Toward a Procedure to Study Rule-Governed Choice: Preliminary Data

The aim of this study was to model a situation that induced choice between following two incompatible rules, each associated with a different rate of reinforcement. In Experiment 1, eight undergraduate students were exposed to a two-component multiple schedule (training). In each component, there was a concurrent variable interval (VI)-extinction (EXT) schedule. Participants were given two rules that instructed them to respond to the VI alternative in the presence of different discriminative stimuli. The side of the VI schedule changed in each component and offered a different reinforcer rate according to the discriminative stimuli in the operation. When both discriminative stimuli were concurrently presented (test), participants favored the alternative previously instructed by the rule, which was associated with the greatest reinforcer rate, whereas indifference was observed in the absence of discriminative stimuli. Experiment 2 tested the effects of reinforcement rate using the same procedure without providing rules. During training, participants gradually developed a preference for the VI alternatives. In the choice test phase, participants favored the alternative associated with the stimuli with the highest reinforcer rate when both discriminative stimuli were present. Unsystematic preference was observed in the absence of discriminative stimuli. Two alternative explanations were provided for the findings.