Research on the surrogate conditioned motivating operation (CMO-S) is sparce and typically produces unsuccessful outcomes. These failures suggest this concept may not be as simple as it is defined, and researchers must explore different strategies to produce the effect; in this case, without contriving for a motivating operation. Four participants recruited from a midwestern university were assigned to color or sound changing video games, in which certain colors or sounds were randomly assigned and then paired during conditioning sessions with specific edibles. Data were collected during probe sessions at the beginning, middle, and end of the study by recording the exact time an edible was selected; conditional probability analyses were then used to assess if participant responding began to outperform chance responding and thus suggest a CMO-S effect was developing. Data were analyzed on general and individual responding, meaning one analysis assessed any edible choice during any stimulus change, whereas additional analyses assessed a specific edible choice during its assigned intervals. Results show that a general effect likely occurred for two participants, one of which also showed a potential specific CMO-S effect. The two participants that failed to show an effect spur discussion on the role of preparedness in CMO-S designs; effects were demonstrated when edibles were paired with visual changes, but not when paired with auditory changes. Based on these results, more research is warranted to understand and explore how to effectively create the CMO-S effect and how it can be used to promote adaptive behavior change.
Keywords: surrogate conditioned motivating operation (CMO-S), motivating operations, conditional probability analyse
