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" Numbers, sets, and axioms : "
A.G. Hamilton.
Document Type
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AL
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Record Number
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936161
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Doc. No
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LA1mj192cg
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Language of Document
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English
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Main Entry
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Weiss, Stanley J.
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Title & Author
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The Instrumentally-Derived Incentive-Motivational Function [Article]\ Weiss, Stanley J.
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Title of Periodical
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International Journal of Comparative Psychology
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Volume/ Issue Number
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27/4
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Date
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2014
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Abstract
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Though differential reinforcement, a discriminative stimulus (S<sup>D</sup>) acquires two properties. The operant contingency is responsible for the S<sup>D</sup>s response-discriminative property. However, as stimulus control develops an S<sup>D</sup> also acquires incentive-motivational properties through its association with reinforcement changes. A systematic series of experiments are described that breaks the usual co-variation of response and reinforcement rates in most discriminative operant situations. In three groups, S<sup>D</sup>s (a tone and a light) occasioned steady moderate lever pressing in rats that ceased when neither S<sup>D</sup> was present. Probably of reinforcement in these S<sup>D</sup>s, relative to when both were off, was systematically manipulated to make them incentive-motivationally excitatory, neutral or inhibitory. In each S<sup>D</sup>, for the “excitatory” group reinforcement (food) probability increased from 0 to 100%, for the “neutral” group it was unchanged and for the “inhibitory” group it decreased from 100 to 0%. Although behaviorally indistinguishable in training, a stimulus-compounding assay revealed that tone-plus-light tripled response rate in the incentive-excitatory group, doubled rate in the incentive-neutral group and didn’t increase rate in the incentive-inhibitory group – producing the instrumentally derived incentive-motivational function for the first time. This is discussed context of two-process learning theory, a functional analysis of transfer-of-control research plus how the response-discriminative and incentive-motivational properties acquired by an S<sup>D</sup> contribute to the stimulus control of behavior.
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