Abstract
Operant methods were used to increase differentially the abundance of occipital EEG waves in the alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (above 13 Hz) frequency bands of naive undergraduate Ss in the presence of a discriminative stimulus. Ss were grouped by the amount of alpha wave activity in their pretraining EEG. Operant training with continuous reinforcement produced reliable and orderly changes in EEG spectra as a function of reinforcement contingency. Baseline alpha abundance predicted only the mean level of alpha output over trials, not the efficiency of training. Matched yoked controls showed no difference in EEG spectra between the two reinforcement conditions.
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This research was supported by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense and was monitored by the Office of Naval Research under Contract N00014-70-C-0350 to the San Diego State College Foundation.
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Beatty, J. Effects of initial alpha wave abundance and operant training procedures on occipital alpha and beta wave activity. Psychon Sci 23, 197–199 (1971). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336074
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336074