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Published on: February 15, 2015
Operant variability and voluntary action.
1Department of Psychology, Reed College, Portland, Oregon 97202, USA. allen.neuringer@reed.edu
Psychological Review
|July 28, 2010
Summary
Voluntary acts are controlled by reinforcement, demonstrating both functionality and unpredictability. This behavior-based theory reveals how reinforcers influence response patterns and variability in voluntary actions.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Operant Conditioning
Background:
- Voluntary acts are characterized by a bidirectional relationship between responses and their controlling reinforcers.
- Existing research extensively explores how reinforcers control voluntary responses, defining their functional nature.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the second characteristic of voluntary acts: the relationship between reinforcement and behavioral predictability/unpredictability.
- To propose a behavior-based theory integrating functionality and variability in voluntary actions.
Main Methods:
- Review of operant-conditioning research demonstrating reinforcer influence on behavioral variability.
- Psychophysical experiments where participants judged the voluntariness of virtual actors' choices under intermittent reinforcement schedules.
Main Results:
- Behavioral variability (from predictable to random) is directly influenced by reinforcement contingencies, functioning as an operant dimension.
- Virtual actor behaviors were perceived as most voluntary when response distributions matched reinforcer distributions and variability shifted with reinforcement.
Conclusions:
- Voluntary acts are defined by two key characteristics: reinforcement-controlled functionality and reinforcement-influenced unpredictability.
- Behavioral variability is an operant dimension modulated by reinforcement, contributing to the perceived voluntariness of actions.
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