Evidence for a dissociation between causal beliefs and instrumental actions

Abstract

Human experiments have demonstrated that instrumental performance of an action and the causal beliefs of the effectiveness of an action in producing a reward are correlated and controlled by the probability of an action leading to a reward. The animal literature, however, shows that instrumental performance under free-operant training differs even when these reward probabilities are matched while subjects undergo training under ratio or interval schedules of reward. In two experiments, we investigated whether causal beliefs would correlate with instrumental performance under interval and ratio schedules for matched reward probabilities. In both experiments we found that performance was higher under ratio than under interval training. However, causal beliefs were similar between these two conditions despite these differences in instrumental performance. When reward probabilities were increased by experimental manipulations in Experiment 2, the causal beliefs increased but performance decreased with respect to Experiment 1. This is evidence that instrumental performance and causal action-reward attribution may not follow from the same psychological process under free-operant training.

A theory of actions and habits: The interaction of rate correlation and contiguity systems in free-operant behavior.

“…This prediction is clearly at variance with the empirical evidence showing a sustained ratio-interval performance effect with extended training (e.g. Catania et al, 1977;Pérez et al, 2016;Pérez and Soto, 2020). We have already noted that interval schedules differentially reinforce long IRTs-the longer an agent waits before responding again, the more likely it is that a further outcome has become available with the resultant increase in the probability of reinforcement (see Figure 2a).…”

“…As the interval-trained rats pressed at a lower rate than the ratiotrained animals, goal-directed control was observed in the ratio-trained group even under a lower outcome probability experienced by those rats. The higher levels of performance produced by ratio training under matched reward probabilities (Catania et al, 1977;Pérez et al, 2016;Pérez and Soto, 2020) and the impact of the training schedule on the outcome devaluation effect (see Gremel and Costa, 2013;Hilario et al, 2012;Wiltgen et al, 2012) have now received extensive replication.…”

“…To analyze this empirically, he proposed that the feedback function could be captured by the linear correlation between the response and outcome rates, and that it should be higher for ratio contingencies at intermediate to fast rates of responding. This idea led Dickinson and his colleagues (Dickinson, 1985;Dickinson et al, 1995;Dickinson and Perez, 2018;Pérez et al, 2016;Pérez et al, 2018;Pérez and Soto, 2020) to argue that response-outcome learning is driven by the response-outcome rate correlation experienced by the agent: the greater the experienced rate correlation, the stronger is goal-directed control.…”

Instrumental behavior in humans is sensitive to the correlation between response rate and reward rate

“…By contrast, the reward rate sets an average interval between each available reward and so variations response rate do not generally produce variations in outcome rate-the reward rate is fixed at the scheduled interval between rewards once the response rate is sufficiently high to collect all rewards. Consistent with this idea, a wealth of data have demonstrated that RR schedules generate higher response rates than RI schedules even when the reward probability HUMAN INSTRUMENTAL BEHAVIOR 4 (Pérez and Soto, 2020) or reward rate (Reed, 2001) is matched between the two conditions.…”

Is there a need to distinguish instrumental copying behavior from traditions?

“…It is now well established that these schedules can affect whether behavior is goal-directed or habitual. More precisely, the evidence suggests that the molar aspects of behavior seem to be considered by people when deciding to act on the environment in a goal-directed manner and that the molecular aspects are more important for behaving habitually (Perez & Dickinson, 2020;Pérez & Soto, 2020). So far, I know of no experiment in which molar and molecular aspects are encouraged by experimental manipulations, but it is likely that they will also play a role in how observers ascribe causality to actions and therefore imitate (copy actions) or emulate (copy intentions to obtain a goal).…”