Association for Behavior Analysis International

This symposium will include three recently completed projects by the 2021 Behavior Analysis in Health, Sport, and Fitness Special Interest Group (HSF SIG) research grant recipients. The purpose of the HSF SIG Small Research Grant is to support experimental research that demonstrates the application of behavior analysis to address human behavior in the areas of health, sport, or fitness. Additional goals of this program are to disseminate behavior analytic research and practice and to expand research opportunities for students of behavior analysis. The first presentation will describe a study that evaluates whether ultramarathon runners who discount more steeply across monetary delay discounting tasks than non-ultrarunning peers. It then takes a within group analysis to evaluate whether motivation and presumed effort would cause additional changes to discounting rates. The second presentation will examine the effects of self-monitoring and goal setting on the number of elevated heart rate minutes accrued each week in overweight adults. The final presentation will describe a study that investigated the use of a remote video-based training on the ball direction prediction in goalkeepers. This study investigated components of a BST approach and slow motion videos as a possible training intervention. Recipients of the 2023 HSF SIG Small Research Grant will be announced at the end of the session.

graduate students, researchers, behavior analysts interested in the application of behavior analysis to health, sport, and fitness

Ultramarathon running is a quickly developing sport with a growing research base (Garbisu-Hualde & Santos-Concejero, 2020). Despite findings that imply that ultramarathon runners make unhealthy decisions, other findings suggest that ultramarathon runners are less likely to take risks and more likely to be health motivated (Hoffman & Krouse, 2018). This study aims to evaluate whether ultramarathon runners who ran The Barkley Fall Calssic in 2022, discount more steeply across monetary delay discounting tasks than non-ultrarunning peers. It then takes a within group analysis to evaluate whether motivation and presumed effort would cause additional changes to discounting rates. This research seeks to extend the work of Ostaszewski et al. (2013) on cognitive and physical effort on discounting rates as well as Kopetz et al. (2021) on motivation and discounting. Lastly this study seeks to create a functioning model to predict whether motivation or effort cause certain ultramarathon runners to discount race completion more steeply than others and if coaches can utilize this knowledge to improve training and race performance.

The CDC recommends that adults engage in moderate physical activity for 150 minutes or vigorous activity for 75 minutes each week. These measures can be observed with ease with the assistance of a heart rate monitor. The present research utilizes a changing criterion design with an embedded withdrawal to evaluate the effects of self-monitoring and feedback on the number of minutes participants engage in an elevated heart rate. The participants in this study were adults over the age of 18, overweight with a BMI of at least 25, and had an interest in losing weight. Participant’s selected weekly goals, wore a smart watch daily, and engaged in self-monitoring. Self-monitoring consisted of hand graphing their data if they reach their weekly goal and submitting a checklist and supplemental materials to the researcher each week. The majority of the current research in behavior analysis focuses on increasing daily distance traveled and/or steps taken through a pedometer. Although these studies have shown positive results, they do not account for intensity in real time and assume the intensity based on the topography and/or description of the behavior. Thus, this study holds potential to expand the current literature regarding self-monitoring and weight loss.