Schedule sensitivity of instructed human operant behavior: Effects of a warning, length of training and variability pre-training with elaborate and minimal instructions.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Previously published studies have shown that behavior under the control of instructions is likely to follow the instructions and not change when the schedule of reinforcement changes. A series of four experiments were designed to expand our knowledge of why rules produce this insensitivity. Once responding had been established on a multiple DRL 6 s/FR 18 schedule of reinforcement, an unannounced change in contingencies was introduced. All four experiments contained sufficient numbers of participants to permit the application of statistics in the data analysis. The experiments investigated (a) the effects of instructions on the speed and accuracy with which a new behavior was learned; (b) the "sensitivity" or rapidity of adjustment of the behavior to an unannounced change in contingencies as a function of whether it had been learned with the help of instructions. Experiment I attempted to replicate previous "insensitivity of rule-governed behavior" findings and examined schedule sensitivity as the multiple DRL 6s/FR 18 schedule changed to extinction/extinction. Experiment 2 aimed to increase this series of studies' ecological validity, by changing the schedule to something other (FR 18/FR 18) than extinction/extinction. In an attempt to counteract the insensitivity effect, Experiments 1 and 2 also examined the effect of a simple warning that "conditions may change at any time" on the behavior's rapidity of adjustment to changes in contingencies. In light of the results of the first two experiments, a selectionist framework was adopted in Experiments 3 and 4 to provide a procedural explanation for the insensitivity effect. The effects of the length of training, and of a variety of instructions were investigated in relation to the insensitivity of rule-governed behavior effect. Overall, the results have shown that instructions facilitate the acquisition of a new behavior. One of the studies has shown that providing a simple warning that conditions may change increased sensitivity in behavior following a change in contingencies. The results have suggested the elimination of length of training as a potential factor on the insensitivity of rule-governed behavior, in this specific series of studies. Providing a variety of instructions impacted significantly more on the Minimal Instructions groups' than the Elaborate Instructions groups' sensitivity to a change in contingencies. The results are explained in terms of the restriction in the behavioral repertoire during a change in contingencies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".