Effect of instructions on the microstructure of human schedule performance

Three experiments examined the effect of instructions on human free-operant performance on random ratio (RR) and random interval (RI) schedules. Both rates of responding, and the microstructure of behavior, were explored to determine whether bout-initiation and within-bout responding may be controlled by different processes. The results demonstrated that responding in acquisition (Experiments 1 and 2) and extinction (Experiment 3) was impacted in line with given instructions. During acquisition, rates were higher on RR compared to RI for accurate and minimal instructions. During extinction, rates decreased when there were minimal instructions. However, instructions had a greater impact on within-bout responding, than they did on bout-initiation responding. Overall rates of responding, and within-bout rates, varied in line with the nature of the instructions, but bout-initiation responding did not (Experiments 1 and 2). Resistance to extinction was increased by instructions in terms of overall responding and within-bout rates, but not in terms of bout-initiation rates (Experiment 3). These data are consistent with the hypothesis that bout-initiation responding may be less impacted by instructions than within-bout responding, speculatively, the former is stimulus-driven, automatic/habitual, and less accessible to conscious processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).