Wentworth N, Witryol S L
Department of Psychology, Lake Forest College, IL 60045.
Genet Soc Gen Psychol Monogr. 1990 Aug;116(3):301-22.
We tested the applicability of concepts and measures from information theory to studies of the development and operation of collative motivation. Three variables nominated by Berlyne as potential motivators of information seeking--uncertainty, variety, and novelty--were put into correspondence with three informational theoretic measures--average uncertainty in bits, number of possible outcomes, and outcome probability--to investigate the incentive properties of each variable for first and fourth graders. Increasing bit levels of uncertainty by adding alternatives to the set of possible outcomes was generally positively related to cover choices; however, increasing bit values by varying outcome probabilities from unequal to equal had no effect on choice. Without uncertainty, variety provided a weak source of collative motivation, systematically related to the choice of the transparent cover only for the older children when rewards occurred equally frequently. In contrast, the transparent cover was chosen significantly more frequently when the outcome probability of the associated reward was low. We obtained developmental stability in motivational effects except for variety operating in the absence of uncertainty.
我们测试了信息论中的概念和度量在对照动机的发展和运作研究中的适用性。伯利恩提出的作为信息寻求潜在动机的三个变量——不确定性、多样性和新颖性——与三个信息论度量——以比特为单位的平均不确定性、可能结果的数量和结果概率——相对应，以研究每个变量对一年级和四年级学生的激励特性。通过在可能结果集中增加选项来提高不确定性的比特水平通常与封面选择呈正相关；然而，通过将结果概率从不相等变为相等来增加比特值对选择没有影响。在没有不确定性的情况下，多样性提供了一个微弱的对照动机来源，只有在奖励出现频率相等时，才与年龄较大儿童对透明封面的选择有系统关联。相比之下，当相关奖励的结果概率较低时，透明封面的选择频率显著更高。除了在没有不确定性的情况下多样性起作用外，我们在动机效应方面获得了发展稳定性。
