Inadequacies of the Acquisition Responses of Mental Patients on an FI Schedule

Mental illness is defined as a failure of the individual to assess his environment accurately and to respond optimally to environmental contingencies. An experimental operant conditioning laboratory was utilized to assess an individual's ability to develop a new behavior repertoire appropriate to unique stimulus conditions. 15 Ss, 10 mental patients and 5 normal controls, were placed on a FI 1-min. schedule for 40 min. and their acquisition responses analyzed for rate, variability and efficiency. No mental patient performed the task adequately while several normal Ss performed in a highly efficient manner. The most frequent error for mental patients was in the direction of behavioral excess. Diagnostic implications are discussed.