The Instrumentally-Derived Incentive-Motivational Function

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" The Instrumentally-Derived Incentive-Motivational Function "
Weiss, Stanley J.

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	936161
Doc. No	:	LA1mj192cg
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Weiss, Stanley J.
Title & Author	:	The Instrumentally-Derived Incentive-Motivational Function [Article]\ Weiss, Stanley J.
Title of Periodical	:	International Journal of Comparative Psychology
Volume/ Issue Number	:	27/4
Date	:	2014
Abstract	:	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.