The effects of awareness on verbal conditioning.

Levin, Saul

doi:10.1037/h0047321

Cited by 109 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…There is good evidence that awareness does mediate a high rate of conditioning, and lack of awareness results in little or no conditioning (e.g. DeNike and Spielberger, 1963;DeNike, 1964;Dulany, 1962;Lanyon, 1964;Levin, 1961;Spielberger, Bernstein, and Ratliff, 1966;Spielberger, Levin, and Shepard, 1962;Spielberger, Berger, and Howard, 1963). Evidence from the present study supports the Postman and Sassenrath theory that one condition necessary to bring about awareness is substantial increments in rate just prior to awareness.…”

Section: Temporal Relationship Of Awareness To Conditioningsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…On the other hand, investigators from a cognitive learning theory point of view have produced evidence that conditioning performance gains are limited to only those subjects who become aware of the responsereinforcement contingency (e.g. DeNike and Spielberger, 1963;Dulany, 1962;Lanyon, 1964;Levin, 1961;Spielberger, Levin, and Shepard, 1962;Spielberger, Berger, and Howard, 1963). These contradictory conclusions are the result of theoretical and procedural differences between the two approaches.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

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Awareness and the Operant Conditioning of a Cooperative Response

Vogler

1968

The Journal of Psychology

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on the other hand, holds that some conditioning occurs prior to aware ness and that awareness is both a result of past improvement and a condition of further improvement in conditioning performance. Im portant in generalizing about the role of awareness in conditioning is the fact that the present study was uniquely different from other studies of awareness in several ways. The reinforced response class was a physical one rather than a verbal one and involved the behavior of two individuals instead of one, candy instead of a verbal stimulus was used as the reinforcer, the experimental nature of the study was not apparent to the subjects, who were children rather than adults, and most importantly, the experimental design was unique among studies of awareness in providing a sensitive measure of the temporal relation ship of awareness to conditioning rate. The cooperative response was defined according to a four-dimensional scheme involving the sequential vs. non-sequential, latency, duration, and topography dimensions of the vii viii response. Three classes of verbal behavior were used to objectively define the requirements of awareness of the response-reinforcement contingency. The apparatus, the experimental procedure, and the method of recording behavioral observations is described. Ten pairs of children six to eight years of age served as subjects. On the basis of verbalizations during the experiment, five pairs were classified as aware and five as unaware. Only the aware subjects conditioned thus supporting the hypothesis that awareness is necessary for conditioning to occur. An increase in conditioning rate was observed just prior to awareness, and an even greater increase occurred follow ing awareness. These data support the Postman and Sassenrath position that awareness is both the result of past improvement and a condition of further improvement. Since all unaware subjects received some reinforcement and yet failed to become aware, the idea that the effects of reinforcement are "automatic," in the sense that reinforcement is a sufficient condition to bring about awareness, was not supported.The data suggest that reinforcement is a necessary condition for awareness to occur, and that other variables influencing awareness are partially correct hypotheses, total response rate, attention to the task, mutual compliance to test hypotheses, and the nature of the conditioning task. Each of these variables probably interacts with, or in some way is influenced by, reinforcement, instructions, and his torical variables. Manipulatable conditions which would enhance the liklihood of awareness, and hence conditioning, are: a response with a longer latency and a simpler topography; a restricted operant which would slow the total response rate and provide time between responses to observe the consequences of each response emitted; instructions which induce a problem-solving set. As a cognitive process which may be an essential mediating event in the conditioning of many human behaviors, a detailed knowledge of the proces...

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Section: Temporal Relationship Of Awareness To Conditioningsupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Awareness and the Operant Conditioning of a Cooperative Response

Vogler

1968

The Journal of Psychology

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“…Dulany (1961), in an attempt to explain the evidence of conditioning without awareness, proposed that, in order for conditioning to occur, the subject must either be aware of the correct response-reinforcement contingency or must accept as correct some correlated hypothesis which leads him to make the desired responses without really being "aware." Another explanation of the conditioning without awareness effect was suggested by Levin (1961), who hypothesized that certain subjects classified as unaware may actually have been aware, but their awareness was not detected by the brief, insensitive interviews. The ideas of Dulany (1961) and Levin (1961) both seem reasonable; further exploration of hypotheses such as these may help to reconcile conflicting findings in the area of operant conditioning.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another explanation of the conditioning without awareness effect was suggested by Levin (1961), who hypothesized that certain subjects classified as unaware may actually have been aware, but their awareness was not detected by the brief, insensitive interviews. The ideas of Dulany (1961) and Levin (1961) both seem reasonable; further exploration of hypotheses such as these may help to reconcile conflicting findings in the area of operant conditioning.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of awareness in the operant conditioning of eye blinks

Jones

Hochhaus

1976

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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The present study is concerned with the problem of awareness in the operant conditioning of a nonverbal behavior, eye blinks. Using a within-subjects design, 14 subjects' blink rates were counted and compared for four periods of 4 min each. The experimenter and the subject carried on an informal conversation during both base and reinforcement periods" but during reinforcement periods only, a light flashed on immediately after each of the subject's blinks. The test for awareness consisted of brief questioning after reinforcement periods and a more extensive post experimental interview. Only data for the eight unaware subjects were used in statistical analysis. A two-factor analysis of variance showed no evidence of conditioning without awareness; in fact, the blink rate for reinforcement periods was significantly less than the rate for base periods (p < .05). The anomaly was explained in terms of the effects of cognitive activity on eye-blink rate..

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“…Later experiments by Farber (1963), Levin (1961), and Eriksen, Kuethe and Sullivan (1958), however, tailed to tind any relationship between anxiety and conditioning; neither did they establish any relationship between anxiety and awareness. These contradictory findings may be due to difterences in subjects--normals vs. neurotics and psychotics--and in measures of anxiety--Test Anxiety Questionnaire (Sarason, 1958), MAS (Farber 1963;Levin, 1961;Tatte1, 1955) and Psychasthenia Scale of the !~~I (Eriksen et al, 1958).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%