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Human operant performance: Sensitivity and pseudosensitivity to contingencies.

E Shimoff, B A Matthews, A C Catania

    Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
    |September 1, 1986
    PubMed
    Summary
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    Human participants

    Area of Science:

    • Behavioral Psychology
    • Cognitive Science
    • Human-Animal Comparative Psychology

    Background:

    • Operant conditioning principles are typically studied in nonhuman organisms.
    • Understanding human sensitivity to reinforcement schedules is crucial for applied settings.
    • Distinguishing between direct contingency control and rule-governed behavior in humans is complex.

    Purpose of the Study:

    • To investigate whether undergraduate students' behavior under complex schedules of reinforcement was directly controlled by contingencies or governed by rules.
    • To assess human sensitivity to the differences between ratio and interval reinforcement schedules.
    • To explore the role of explicit rule-learning in human operant behavior.

    Main Methods:

    • Participants (undergraduates) performed button presses for points exchangeable for money under multiple random-ratio (RR) and random-interval (RI) schedules.

    Related Experiment Videos

  • Schedule components were reversed to test sensitivity to contingency changes.
  • Participants described the schedules, with points contingent on guess accuracy, to probe for rule-governance.

    • Main Results:

    • Students consistently showed higher response rates in ratio than interval components, indicating sensitivity to schedule differences.
    • When schedules were altered (e.g., multiple RR RI to multiple RI RI), performance became inconsistent with standard schedule effects.
    • Specific manipulations, like preventing initial point deliveries, elicited high rates, suggesting rule-based adjustments rather than direct contingency control.

    Conclusions:

    • Human participants demonstrated sensitivity to reinforcement schedule differences but their behavior was not solely dictated by direct contingencies.
    • The findings suggest that human performance in this context was likely rule-governed, deviating from patterns observed in nonhuman organisms.
    • This highlights the importance of considering cognitive factors and rule-learning when interpreting human operant behavior.