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

Area of Science:

• Behavioral psychology
• Human operant conditioning

Background:

• Understanding human behavior on complex schedules is crucial.
• Performance awareness (PA) and explicit instructions may influence responding.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between performance awareness, instructional conditions, and schedule-sensitive responding in humans.
• To examine the role of PA and instructions in extinction from multiple random-ratio/random-interval schedules.

Main Methods:

• Participants responded on multiple random-ratio (RR) random-interval (RI) schedules under varying instructional conditions.
• Verbalized performance awareness was measured.
• Extinction procedures were implemented in Experiments 2 and 3.

Main Results:

• Both performance awareness and accurate instructions correlated with schedule-sensitive responding.
• Performance awareness and accurate instructions were not correlated with each other.
• Accurate instructions did not enhance performance awareness.
• Higher performance awareness and accurate instructions predicted faster extinction in Experiment 2, but not Experiment 3.

Conclusions:

• Performance awareness, not contingency awareness, is more strongly linked to schedule-typical behavior in humans.
• Explicit verbal instructions do not significantly enhance performance awareness.
• The interplay between awareness and instructions in operant behavior requires further investigation.