07:15]
C
not to mention they may have a higher likelihood of generalization to the natural environment setting too.
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D
That is definitely, definitely a good one for sure. No, my, my natural environment highest preferred social interaction is probably a big hug from Jackie Mac. Your listeners, your listeners may not know, but Dr. Jackie McDonald's gives the best hugs. And so to my work husband, to
- [07:42]
B
you, there's a magnitude of hug that Jackie does that is.
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C
They've been described as spine crushing. Yes, it has.
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A
Yep.
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B
Yes.
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C
So she also does a good high five too.
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A
If you don't prefer the Hugs.
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C
Yeah. And she makes sure to say them. She's, she delivers it and she says it verbally, just like in your research.
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D
Gotta get all the components of that social interaction in there, right? Yeah. Make it as rich as possible.
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B
So Casey, when we talk about social interaction, I definitely did sort of, you know, I do think back to kind of my early days when I was the equivalent of like an RBT that, but that didn't exist exactly at the time and sort of this concern of like, oh well, you know, especially when working with the, you know, autistic clients, this sense of like they don't really love, you know, social interactions kind of, you know, it's aversive, they don't like it, they're not going to do, you know, they wouldn't work for. Why would anyone work for it? You know, it's too, it's too hard, it's too loud. It's just non preferred altogether. You know, when you were sort of preparing your initial studies, is that sort of a background that you had to just sort of that like, oh, autistic kids don't like social interaction. So that's why we just use iPad all the time. I mean, is there anything to that as a, as a concern? When we sort of talk about social interaction, we talk about food, we talk about iPad, we talk about going to the movies, it's like, well, there's a lot of cons to all of those. Whereas social interaction we usually think of as, well that's a good thing, but maybe it doesn't work. But are there actually other concerns we should be thinking about with social interactions as a, as a reinforcer?
- [09:18]
D
You know, I think I actually had the opposite impression. You know, I loved having finding social interactions that the kids that I worked with loved and engaged with. And you know, so for me it was always kind of confusing why folks would say, oh, you know, people with autism don't enjoy social interactions. Or it's, it's not that because, you know, while there might be kind of those precludies, it's a little bit what sweeping across the board to say never use social interactions or they're aversive because I found them to be really effective. And the more social and engaged I was, kind of the more learning might happen, you know, the more reinforcers were in the environment. So yeah, I think, you know, it's obviously tied to the diagnosis of autism and one of the key parts to that being deficits in social communication. But really, you know, that doesn't mean we should eliminate all of all social interactions from, you know, these kiddos lives. So I, yeah, I think I found the opposite. I said, well, why don't we do some more research on this and really dive into this and explore how reinforcing these are and can we use these in place of other things?
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C
And just as you pointed out it, social interaction is a huge ginormous category. Right. Like some people like fruits, some people like vegetables, some people like peanut M&MS.
- [10:44]
B
Just saying, those are not sexual interactions.
- [10:47]
C
I know. But in parallel people can like different types of social interaction and it might be more. Maybe some people like physical, maybe some people like inside jokes. Right. And those can be, you know, two very distinct types of, of stimuli that are provided. So you got to find the right match for the person. Like I know some kids who do not like over the top types of social interaction where you're like, right, great job. Right. Like that's so fake. And I think I would not respond well to that personally. So I'm always very sensitive when I hear that that I think that that might actually be aversive. But that doesn't mean that there aren't other ways of interacting socially that are, they're going to be the right match for that person that they would find highly reinforcing. You just got to figure out what those are.
- [11:30]
D
Exactly. Right, right. And the best way to do that this is through preference assessments, you know, and I think that's what, you know, the, the, these early studies I kind of did on, on social interactions to, to make sure that there's that, that we empirically kind of demonstrate that and in a way, you know, for individuals that, you know, can't tell us maybe their, their preferences, just say, hey, I don't like that. You know, let's set up a preference test where they choose and they tell us what their choice is is you know, they like this, this social interaction or not.
- [12:02]
B
Yeah. So Casey, kind of going into that decision to research this area of the social preference assessment, I'm always surprised when preference assessment research comes out because it feels like one of those topics that it's fun, the participants are going to love it. You know, there's, there's still so many good questions and like really like, you know, more and more like fine grained analyses you can do with them. But then when you sort of look at the social preference assessment literature, I think we've got like the Smaby 2007 article and then occasionally, you know, maybe some interactions are in an article, but the point of the article is more to say, like, can we use an iPad or can we use video for preferences? It's almost like, like an afterthought that social preference assessment is a part of it. Was there something about it that, like when you, when you said, you know, hey, I'm researching this, people like, oh, don't do social preference assessment. It's, it's dangerous or going to be hard to identify, like, is there a reason we don't see more with it or, or is it just, it's so, so clear cut that people just don't want to explore it the same way?
- [13:03]
D
Yeah, that's a good question. You know, it's a little bit more like you can't put it on a tabletop, right. And assess it. So it's a little bit more abstract in that sense. And then, then also kind of, you know, how well people deliver social interactions or, or highly reinforcing types of social interactions that varies based on, you know, a therapist repertoire too. So. Yeah, so I think that's probably, you know, people don't think about it as, oh, I can put this on a table and, and do an assessment, a preference assessment with it. And how would we actually conduct a preference assessment? You know, would that take too much time, is it worth it? Those type of things. But, you know, I think that I found it really valuable, especially for, you know, folks I was working with, with disabilities that couldn't tell me, you know, like, hey, maybe I don't like that. Stop giving me high fives. Or like those high fives are too strong. Like, that hurts. Don't, don't do that. Right. And so, yeah, I think that people don't think about some of the, the considerations related to social interactions serving as reinforcers.
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B
So once you decided this is the area of research, you had to develop the study. I like your method. I probably would have been like, let's do it like the Dating Game. Like an MSWO dating Game where you get all your, you know, your social preference line, like Bachelor Number one. If we were going to have a social activity, what would it be? You know, and then they'd do a song and dance or something. I don't know.
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C
That's, that'll never be the same. In thinking about the Dating Game after watching that movie on Netflix where it was one of them was a serial killer. Yeah.
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B
What was that?
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C
Yeah, I'll find out and tell you.
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B
Serial killer Dating Game. Okay, but you, you, you did not design it like the Dating Game. You didn't get the old set out or anything like that. Would you mind kind of walking the listeners through the, that initial study, sort of the development of it, things that worked, things that maybe didn't work in the initial, you know, procedural write ups that you had to edit.
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D
Yeah, definitely thinking about just the therapists or the researchers helping me too. We definitely didn't have any serial killers. But even, even the ones even like, you know, the therapists that didn't have maybe the best social repertoire, you know, putting them in a preference assessment might seem kind of awkward, but yeah, I think so thinking about, you know, that, that, that repertoire of therapists or you know, researchers that are delivering the social interaction, something to think about. But you know, I specifically wanted an arrangement, you know, a paired stimulus preference assessment. So we, you know, having therapists side by side and kind of seeing which, which one the, the client preferred. I think I probably was inspired by like the concurrent operant studies like Piazza did where they tape a room off in different quadrants and how the participants allocated their time to different sections of that room based on what reinforcer was present in that section. And so I thought, you know, we could do the same kind of thing with social interactions. And there are some studies that actually do what I just described. But how do we do, how do we set this up in like a really clear paired stimulus, kind of forced choice arrangement? And so what we did is had two therapists kind of in the corners of a smaller room and then a piece of tape down the middle to kind of separate those, those two therapists. And the participant would stand across the room from those therapists right in the middle, in the middle of the tape. And then we would say, you know, choose one and however, whichever. Well, I guess first we, we had to expose the, the participant to what they would receive when they went to one side or the other or went to one therapist or the other therapist. So we, we did that. So they knew kind of what they'd be getting if they did approach the therapist, then kind of brought them back to that starting spot and, and said okay, pick one. And you know, did that over and over again in kind of the parody moss format.
- [16:55]
C
And it was called Woman of the Hour and it was starring and directed by Anna Kendrick.
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B
Oh, okay, there we go. But that movie didn't exist at the
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D
time of this research.
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C
So it's funny, you know.
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D
Yeah, I'm glad, I will note that.
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B
So, so you sort of had each, each therapist was sort of paired, at least to start paired with a type of interaction. They'd be in the different parts of the room. Did you attempt to control for kind of any, any kind of idiosyncratic feature of social interaction? Like, you know, like, Steve, you're, you're, you're. Your high fives are too much, man. You got to tone it down. It's not replicable otherwise. Or was it sort of one of those situations of we can control for so many things, but people being people and the type of interaction they have, that's just going to have to be something we just, Just take. Take as is?
- [17:46]
D
Yeah, we wanted to control for sort of the idiosyncratic features of the therapist because everybody knows when you work with kids, they might have their favorite therapists. But, you know, why is that? You know, is it because, you know, they're taller or they're, I don't know, more attractive, even those type of things? So how do we control for the features of the therapist and isolate the social interaction in and of itself? And so, you know, once we assign therapists different social interactions and then ran the paired stimulus preference ass. After that, we looked at which therapist was selected the most and which therapist was selected the least or the highest preferred the lowest. And then we had them switch the form of social interaction that they were giving. So now the therapist who was delivering the highest referred now will deliver the lowest. And the parent. The therapist who was delivering the lowest now will deliver the highest. And we'll see if the participant tracks that change in terms of their selections to identify that highest form of, or get access to the highest preferred form of social interaction as opposed to just following their favorite therapist for some who knows what type features.
- [19:00]
C
I thought that was really clever.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Because it could be something about that person and just interacting with that person independent of what the topography of the social interaction was. Right.
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D
Yeah, exactly. I think the interesting thing is we saw, for the most part, they actually tracked the. The social interaction, you know, as opposed to the therapist. And, and, you know, I. This is. It's kind of interesting. I think these participants, I will say, didn't have a long history with the researchers.
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B
Right.
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D
So you could see how maybe then switching like, or a longer history, they might actually stick with one therapist regardless of what social interaction they're delivering. Or. But, you know, it's kind of interesting that. Or, Or I guess a feature of the study kind of behind the scenes was, you know, they didn't really have a long history with. With our. Re. Our research assistants.
- [19:51]
A
I would have been super upset if I was like the kid's favorite therapist and then just all of a Sudden he was like, not gonna go with you anymore. Just if it was like a. If it was a long history. Right?
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D
Yeah, yeah.
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A
I'd be like, hi.
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D
Right, Right.
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B
Yeah.
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D
Rob. Rob does better. Hu. Just going to hang out with Rob now. Like, that's it. No more. No more hugs from Jackie.
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A
Just my sad feelings.
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C
My feelings are so hurt.
- [20:19]
B
Right.
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A
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- [20:38]
C
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A
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A
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A
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- [21:42]
C
see you there. Bye.
- [21:50]
B
Hey everybody. Sorry to interrupt our discussion with Dr. Clay, but I want to remind all of our listeners that ABA Inside Track is Asyn Kwaba approved. By listening, you're able to earn one learning credit. All you need to do is finish listening, then go to our website aba inside track.com or click the link in your podcast player to go directly there. Well, you'll need to enter in some information about you as well as some information about this episode. And the information that you need to be paying attention to right now are the secret code words. These are special guest code words from Dr. Clay. The first one is penny. Penny P E N N Y. You might be thinking that Dr. Clay is bemoaning the loss of the penny printed by the US treasury. But no, this is actually the name of his family's new dog. But either way, you just need to write Penny. All right, let's get back to our episode on social preference assessments. You bring up a good point there. I would assume if you were using a similar methodology to do social preference assessment in, you know, a child's like, natural setting, you know, whether it's parents or siblings or, you know, Various, you know, behavior technicians that they work with or teachers that they work with at their school, you sort of would just have to take that as it is of, well, if they follow, you know, if they. It. I mean, I guess they wouldn't fail the tracking test. Exactly. But if they just follow the person, then, you know, I. I guess. Would that be strong enough that you would say, well, I guess they just. They just love the interaction type of that person there. They just like interacting with that human being rather than the type of interaction. I mean, that.
- [23:24]
D
I guess that's a good question. And, you know, I think we'd have to kind of set up that. That arrangement, you know, and systematically analyze, you know, pair that person with another person. I think one thing that we also try and kind of tend to do is the therapist or the teacher that delivers that highest form of social reaction. It seems like that they're really reinforcing. Other people might copy that. Right. And then we'll see, like, if another teacher, another therapist kind of copies that, you know, are they gonna get the same response from students or. Or clients? So, yeah, it's kind of a. It's definitely an empirical question, but I think it's something we tend to just replicate because we see that some social interactions are more reinforcing, and that's. Let's try and do those, like the success, the successful teacher.
- [24:14]
B
See, now that feels like a good line of research because I personally, there's a way I deliver my attention. There's a way I deliver my social interactions that I assume, you know, if we did research on it, would be, like, the best way to do it. And I'll sometimes try to demonstrate that or model that to other. Other folks. And it is like pulling teeth to be like, no, listen to me. Listen to how my voice goes up and down. Look at my eyebrows moving. And it's sort of like you can get, like, almost this, like, light, topographically matched social interaction. Like, oh, high five. Looks like this, but the voice isn't there. The face is. I kind of want to see. You know, has anyone been successful in transferring all those other aspects of facial expression? Prosody. Right. Tone of voice, pitch that feels like a very subtle, personal, you know, piece. I don't know. Maybe we're getting a behavioral artistry terminology, but you like to think you could train them. Like, no, this is how you do a hug. This is how you do a high five. I don't know.
- [25:15]
D
Yeah, no, that. That is a good question. And a kind of similar, like, line of research is how, you know, so basically something that's not a conditioned reinforcer, how do we then condition that as a reinforcer? If we're talking about social interactions and you know, that. That therapist or that teacher you're trying to teach to do something better, you know, you're essentially making. Trying to make them a conditioned reinforcer using what we think are, you know, preferred social interactions. And so how do we, you know, how do we make social interactions stronger? Condition reinforcers or, you know, the people delivering them. Delivering them, for that matter.
- [25:53]
B
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe an extension. You do tracking test and you find when that falls apart, like. Nope, it was just, you know, therapist one. That's. That's the highest preferred person. The interaction is irrelevant. Then. Then maybe you could do that extension. That's kind of a fun idea.
- [26:08]
A
And you know, it's because they've got. They smell like chocolate and they've got M&Ms. In their pocket.
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B
Right?
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D
Yeah. Or that. That's the therapist that's giving the extra M&MS. Ahead of the session. Right.
- [26:23]
B
They ruined my research. So again, that's a question for the future. But at least in, in this study, it was the, the interaction was.
- [26:35]
D
Was.
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B
Was the kind of the, the controlling piece.
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D
The.
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B
The participants responded based on the type of interaction. It's very interesting. Didn't have a lot of history. And then it played out in the reinforcer assessment, you know, with I. I do. I do love people. Write out what their kind of preference assessment or reinforcer assessment Q is. I think yours was. When you do this, you get this.
- [26:56]
D
Yeah, right. How do you, how do you kind of do that. That first pre. Exposure. Exposure to the stibuli. That sampling. Right. And. And I think those rules kind of. And what you're saying and what you're providing to not give too. Too much information. So yeah, when you do this, you get this, right? When you do, I think what do we have? We have moving a block, I think
- [27:19]
B
from bowl to bowl.
- [27:20]
D
Right. And so, you know, when you do this and move the block, you get this high five or thumbs up, you know, or noodle arms. And then they, they get a. They get to engage with that. That social interaction. But yeah, we just did a really, a really simple reversal where, you know, in one condition we deliver the social interaction and then the other condition, the extinction was in place. And we kind of saw. Saw some patterns track with showing that it was reinforcing for the. Their highest preferred form of social interaction.
- [27:50]
C
Yeah, we always called it silly arms. So I Don't know if we're going to see, you know, the validity really extend outside of moodle arms. We'd have to do a replication, probably.
- [28:02]
D
Yeah, right. That's the component, another component of the social interaction, the talking, the talking part of it. But really what you say while you're doing the interaction. Right. Could determine if they still like that interaction. If, if Jackie gave me a big hug and was like, I love you in a creepy voice. Right. That would be really. That would be.
- [28:23]
A
That would be kind of done that before actually. So
- [28:28]
B
wait a minute. So again, yeah, kind of nice, nice, solid article. Good procedure. But you do mention the limitation which I think listeners or folks have tried to do this type of assessment. Know, it took a while. Like, I don't remember if you say the exact time, but do you kind of generally remember, like, was it one of those things that just. It took like an interminable amount of time? Because you're doing the forced choice, you need multiple people. So you need at least two people or you need three people because you need the primary therapist to set up. And then the two people sort of like a, like a haunted house are already standing in the corners, like waiting for the participant to come. If you have multiple interaction types, you need multiple therapists for each interaction type. It's pretty resource intensive.
- [29:11]
D
Yeah, that, that definitely was a limitation. And there were a lot of bodies in the room moving around, you know, in terms of, not only, you know, were they in different corners, but we had them switch side to side to account for, you know, any potential side bias the, the participant might have. So, you know, they're moving around, the participants moving. We do have to. We did set it up where each therapist was assigned their own form of social interaction. So then you need one therapist for each form of social interaction you're assessing, you know, if you, if you set it up like that. So yeah, that, that definitely was a limitation. But yeah, I think that, you know, there, there's been subsequent studies that I think have done or have some methods that kind of solve for that simplified things. Mm mm.
- [30:00]
B
Yeah. And you certainly did then did the follow up that will. We'll talk now a good time to talk about it. And I always have a question. When folks have like a line of research, I always curious, what is the narrative that developed the research? Because sometimes you get the two articles that come out within a year of each other and then it seems like there's like a timeline, you know, of like. Well, first this article and then I thought of this question Then I did this research. But then sometimes you find out like, no, I did both at the same time. And just this one got published first, even though it was the one I did second. You know, you kind of find those things. So was your second study something that you were directly saying, you know what, let's answer some of these remaining questions. And then you did a second study, or was it one of those. I did a bunch of studies and one just happened to get published before the other and. But they all came out at the same, the same idea or the same brainstorming session.
- [30:50]
D
Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. These studies, I think were published three or four years apart, but yeah, we did the. I did them both in my doctoral program. So they were done. Yeah, within probably the span of a year of each other, if that. And yeah, I guess kind of look behind the scenes too. You know, when we were doing the first study, you know, trying to make sure the therapists were consistently delivering the same social interaction and there weren't, you know, a lot of variations in. That was pretty tricky. And that kind of, I think, got me thinking, you know, if they do this a little bit different, you know, is this going to change the, the value of the social interaction? Or what about, you know, if they, they do this social reaction, you know, without as much physical contact to some degree, or, you know, when they're not saying noodle arms or they're just quiet, but they're doing the same. They're wiggling the kids arms, but they're not saying anything.
- [31:49]
B
That sounds terrible coming up and shaking my arms without saying. Right, right. So, you know, you sort of moved into the kind of the stimulus classes of preferences, which I love, I love the idea of like, like the original Chakoti study, you know, let's, let's, let's lump edibles into salty and vegetable and gummy and then chocolate. Right. I just love the idea of thinking about that for the, the social, the social interaction piece. And then you took kind of that step further of looking at the physicality of the interaction, the vote, the vocalizations. You, you did the brave thing and said to social interaction compete with edibles, which you probably knew the answer was going to be no, but you never know.
- [32:32]
D
Yep.
- [32:32]
B
Right. And then sort of looking at how they all went together, it's great.
- [32:36]
A
Right?
- [32:36]
C
And then, but just because something doesn't compete in that, like, direct sense. Right. Like you very often see displacement of other items by edible reinforcers. It doesn't mean that those other items can't function as reinforcements. So true. It's always worth our time. Even if you discover that displacement that then to evaluate, do these other items still. Are they putative reinforcers? Right. Do they actually function as reinforcers? Because very often they do. It's worth it. Especially if you don't want to use a lot of edible reinforcement.
- [33:06]
D
Yep, exactly. And you know, for the two participants in that state where we kind of broke down the components of a social interaction and pitted that against edibles. Yeah. Going into that thinking, okay, they're. They'll definitely select the edibles more. But how much more? Maybe, you know, and. And for who, for which participants will do that? You know, I think we hear folks might say this person's really motivated by food or this barely edible motivated. Well, we don't know that necessarily until we compare that to other types of reinforcers and then also variations of those reinforcers so that we can really nail down what it is they like about the social interaction.
- [33:52]
B
So could you describe that? Because just on its face, thinking about how complicated the social interaction preference assessment, like the, the physicality of the setup, you know, having the different. Different split room, the different clinicians in different areas, as well as the edible piece that you're now adding in, because you sort of did, you know, the same assessment again, is it fun when you get to cite yourself as like, the procedure was much like in the last article I did. Like, was that fun to write in?
- [34:18]
C
Yes.
- [34:18]
B
I don't know.
- [34:19]
D
I should.
- [34:19]
B
I could test it. Too bad. I always love when it's like, oh, you know, the other article I did, that was also good, you know, as the prestige.
- [34:28]
D
Yeah. So we had to identify. We had to identify what the highest preferred form of social interaction was to pit that in a concurrent operance against edible and other other types of social or other components of interaction. So, yeah, we. We started with a paired stimulus arrangement for social interactions, found out which one was the highest preferred, and then took that social interaction. I believe we were sitting around like a big table and there were different card, colored cards that the participant could reach out and touch and then get whatever was behind door number one. Right. And so, you know, one of those, you know, that that arrangement, like current operants arrangement, allowed for us to, you know, have a therapist sitting behind one card and deliver some type of social interaction or some component, a therapist sitting behind another. And then one that, you know, they just get the delivery of the edible there. And do we. We should have used a control. Do we use a control?
- [35:30]
B
There was a Control.
- [35:31]
D
I can't remember if they have nothing,
- [35:32]
B
but there were definitely controls in there. Yeah, so. So you had your categories and you had physical versus, not physical versus. Well, I guess they were versus. But you had your physical interaction, which was kind of the same as in the, the original 2013 study. And then the, the vocal interaction and you sort of mentioned it was just like the same as the previous procedure, but there was a uniform delivery. Was it literally just do the noodle arms but don't say anything or do the noodle arms but say noodle arms in the most boring, you know, kind of monotone was that. That's sort of how you tried to distinguish the physicality of the interaction versus the vocalization quality of the interaction.
- [36:10]
D
Yeah. Try to keep them consistent. So we had the same therapist delivering that in that concurrent operants arrangement. But we also, you know, kind of. What were they saying? We, we did preferences and I think one of the participants liked when we kind of joked about the medicine being pink or you take the pink medicine or something like that. Like that part of a social interaction. And so having the same therapist deliver that to try and control for any variations across the. Whether it was a physical deliver or delivery of the vocal component was something we, we definitely did. But I don't think we split it exactly. Like if you were going to do noodle arms, you did the quiet noodle arms and then one was the vocal noodle arms. So.
- [36:56]
B
Okay.
- [36:57]
D
Yeah, so that's a, there's a, that's a follow up study, Rob. I like that idea.
- [37:02]
B
Seems very hard to sort of capture them. And then also almost like if you get too in the weeds with it, like, is that really a question that anyone needs to answer?
- [37:10]
C
Because social interactions and it's probably going to be idiosyncratic.
- [37:13]
D
Yeah. Yeah.
- [37:14]
B
What's going to be learned from it? I mean, I don't know.
- [37:17]
A
Idiosyncratic.
- [37:18]
B
Simple thesis, I guess.
- [37:19]
C
That's not going to be simple, man. You know, everyone, you always think it's going to be simple. It's never simple. It will be.
- [37:25]
B
I'm not going to do it. I'll assume it will be simple forever. And prove me wrong. Prove me wrong. AUDIENCE.
- [37:31]
C
I do think there is an interesting question in there about if you have a staff who doesn't. Like you're saying, Rob, like if you're trying to model like this like really fun approach and you have a, a staff or a teacher that, that seems just not their wheelhouse and that's really hard for them. Wet blanket, you know, People have different strengths. So if that. What do you do there? Right? Is. Is there. Does that have an impact on the delivery? If you have a. If you have a student who really likes social interaction or, you know, maybe it's lower on their list. Is. Does that factor into where you place that teacher? Or is this something that you can teach?
- [38:12]
A
That would be great, actually, if we had enough space and staff and resources to be like, this stuff has a little less. So we'll put them with the kids that don't like the loud teachers. I just love that idea. Yeah.
- [38:28]
C
Maybe some kids really want just, like, a very calming presence.
- [38:34]
A
I worked with a child.
- [38:34]
B
Tell me I did a good job. I want to hear it. Let me. What does it sound like when you tell me, great work?
- [38:39]
A
Right. I had. I worked with a child who did not appreciate my high energy and hadn't had challenging behavior for many years. I don't know if you remember this, Casey. I think we were working together, and as soon as I started working with him, his aggression skyrocketed and his BCBA was like, I don't know what happened. And she did a scatter plot, and turns out it was only happening when I was working with him. So they did have to train me to be monotone. So when I would deliver any sort of instruction, I had to be like, good work.
- [39:13]
C
Yes. Right.
- [39:16]
A
And anytime that I, like, raised my. It took a long time, too, to be able to change that, because every time he was like, no Jockey, no Jackie.
- [39:24]
C
Loud, no Jackie. So, yeah, people, like.
- [39:29]
D
Yeah, I think as. As, you know, BCBAs or supervisors, we do try to, like, pair certain types of teachers or staff with certain types of kids for the most part. You know, obviously we don't have the infinite resources there, but, yeah, if one staff is. Is, you know, how they're interacting with the kiddos not working out, we want to figure out what that is. I love that the BCBA did a scatter plot and identified you as the. The problem.
- [39:58]
A
That was the problem.
- [40:00]
D
Yeah. The social interaction, though, was the problem because you changed it. You changed the social interaction you were giving, and then maybe it ended up. Were you working better with that. That kiddo?
- [40:12]
A
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Then he stopped. He stopped hitting me in the face. So when I was cool and calm and collected, there was no more aggression.
- [40:20]
D
There you go.
- [40:21]
B
Did you just try telling him, like, dude, you're missing out on a great interaction with me? I'm just telling you. Right.
- [40:26]
C
But also. But also, like, some people, like, come in and they're like, I really, like working with little kids or middle school. High school is much more my speed. Right. And that really may have to do with like, what their preference is for on the teacher side for their social interaction, which is another interesting idea.
- [40:43]
B
Oh, like I. I don't want to do imaginary play. Like, I'll do like toy play. But like, when kids are like, let's pretend we're. I'm like, nope, no thank you. Not interested.
- [40:51]
C
Like, oh, the baby so tired, he's gonna lay down. Now my guy is sleeping.
- [40:58]
D
That's interesting, Rob. I wouldn't have guessed that. I would have thought you want that imaginary play. Like a DND campaign. Right. Like, it's all.
- [41:06]
B
That's a little different. I think it's more if I have to pretend to be something I don't like that. So, like, if I'm like, using my voice and like hand motions, I'll do it. Like, that's a lot of fun. And I'll do it with like, physical objects. But if it's like, we're all horses now, it's like, no, I don't want to. No, thank you. I'm not galloping after you. Have fun.
- [41:24]
D
I'll be an elf, but I will not be a horse.
- [41:26]
B
Exactly. I like to say it's like, well,
- [41:29]
D
how am I gonna.
- [41:29]
B
How else am I gonna teach them that I'm not fun all the time? Sometimes they want to be with their peers who are more interested. You see, it's all. It's all a plan.
- [41:36]
C
I actually think that that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it does make a lot of sense.
- [41:38]
B
It's not me. It's not me. I'm doing the right thing.
- [41:40]
C
Just like I said last night. I think that Bluey's parents may be contributing too much to the play. Yes.
- [41:50]
A
They're always in their play. Like, how do they even have jobs?
- [41:53]
D
Yes, I want Bandit's job for sure.
- [41:58]
C
Right?
- [41:59]
D
Yeah.
- [41:59]
C
You know where their jobs are, Casey, and then we can get back on track.
- [42:02]
D
What are they? I'm going to tell you.
- [42:04]
C
I'm going to tell you. Okay. The dad is an archaeologist. Bandit is an archaeologist. And Chilli works for airline safety.
- [42:15]
D
Airline safety. Dog.
- [42:16]
C
She's a bomb sniffing dog.
- [42:18]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [42:19]
C
I love that he digs up bones.
- [42:23]
B
Oh, wow.
- [42:26]
D
That makes sense now. I mean, they gotta be doing something they're good at to afford the house they're in. Right.
- [42:34]
C
In that pretty fancy.
- [42:36]
B
Yeah.
- [42:37]
D
Bomb sniffing dog and digging up bones. That's makes a lot of sense.
- [42:40]
A
I love as an adult, that is what we think about like how do they afford a house in that area where the kids are like that would be fun.
- [42:45]
C
It's a very nice house
- [42:49]
B
in Melbourne, you know.
- [42:53]
A
Yeah.
- [42:54]
C
Actually I, what I actually wanted to ask about, I don't think we've talked about yet is like the, the presentation of the stimuli when you weren't doing the actual like split room assessment because that's always the challenge is how am I going to show all these varied social options?
- [43:11]
A
Right.
- [43:11]
C
And what did, what, how did you guys decide what you were going to do for that and how did you present them?
- [43:17]
D
Yeah, it was so every, it was at the start of every pairing. So we would just say like if you go to this therapist or you go to this side, you get this, you know. And so they didn't actually get a sample. All of the, the social interactions ahead of time. It was just as the pairs came up. So yeah, I think that might be a little bit different than if you were to use edibles or you kind of just let them sample everything so they know that Cheeto is a Cheeto and tastes like a Cheeto. Right. And so yeah, it, we just did the, the kind of pre exposures before with every paired stimulus as they, they came up.
- [43:53]
C
And then did you consider using pictures?
- [43:55]
D
We did not consider using pictures. That's something that I think came later. Study. We can talk about the Morrison Volmer study. Pictures to represent the different social stimuli they were presenting or I think actually these arbitrary pictures and then kind of paired those arbitrary pictures with a specific social stimulus and then allowed the participants or the kids to choose from among the pictures there. I think for our participants there was the concern that they wouldn't have that picture to object repertoire.
- [44:32]
C
Right, right.
- [44:33]
D
Which is something. Yeah, which is something. You know, when you're doing this you definitely have to assess or when you ain't have a picture preference or a video preference assessment, do they have that, that picture to object repertoire? Natural repertoire.
- [44:45]
C
Yeah. So it's good to hear that there are varied options that you could use. So if you feel confident in your clients picture to object repertoire, then you could maybe use pictures. I've also heard of using videos too, like little sample videos and having those be presented for the preference assessment. But if you are not confident, then you could do a real life pairing and have the actual like concurrently available options, which is very cool. As long as you have the people available to do something like that. Yes.
- [45:17]
D
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there was a consideration specifically kind of again behind the scenes look, one of the participants had. Was blind, was mostly blind. And so then, you know, we had to figure out how to represent, you know, the stimuli so that they, they could approach the stimulus and, and track that. And so if you're using like little pictures or videos for someone with that might be blind or mostly blind, then that creates some issues there.
- [45:46]
C
Certainly.
- [45:47]
D
Yeah.
- [45:48]
B
So kind of moving a little bit into the Morrison and Vollmer article, you know, not, not too dissimilar to your research in terms of just looking at different preference assessment modalities and procedures, looking at social interactions. But one thing I would like to talk about, because we started talking about a little bit, was they added a pre assessment where they were looking at a number of skills that they thought might correlate with the type of preference assessment used. Like they had one that they used, the sipa, which was kind of like the arbitrary. It seemed very much like a picture mswo, but with sort of like more arbitrary pictures being used kind of consistently. They used MSWO with photos. And then they actually did a paired stimulus assessment with vocal vocalizations like tell me which one you want of this or that. That one. Certainly the participants had to have, you know, vocal, you know, vocal verbal repertoire. But some of the other assessments, they were looking at things like, you know, basic conditional discrimination skills like matching objects to pictures, matching identical pictures, tacting pictures, listener responses around the pictures of the different activities. When you sort of think about those. And they kind of saw some patterns to which assessments seem to therefore have the more kind of valid results for each of the types of participants. But that wasn't something you were too concerned about or at least wasn't, you know, what you were looking at in your research, but kind of extensions from that, have you found that there tend to be prerequisite skills that you're thinking about looking at when you're deciding which of the preference assessment types you're going to use?
- [47:21]
D
Yeah, definitely, you know, the ability or I guess the repertoire to scan an array comes. It becomes really important if you're, you know, presenting an mswo. I think even like reaching out and grabbing something or touching something, you know, could be pointing to something. Those, those type of repertoires are really critical. As you mentioned, the vocal.
- [47:43]
B
Verbal.
- [47:44]
D
Vocal, verbal repertoire. If you're just, just. Why don't you just tell me what you like. Right. Type of thing. You know, I think that considering those repertoires are really critical along with that picture to object matching. But yeah, I think I'm trying to think, what if I have different experiences with different Participants or different kiddos. I think, you know, what we know about in terms of preference assessment literature. Some preference assessments present more reliable findings. And I think, you know, for example, the paired stimulus preference assessment. And so, you know, that's what that was something that, when I was thinking about comparing different types of social interactions to, to be sure to use that
- [48:23]
B
arrangement, I did like in that. In the Morris Morrison Volmer study, when the participants had kind of a vocal verbal repertoire, they seemed to get pretty good results from their vocal paired stimulus, which is sort of one of those, like, great. Isn't it nice to just be like, hey, what do you want? Sounds good to me. Yeah, I got it. Let's do this first.
- [48:39]
C
But to be honest, like, I always point that out to my students as well and saying, like, you know, we are, we're way down the road of preference assessment when we initially start teaching people about preference assessments, in that we are starting with like a, you know, sometimes a single stimulus or paired stimulus with a physical, physically present, tangible item. And we're down that road because the preference assessment literature evolved from attempting to determine the prevalences for folks with, you know, multiple handicaps or multiple disabilities. And then we've sort of, you know, extended it out into larger populations. But if you have someone who can reliably tell you what it is that they prefer, very often those results are valid. And they have tested that against, you know, one of these types of assessments. So we sometimes, I think, think like, oh, we need to do a preference assessment. And that means we have to lay out two items and do 56 trials and say, you know, pick one. And that may be true for some folks, but it is a more restrictive, more time consuming option than just being able to just ask somebody, hey, which one would you like? And the, the, the whole point here is that we figure out what someone likes, which then, you know, often will then function as a reinforcer. But it's not a guarantee there right either. And it's, it's almost like a backwards evolution, right? So we teach, we teach it restrictive and then say, oh, but maybe you could do it less restrictive versus vice versa. So it might be worth just asking someone, seeing if it pans out. You save yourself some time.
- [50:18]
D
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And kind of thinking about, you know, the, the repertoires too. I, if folks are ambulatory in how well they can, you know, walk to different areas or access different things, that's something, you know, to consider as well in terms of presenting an array where you present the array and yeah, like, you Said we, we train very specifically. Here's how you run a paired stimulus preferences and here's how you run an mswo. But yeah, we. We kind of have to get creative to account for different abilities and repertoires.
- [50:49]
B
Yeah.
- [50:50]
C
And types of stimuli, which is what's so cool about the. The way that you arranged this. I'm all about finding like, unusual stimuli that someone likes and. Or that could function as a reinforcer for them, particularly ones that have, you know, sort of larger. I don't know what word I'm trying to use more versatility, I think is what I'm trying to say, versus just, you know, straight edibles or a toy that's going to be loud and hard to use in the classroom. Right. So some, particularly the more subtle forms of social interaction or social reinforcers could. Could have a greater level of generality. Right. They're going to be a little easier to. To transport. They're perhaps, you know, sort of more acceptable to use in a classroom setting. It's not so distracting for other kids. Right. So they could have great utility. And I like them for all of those reasons as well as a little bit easier, I think, to. To fade as well.
- [51:50]
D
Yeah. That reminds me, I actually did a study, kind of a final drawer study that hasn't been published where we included a therapy animal into like an MSWO array. Right.
- [52:01]
A
And I love it.
- [52:04]
D
Yeah, we had a therapy. We had a therapy dog. Well, you guys met Rhett, actually.
- [52:08]
A
You guys know Rhett, my favorite dog.
- [52:10]
B
Yeah.
- [52:10]
D
Yeah. So Rhett was part of our therapy animal preference assessment or our preference assessment involving a therapy animal. And yeah, we brought him in as a stimulus. But then we also had a video. Right. And said could have or tried to assess whether a video representing the therapy animal, if the participants would select that and they. They preferred, you know, access to that therapy animal.
- [52:36]
C
That's cool. I'm sad that it's a filed door study. I don't know.
- [52:40]
D
Me too. Yeah, I'm. I'm just as equally sad. Yeah. But we can. We could replicate it though, you know, so if you guys had no. There no. Any therapy dogs.
- [52:52]
A
Mine. Mine is part step one.
- [52:57]
C
What's step one?
- [52:58]
A
He just has canine. Good citizen.
- [53:00]
C
My dog.
- [53:02]
A
We've got some years, Casey, but he
- [53:05]
B
hasn't passed the written exam.
- [53:06]
C
Not quite ready.
- [53:07]
A
It's not quite written.
- [53:09]
B
He's not licensed.
- [53:10]
C
That's a really cool idea for a study.
- [53:11]
A
It is.
- [53:12]
C
Yeah. Jackie's wheels are turning. I can tell.
- [53:14]
A
They are, they are.
- [53:17]
B
But which therapy and therapy horse, therapy dog Therapy.
- [53:20]
A
We actually do have access at Regis to a therapy horse. So. Just saying.
- [53:26]
B
Our town has a therapy dog. I think the police station has a therapy dog.
- [53:30]
A
His name is Blue.
- [53:31]
B
Yeah, Blue. He's a, He's a fuzzy dog.
- [53:34]
A
I think the best thing I love is that my dog is related to all the other police therapy dogs. And he's way worse when they all get together because they're like been bred for their whole lives to be a therapy dog. And mine is a very serious family dog.
- [53:50]
C
We call them that. And like, they'll all.
- [53:52]
A
They'll like, meet each other and he'll be like. And their dog will be like. Right.
- [53:58]
C
No one can see what you're doing, Jackie.
- [53:59]
A
Oh, yeah, he's very. The other dog is very, very calm and my dog is very, very excited.
- [54:04]
C
Oh.
- [54:05]
D
Does not prefer that social interaction. See, even animals have different preferences of social interactions.
- [54:10]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [54:11]
B
Jake, I thought you were going to say that, like when they get together, it's like, you know, when you, when you hook back up with your college roommates and you're like, let's go wild again. Because it's like, it's like we're back in, you know, in our 20s. Like, they just get together and they just start misbehaving just like they did in good citizen school.
- [54:24]
A
No, that's not what happened.
- [54:26]
B
Okay, well, I think, you know, now that we've. We've sort of gone over kind of what we know about social preference assessments and the research there, I'd love to move into dissemination station and kind of sum up what we've learned and therefore what people could take to their kind of practice of using preference assessment. Ah, all right, so made it, I guess, you know, Casey, if you were to kind of say, all right, based on what you, you know, from the research, based on other research, based on your practice, if you had to give the. Doesn't have to be an elevator pitch, you know, but like the flowchart of. So you think you want to do a really good preference assessment that takes social interactions into account. What would you say are kind of the key components that practitioners should be keeping in mind?
- [55:14]
D
Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. I think trying to control for different variations of social interaction. Right. Because somebody can deliver a social interaction one way, and that's that therapist and that's the way they do that. And to making sure that you're controlling for different variations across, you know, how your teachers or whoever's working with the hidden is delivering that, that social interaction and I touching on something Diana said earlier too. Just try to maybe start simple and ask, you know, like, would you like this or do you like this? And then you can kind of get more and more complex, I think in terms of empirically demonstrating that this kiddo does like the noodle arms and does not like the hug or does not like the thumbs up or the high five. So I think that that's definitely something to take into account. And then also just, you know, trying to move away to move towards healthier reinforcers is something. So if you do have a kiddo that it just seems like they're really getting a lot of candy or a lot of high calorie snacks. Let's explore social interaction preference assessment and let's see, you know, what, what they do like and what they, they might either work for or prefer to, to include more of those preferred reinforcers in their environment.
- [56:33]
C
It.
- [56:34]
B
And then kind of from the research perspective and we sort of did this throughout the episode, but maybe we should take a minute. I'd love to think like, what are the, what is, what are the social interaction preference assessment questions we still have, you know. I know, I know. We brought up would therapy dogs and animals rate in the social interaction preferences? We did that one. What are some, what are some of the other questions that are still like, ah, someone's got to do that replication and extension, I think.
- [57:01]
C
Oh, you go ahead. Okay. I was going to say, I think that, you know, there's like a lot of these types of social interactions that we, that we see in maybe like the EIBI preschool culture. Right. That are appropriate for young kids, but extending it past that group to ensure that the social interactions that we're providing seem, you know, dignified and age appropriate for the group that we are working with and also incorporating other others perspectives on what that looks like. Maybe there are some types of autistic interactions that we didn't think of that could be really highly socially motivating that should be included. That might be a little more outside the box and thinking about how we would want to get those incorporated. That's my thought.
- [57:51]
D
Yeah, no, I think that that's, that's spot on and yeah, you know, different. You know, what's going to be reinforcing for high school kids or what's going to be reinforcing for, you know, folks in different types of classrooms. I do think, you know, we're still kind of stuck with the question of conditioning social interactions so that we, that we can use more social interactions as reinforcers and How. What's the best way to condition that? I think one thing of that it found out through doing preference assessments is the, the preference assessment, in and of itself sort of pairs the social interaction with, you know, the therapist. And so it seemed like the social interactions became more reinforcing over time, or different therapists became more, More reinforcing just by virtue of the pairing and the delivery and the exposure to that. But I think we definitely need more research on how we can condition social interactions to be reinforcers and healthy reinforcers.
- [58:52]
C
Cool.
- [58:52]
B
Yeah. And, Casey, my actual last question. In your 2018 study, one of the physical interactions was under the bridge. What the hell was that interaction? Like, you went to a bridge. What was.
- [59:04]
C
You know what it is? You put your arms up and people
- [59:08]
B
go under the bridge.
- [59:09]
C
No, it's not that.
- [59:11]
B
It's in a table.
- [59:12]
C
I'm assuming standing therapists would arch legs, the person would crawl under.
- [59:16]
D
Oh, I, I had forgotten about that. That is true. I'm remembering now. Yeah, so, yeah, yeah. So I guess the, it was a small kiddo. Right. And he liked to crawl around. He was primarily crawling around on the floor. Right. And so, yeah, the therapist would kind of like make an arch with their legs and he'd, like, crawl, Crawl around them. Yeah. Not something you'd try with a bigger high school kid or, you know, trying to play leapfrog. Yeah, leapfrog over someone. But, yeah, under the bridge. Yeah, that was a fun game or interaction.
- [59:50]
B
I remember now I know everything I need to know about social interaction preference assessments. That was, that was, that was the last piece. It's all solved. Clay, thank you so much for coming back on the show. I, I, I kind of. Now I'm kind of curious. Could you do the social interaction preference assessment in VR? Would it lose something if your AI bot was doing the interactions like noodle arms, bleep, bloop, blop. And it was, you know, visual that with no tactile. Maybe that's an idea for the future as technology gets better. Probably not as good.
- [60:19]
D
Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question. And I think that kind of goes along the lines of, can we use, like, videos to take the place of social interactions? But yeah, for VR.
- [60:30]
A
No, I would be highly disappointed if someone's like, look, this person is. This is not even a person. It's an AI. I'd be like, no. Where's my warmth? That's what I would be looking for.
- [60:41]
D
That's a good. Yeah, that's a good point. Although some people have AI or virtual companions. So delivering the social actions there, everyone loves them.
- [60:51]
B
They love them so much they kind of allow them to suck them into these weird AI cycles is kind of the New York Times story they keep putting out every couple months. Yikes.
- [61:02]
D
It's really an empirical question. I think we should create the preference assessment and do it.
- [61:07]
B
Just when you thought preference assessment research was done, they pull you back in, I guess. Yep. But Casey, if folks want to reach out and sort of ask you a little bit more about this line of research, your work in VR, is there a good way that they can get in touch with you?
- [61:21]
D
Yeah, definitely via email. My email is just Casey Claysu Edu. Feel free to reach out. Also, if you're interested, I'm on Instagram with Dr. Casey Clay. We also have a lab Instagram. It's XR lab ABA. And so yeah, any of those ways to reach out and connect are welcome. And I'm sure you know my lab, my graduate students would also be happy to chat about ideas and any interest that folks have.
- [61:52]
B
One more time, we want to say a big thank you to Dr. Casey Clay for coming back on the show. It's always a treat to have on our guests that we haven't seen in a little bit of. A little bit of time. So we're very excited that we could bring it back on for this episode. And before we wrap up, let's go to the last section of the show. Pairings.
- [62:11]
C
Oh hooray. It's time for pairings. Pairings is the part of the show where I tell you about other episodes you might want to check out if you enjoyed this one. We have talked about social reinforcers in a couple different capacities previously. You could go back and check out episode two. That's right, two conditioned reinforcers in the social setting all the way back. Can you imagine, Rob episode two?
- [62:35]
B
No, I don't think that episode exists.
- [62:37]
C
Two. Episode 47, social reinforcer assessments. Episode 238, moving away from edible reinforcement, episode 245, rapport building and episode 310, pictorial and video Based Preference Assessments. All of those talk about preference assessments and or social reinforcers in some capacity. And then if you enjoyed hearing Dr. Casey Clay talk in this episode, you could also check out his preceding episode, which was number 93, where he talked about virtual reality training. We were also joined that episode by Dr. Berglund, Sven Bjorn's Daughter, as part of pairings. I also like to recommend a snack to enjoy that you could have while you listen maybe to the other episodes and so for this one, I wanted to pick a snack that I feel like is like a social snack. So in our family, my kids love to make popcorn on the stove top. And it's like a fun like thing that we do together because you have to stand there and shake the pan and you watch it pop. Right. And it's kind of fun. There's like a lot of joint intention involved in that. And then afterwards, everyone also really enjoys throwing the popcorn to one another and trying to catch it in their mouths. So I feel like that is really more of a social interaction activity than a snack activity. Right. Because it again is, you gotta have one another in order to be able to do that. So that's why you could enjoy your popcorn as your social reinforcer, potentially.
- [64:01]
B
So floor popcorn, it's pretty much what you're saying.
- [64:03]
C
Yep. Then you pick it up from the floor, when you missed it, pop it right in. And that was pairings. Please enjoy.
- [64:09]
B
All right, thanks, Diana. Thank you all so much for listening. If you haven't, please remember to subscribe to the show. You can certainly rate us wherever you find us on any of your podcasts applications. Of note, we also want to remind you about your second secret code word, which is ski S K I. What is there to do in Utah but ski? There's other stuff too, but that's the one. Dr. Clay.
- [64:31]
C
Was it a brewski?
- [64:32]
B
It could be a brew Ski, but you just need to write ski. Ski. Okay. And as always, if you're interested in even more ABA Inside Track, you can join us on our Patreon page, patreon.com/aba inside track, where you can subscribe at any level to get the episodes a week ahead of time to get access to our polls. But at the $5 level, you'll gain access to our quarterly listener choice episodes, which we have another one coming out pretty soon. We haven't even identified what the. What the articles are. We'll have to do that. That'll be coming up soon. So get ahead of the game. As well as at the 10 level where you get access to all of our full length to our book clubs. We just, I think at the time, yes, at the time this is coming out, we should have just released the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. So if you want to hear our thoughts on that book, then you can subscribe right now@patreon.com Aba InsideTrack. And don't forget this June we'll be putting out our new poll. So if you're not a patron by this June then you're just gonna have to listen to whatever books everyone else wants to talk about. And you can't say boo about it because you didn't get to vote. Sorry, that's just I don't make the rules. Well, I made that rule, I guess. But you know, hey, that's how it goes. Patreon.com abainsidetrack Some final thanks in addition to Dr. Casey Clay, we want to thank Dr. Jim Carr for recording our intro at Outro Music, Kyle Sturry for interstitial music, and Dan Thabbit of the podcast Doctors for his amazing editing work. We'll be back next week with another fun filled episode, but until then, keep responding. Bye.