The Use of Stimulus Preference Assessments to Determine Procedural Acceptability for Participants

The social validity of behavior intervention is rooted in consumer perception. This information is typically garnered through questionnaires and interviews conducted with relevant consumers such as teachers or caregivers. Often, the participants (i.e., the individuals with disabilities receiving the intervention) play less of a role in the assessment of social validity, despite their primary role in intervention. This study examines a procedure for including participants in the assessment of social validity, namely procedural acceptability. Three participants selected their preferred intervention in a paired stimulus preference assessment. Videos presented the intervention options, and participants’ preferred interventions were implemented. These interventions decreased target behavior(s) and increased on-task behavior for all participants. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for use of this procedure and considerations for including participants in social validity assessments.

Wistar rats and C57BL/6J mice differ in their motivation to seek social interaction versus food in the Social versus Food Preference Test

ABSTRACTHere we characterized the Social versus Food Preference Test, a behavioral paradigm designed to investigate the competition between the choice to seek social interaction versus the choice to seek food. We assessed how this competition was modulated by internal cues (social isolation, food deprivation), external cues (time-of-testing, stimulus salience), sex (males, females), age (adolescents, adults), and rodent model (Wistar rats, C57BL/6J mice). We found that changes in stimulus preference in response to the internal and external cue manipulations were similar across cohorts. Specifically, social over food preference scores were reduced by food deprivation and social familiarly in Wistar rats and C57BL/6J mice of both sexes. Interestingly, the degree of food deprivation-induced changes in stimulus investigation patterns were greater in adolescents compared to adults in Wistar rats and C57BL/6J mice. Strikingly, baseline stimulus preference and investigation times varied greatly between rodent models: across manipulations, Wistar rats were generally more social-preferring and C57BL/6J mice were generally more food-preferring. Adolescent Wistar rats spent more time investigating the social and food stimuli than adult Wistar rats, while adolescent and adult C57BL/6J mice investigated the stimuli a similar amount. Neither social isolation nor time-of-testing altered behavior in the Social versus Food Preference Test. Together, our results indicate that the Social versus Food Preference Test is a flexible behavioral paradigm suitable for future interrogations of the peripheral and central systems that can coordinate the expression of stimulus preference related to multiple motivated behaviors.HIGHLIGHTSRats prefer social over food when sated, and this is attenuated by food deprivation.Mice have no preference when sated, and prefer food over social when food-deprived.Rats prefer a familiar social stimulus or a novel social stimulus over food.Mice prefer food over a familiar social stimulus.Adolescent rats investigate social and food stimuli longer than adult rats.GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT