UNINSTRUCTED HUMAN REPONDING: SENSITIVITY TO RATIO AND INTERVAL CONTINGENCIES¹

Abstract

College students' presses on a telegraph key were occasionally reinforced by light onsets in the presence of which button presses (consummatory responses) produced points later exchangeable for money. One student's key presses were reinforced according to a variableratio schedule; key presses of another student in a separate room were reinforced according to a variable-interval schedule yoked to the interreinforcement intervals produced by the first student. Instructions described the operation of the reinforcement button, but did not mention the telegraph key; instead, key pressing was established by shaping. Performances were comparable to those of infrahuman organisms: variable-ratio key-pressing rates were higher than yoked variable-interval rates. With some yoked pairs, schedule effects occurred so rapidly that rate reversals produced by schedule reversals were demonstrable within one session. But sensitivity to these contingencies was not reliably obtained with other pairs for whom an experimenter demonstrated key pressing or for whom the reinforcer included automatic point deliveries instead of points produced by button presses. (1974) found that response-dependent reinforcers maintained higher response rates in pigeons than responseindependent reinforcers, but Streifel (1972) found no difference in the response rates maintained by response-dependent and responseindependent reinforcers with two of three humans. Herrnstein (1970) found that the proportion of a pigeon's total responses maintained by each of two concurrent variableinterval schedules approximately matched the proportion of the total reinforcers provided by each schedule, but Schmitt (1974) failed to obtain such matching with human concurrent responding. In fixed-interval (FI) performances, infrahuman responding is typically characterized by a scallop (i.e., a postreinforcement pause followed by a gradually increasing response rate within individual intervals: Ferster and Skinner, 1957), but the Fl performance of humans is commonly characterized by high rates without postreinforcement pauses (e.g., Weiner, 1969Weiner, , 1970. Yet an organism's sensitivity to schedule contingencies is simply sensitivity to the differential consequences of its own behavior, and it is puzzling that human responding often appears less sensitive than that of other species.

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

“…These differentiated VR-RR versus VI-RI response rates are also sometimes seen in humans (see Baron & Galizio, 1983;Bradshaw & Reed, 2012;Matthews, Shimoff, Catania, & Sagvolden, 1977;Raia, Shillingford, Miller, & Baier, 2000;Reed, 1993Reed, , 1994Reed, , 1999Reed, , 2001Shimoff, Catania, & Matthews, 1981). However, schedule-induced response rates in humans are far less consistent than those of nonhumans, and findings have suggested that a significant proportion of human participants perform in a manner which is insensitive to the contingency of the schedule presented (see Bradshaw & Reed, 2012;Catania, Matthews, & Shimoff, 1982;Matthews et al, 1977;Shimoff et al, 1981;Wearden & Shimp, 1985).…”

“…At present, the reasons for contingency-sensitive versus contingencyinsensitive human responding on schedules are unclear, but differentiated patterns of responding have been linked to factors such as whether the reinforcer requires a consummatory response , the type of reinforcement employed (Lowe, Harzem, & Bagshaw, 1978), whether performance is shaped or instructed by experimenters (Catania et al, 1982;Matthews, Catania, & Shimoff, 1985;Matthews et al, 1977;Shimoff et al, 1981;Shimoff, Matthews, & Catania, 1986), and to the degree that the participants demonstrate contingency or performance awareness (Bradshaw & Reed, 2012;Hayes, Brownstein, Zettle, Rosenfarb, & Korn, 1986b;Wearden & Shimp, 1985b). In relation to these latter two concepts, Bcontingency awareness^(CA) is taken to be the participant's ability to describe what relationship is actually required between response and outcome (e.g., Brewer, 1974;Lippman & Meyer, 1967), whereas Bperformance awareness( PA) is taken to be the participant's ability to accurately describe the behavior that he or she has just emitted (e.g., Bradshaw & Reed, 2012).…”

Efeitos de modelagem do comportamento verbal e de instruções sobre o comportamento de encaixar peças

“…Para Matthews, Shimoff, Catania e Sagvolden (1977), o desempenho instalado por meio de instruções é insensível às contingências, isso é, as instruções podem desempenhar o papel de anular ou evitar o contato com as contingências de reforçamento. Entretanto, os mesmos autores afirmam que essa insensibilidade não é uma conseqüência inevitável da instrução e isso foi o que parece ter acontecido para quatro (P07, P08, P09 e P10) dos cinco participantes da Condição 2 (CNVI), pois seus desempenhos pareceram sensíveis às conseqüências programadas para o comportamento de encaixar peças.…”

Efeito de Regras Inacuradas e Monitoramento sobre Desempenhos em Programas de Reforços

“…Uma estratégia envolve investigar o controle instrucional (ou por regra) manipulando as contingências programadas e mantendo constante a instrução (e.g., L. C. Cerutti, 1991;Galizio, 1979;Hayes et al, 1986;Lowe, Harzem, & Spencer, 1979;Matthews, Shimoff, Catania, & Sagvolden, 1977;Paracampo et al, 2001;Shimoff et al, 1981). Outra estratégia envolve manipular a instrução, mantendo constante a contingência programada (e.g., L. C. Albuquerque et al, 2003;L.…”