The present experiment investigated effects of reinforcer value on sensitivity to operant force contingencies in humans. Subjects were exposed to non-salient, non-verbal operant contingencies with feedback stimuli of either low or high motivational value. Subjects who received feedback stimuli with back-up reinforcers of high motivational value demonstrated reliable adjustment to the arranged force contingencies, whereas force changes in subjects receiving low motivational feedback stimuli were unreliable. In accordance with standard animal findings, these results indicate that reinforcer value may affect operant conditioning in humans, but its effects are hypothesized to be confined to conditioning that is not mediated verbally.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AmselA. (1967). Partial reinforcement effects on vigor and persistence: Advances in frustration theory derived from a variety of within-subjects experiments.The psychology of learning and motivation.SpenceK. W.SpenceJ. T.New York: Academic PressVol. 1.
2.
BaronA.GalizioM. (1983). Instructional control of human operant behavior.Psychological Record33, 495–520.
3.
BerryD. C.BroadbentD. E. (1988). Interactive tasks and the implicit-explicit distinction.British Journal of Psychology79, 251–272.
4.
BittermanM. E.SchoelW. M. (1970). Instrumental learning in animals: Parameters of reinforcement.Annual Review of Psychology21, 367–436.
5.
BoyagianL. G.NationJ. R. (1981). The effect of force training and reinforcement schedules on human performance.American Journal of Psychology94, 619–632.
6.
BrenerJ.MitchellS. (1989). Changes in energy expenditure and work during response acquisition in rats.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes15, 166–175.
7.
CataniaA. C. (1963). Concurrent performances: A baseline for the study of reinforcement magnitude.Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior6, 299–300.
8.
CataniaA. C.KellerK. (1981). Contingency, contiguity, correlation, and the concept of causation.Predictability, correlation, and contiguity.HarzemP.ZeilerM. D.New York: Wiley.
9.
DaveyG. C. L. (1989). Ecological learning theoryLondon: Routledge.
10.
DawsonM. E.SchellA. M. (1987). Human autonomic and skeletal classical conditioning: The role of conscious cognitive factors.Cognitive processes and Pavlovian conditioning.DaveyG. C. L.Chichester: Wiley.
11.
DawsonM. E.SchellA. M.BeersJ. R.KelleyA. (1982). Allocation of cognitive processing capacity during human autonomic classical conditioning.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General111, 273–295.
12.
Di LolloV.EnsmingerW. D.NottermanJ. M. (1965). Response force as a function of amount of reinforcement.Journal of Experimental Psychology70, 27–31.
13.
EisenbergerR. (1989). Can response force be shaped by reinforcement?Perceptual and Motor Skills68, 725–726.
14.
EisenbergerR.TerborgR.CarlsonJ. (1979). Transfer of persistence across reinforced behaviors.Animal Learning and Behavior40, 493–498.
15.
EriksenC. W.WebbJ. M.FournierL. R. (1990). How much processing do non-attended stimuli receive. Apparently very little, but ….Perception and Psychophysics47, 477–488.
16.
EstesW. K. (1988). Human learning and memory.Steven's handbook of experimental psychology. (second ed.).AtkinsonR. C.HerrnsteinR. J.LindzeyG.Duncan LuceR.New York: Wiley.
17.
FestingerL. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes.Human Relations7, 117–140.
18.
HayesS. C.BrownsteinA. J.ZettleR. D.RosenfarbI.KornZ. (1986). Rule-governed behavior and sensitivity to changing consequences of responding.Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior45, 237–256.
19.
HefferlineR. F.KeenanB.HarfordR. A. (1958). Escape and avoidance conditioning in human subjects without their observation of the response.Science130, 1338–1339.
20.
KeppelG. (1991). Design and analysis. A researcher's handbookEnglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
21.
KilleenP. R. (1979). Arousal: Its genesis, modulation, and extinction.Reinforcement and the organization of behavior.ZeilerM. D.HarzemP.New York: Wiley.
22.
LangerE. (1975). The illusion of control.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology32, 311–328.
23.
LewickiP.HillT. (1989). On the status of nonconscious processes in human cognition: Comment to Reber.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General118, 239–241.
24.
LoweC. F. (1979). Determinants of human operant behaviour.Advances in analysis of behavior, Vol. 1: Reinforcement and the organization of behaviour.ZeilerM. D.HarzemP.Chichester: Wiley.
25.
MackintoshN. J. (1974). The psychology of animal learningLondon: Academic Press.
26.
MatthewsB. A.ShimoffE.CataniaA. C.SagvoldenT. (1977). Uninstructed human responding: Sensitivity to ratio and interval contingencies.Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior27, 453–467.
27.
NottermanJ. M.MintzD. E. (1965). Dynamics of responseNew York: Wiley.
28.
PosnerM. I.BoiesS. J. (1971). Components of attention.Psychological Review78, 391–408.
29.
ReberA. S. (1989). Implicit learning and tacit knowledge.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General118, 219–235.
30.
RosenfeldH. M.BaerD. M. (1969). Unnoticed verbal conditioning of an aware experimenter by a more aware subject: The double agent effect.Psychological Review76, 425–432.
31.
RosenthalR.RosnowR. L. (1985). Contrast analysis. Focused comparisons in the analysis of varianceCambridge: Cambridge University Press.
32.
SchachterS. (1959). The psychology of affiliationStanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
33.
ShanksD. R.DickinsonA. (1991). Instrumental judgment and performance under variations in action-outcome contingency and contiguity.Memory and Cognition19, 353–360.
34.
ShimoffE.CataniaA. C.MatthewsB. A. (1981). Uninstructed human responding: Sensitivity of low-rate performance to schedule contingencies.Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior36, 207–220.
35.
SvartdalF. (1989). Shaping of rule-governed behaviour.Scandinavian Journal of Psychology30, 304–314.
36.
SvartdalF. (1991). Operant modulation of rule-governed behavior by nonverbal contingencies.Learning and Motivation22, 406–420.
37.
SvartdalF. (1992). Sensitivity to nonverbal operant contingencies: Do limited processing resources affect operant conditioning in humans?Learning and Motivation23, 383–405.
38.
SvartdalF. (1993). Working harder for less: Effect of incentive value on force of instrumental response in humans.The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology46A, 11–34.
39.
VallacherR. R.WegnerD. M. (1987). What do people think they are doing? Action identification and human behavior.Psychological Review94, 3–15.
40.
WassermanE. A.NeunaberD. J. (1986). College students’ responding to and rating of contingency relations: The role of temporal contiguity.Journal of the Experimental Ana-lysis of Behavior46, 15–35.
41.
WeardenJ. H. (1988). Some neglected problems in the analysis of human operant behavior.Human operant conditioning and behavior modification.DaveyG. C. L.Chichester: Wiley.
42.
WeardenJ. H.ShimpC. P. (1985). Local temporal patterning of operant behavior in humans.Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior44, 315–324.
