Alessandri Jérôme, Cançado Carlos R X
University of Lille, CNRS, UMR 9193 - SCALab - Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives, F-59000 Lille, France.
Universidade de Brasília, Brazil.
Behav Processes. 2017 Mar;136:50-53. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2017.01.009. Epub 2017 Jan 20.
The effects of instructions on the sensitivity of negatively reinforced (escape) behavior to extinction were studied. Initially, responding produced timeouts from pressing a force cell on a variable-ratio (VR) schedule, which was then discontinued (extinction). Based on extinction data, participants were distributed into two groups. Participants in the Persistence Group (for which response rates were low in extinction) were instructed that the experimenter expected them to continue responding in extinction after a second exposure to the VR schedule. Participants in the Extinction group (for which response rates were high in extinction) were instructed that the experimenter expected them to stop responding in extinction. Relative to the condition in which instructions were absent, extinction-response rates increased and decreased, respectively, for participants in the Persistence and Extinction groups. These results replicate and extend to negatively reinforced responding previous findings that showed behavioral control by instructions formulated as explicit experimenter demands or expectations.
本研究探讨了指令对负强化（逃避）行为消退敏感性的影响。最初，被试的反应在可变比率（VR）程序下会导致按压测力传感器的行为暂停，随后该程序停止（进入消退阶段）。根据消退数据，将被试分为两组。持久性组的被试（在消退阶段反应率较低）被告知实验者期望他们在再次接触VR程序后在消退阶段继续做出反应。消退组的被试（在消退阶段反应率较高）被告知实验者期望他们在消退阶段停止反应。相对于无指令条件，持久性组和消退组被试的消退反应率分别增加和降低。这些结果重复并扩展了以往关于负强化反应的研究结果，即表明明确的实验者要求或期望所制定的指令能够控制行为。
