Human performance on random ratio and random interval schedules, performance awareness and verbal instructions

Abstract

Humans responded on multiple random-ratio (RR) random-interval (RI) schedules, and their verbalized performance awareness (PA; i.e., their ability to accurately describe what they did) was measured in three experiments. In Experiment 1, instructions informed participants that to earn points, either sometimes rapid responding and sometimes slow responding would work best (accurate instructions); rapid responding would work best (go fast instructions); spaced responding would work best (go slow instructions); or no advice was provided (minimal instructions). In Experiments 2 and 3, participants received either accurate or minimal instructions and were subject to extinction after a multiple RR-RI schedule. In all experiments, both performance awareness, and receiving accurate instructions, were related to schedulesensitive responding, but were unrelated to one another -participants receiving accurate-rate instructions were not more likely to show performance awareness than those exposed to minimal instructions. Both higher performance awareness and exposure to accurate instructions predicted faster extinction in Experiment 2 but not in Experiment 3. The current results suggest that performance awareness rather than contingency awareness is more strongly related to humans displaying schedule-typical behavior and that this is not strongly related to any explicit verbal instructions that are given.

Human free-operant performance varies with a concurrent task: Probability learning without a task, and schedule-consistent with a task

“…The presence of a concurrent load has been taken to be one of these steps (Reed, 2015a;Reed et al, 2018). In the absence of a concurrent load, overall human schedule performance, and within-bout responding, was not similar to that seen in nonhumans, which has also been noted in several other studies that were conducted without a concurrent task load (Bradshaw et al, 2015;Randell et al, 2009). It has been thought that such a concurrent load might act to suppress the ability to formulate verbal rules about the schedule (Reed, 2015a), which, in turn, interferes with the development of schedule control (Catania et al, 1982;Hayes et al, 1986;Lowe, 1979).…”

“…On these schedules, overall rates of response typically follow overall rates of reinforcement (Catania & Reynolds, 1968;Herrnstein, 1970;Reed et al, 2018). However, the case for humans without a concurrent task is less clear (Bradshaw et al, 2015;Hayes et al, 1986;Randell et al, 2009). Thus, while a clear relationship between decreasing overall response rates and increasing interval values, similar to that seen in nonhumans, is expected for humans with a concurrent load (Catania & Reynolds, 1968), it is harder to predict the nature of this relationship when there is no concurrent task.…”

“…. It has been shown that verbal rules generated about the schedule (Bradshaw et al, 2015;Hayes et al, 1986), or instructions given to humans prior to a freeoperant task (Matthews et al, 1977;Shimoff et al, 1986), impact strongly on their performance, often to a greater extent than the actual contingency (Catania, Matthews, & Shimoff, 1982;Hayes et al, 1986). However, there are instances where humans show accurate performance awareness, but do not show typical schedule performance, often due to interactions between self-generated rules, experimenter-provided rules, and response outcomes (Fox & Kyonka, 2017;Hackenberg & Joker, 1994).…”

A re-examination of responding on ratio and regulated-probability interval schedules

“…In a recent human study, Pérez and colleagues (2016) (Bradshaw, Freegard, & Reed, 2015;Reed, 2001) (Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo, 2013;Dickinson, Shanks, & Evenden, 1984;Hammond & Paynter, 1983;Wasserman, Chatlosh, & Neunaber, 1983) or variations of this metric (Cheng, 1997;Novick & Cheng, 2004). The most plausible explanation for Reed's (2001) results is that participants attribute causal control in line with the correlational properties of the schedules, independently of reward rate or reward probability.…”

Human instrumental performance in ratio and interval contingencies: A challenge for associative theory

“…The idealized versions of these two schedules are the random ratio (RR) and random interval (RI) schedules, where the probability of reinforcement per response-in the ratio case-and the probability of a reinforcer becoming available per second-in the interval case-are given by binomial (or geometric) distribution (see Cardinal & Aitken, 2010). Using a variety of species and target instrumental responses, a wealth of evidence has shown that ratio schedules support higher response rates than interval schedules despite the probability of reinforcement or the reinforcement rate being matched (Bradshaw, Freegard, & Reed, 2015;Bradshaw & Reed, 2012;Catania, Matthews, Silverman, & Yohalem, 1977;Dawson & Dickinson, 1990;Peele, Casey, & Silberberg, 1984;Reed, 2001aReed, , 2001cZuriff, 1970). Mackintosh (1974) was fully aware of the ratio-interval contrast and discussed whether ratio and interval schedules differentially reinforce divergent response rates-that is, whether different response rates bring about different reinforcement probabilities on ratio and interval schedules.…”