Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior最新文献

Reward delays are often associated with reduced probability of reward, although standard assessments of delay discounting do not specify degree of reward certainty. Thus, the extent to which estimates of delay discounting are influenced by uncontrolled variance in perceived reward certainty remains unclear. Here we examine 370 participants who were randomly assigned to complete a delay discounting task when reward certainty was either unspecified (n=184) or specified as 100% (n = 186) in the task trials and task instructions. We examined potential group differences in (a) perceived reward certainty across a range of delays, (b) delay discounting, and (c) associations between perceived reward certainty and delay discounting. Delay significantly reduced perceived reward certainty in both groups, although delay did not significantly interact with group to affect perceived certainty. Despite higher perceived reward certainty in the specified group, no significant group difference in delay discounting was observed. Higher perceived reward certainty was associated with lower delay discounting in both groups. However, we found no evidence that specifying reward certainty influences estimates of delay discounting. Future research should examine whether perceived reward certainty moderates associations between delay discounting and health behavior and whether perceived reward certainty is impacted by interventions that change delay discounting.

Rules can control the listener's behavior, yet few studies have examined variables that quantitatively determine the extent of this control relative to other rules and contingencies. To explore these variables, we employed a novel procedure that required a choice between rules. Participants clicked two buttons on a computer screen to earn points exchangeable for money. During training, participants were exposed to rules from two simulated individuals. Rule compliance was measured using free-operant choice periods. In the test phase, both simulated individuals appeared simultaneously, providing different rules, followed by a free-operant period of extinction to assess participants' preferences. Experiment 1 varied the reinforcement rate associated with each rule provider, showing that participants systematically preferred the rule provider with the highest reinforcement rate. In the control condition without rules, participants' preferences tended toward indifference. Experiment 2 varied rule accuracy. This time, participants' preferences favored the icon correlated with accurate rules. However, preferences were not exclusive to the alternatives instructed by this rule provider and tended to match the reinforcement rate obtained for this rule provider during training. These findings suggest that rule-following behavior is a form of choice governed by the relative distribution of reinforcement available in the listener's environment.

Polydrug abuse is the persistent self-administration of more than one reinforcing drug. The present study provided rhesus monkeys concurrent access to two drugs: 8% alcohol and solutions of either cocaine or methadone. The liquids were available under concurrent nonindependent fixed-ratio (FR) schedules across increasing and then decreasing ratio sizes. These schedules generate high rates of changeover responses and yield a dependent variable of responses per delivery that is not rigidly tied to the ratio-schedule value. The programmed schedule size was equal for both liquids and increased in the sequence 8, 16, 32, and so on until responding decreased, whereupon the schedule size was decreased in reversed order to the original steps. Eight percent alcohol was strongly preferred at the nonindependent FR 8 FR 8 baseline. As schedule size increased, intake of the 8% alcohol solution decreased and intake of the alternative liquid increased. Consumption of the alternative liquid generally remained elevated over initial values when schedule size decreased. The data can be analyzed in several ways, including consumption as a function of price (behavioral economics) and log of relative response rates as a function of log of relative deliveries (matching), thereby providing an interface between behavioral economics and matching analyses.

Comparative psychologists have been criticized for using a limited number of species in drawing general conclusions about broad behavioral processes. There are numerous examples, however, of the inclusion by behavior analysts of atypical subjects in their research. To examine the frequency and diversity in subject species used in the experimental analysis of behavior (EAB), JEAB publications between 1958 and 2023 were reviewed for their use of subjects other than pigeons, rats, humans, and nonhuman primates. Two hundred and twenty-one occurrences of these atypical subjects were found across 204 articles, with 65 distinct species across both vertebrate and invertebrate taxa. The highest spikes in the frequency of atypical subject use occurred in the earliest and latest JEAB issues. The results are discussed in terms of the reasons for using diverse species, trends in use over time, and how EAB might benefit from continued, or even increased, diversification in the species used in its research.

Decreasing funding for nonhuman animal research decreases the opportunity for students and researchers to explore the behavior of many species in many contexts. In the long run, this will reduce variability within the experimental analysis of behavior around what species are being researched and what questions are being asked. New technologies, however, offer students and researchers the opportunity to observe the behavior of organisms in everyday environments in cost-effective ways. In this article, a backyard birding setup is described that costs ~US$150 and allows for ongoing data collection of a local backyard bird population (Aves) in feeding competition with eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis). In these wild populations, a reversal design demonstrated extinction, class-specific learning rates, interclass competition, and the influence of these on a birder's behavior. This work shows one way the experimental analysis of behavior might be injected with greater variation by students and researchers being alert to and measuring the wildness in our everyday environments.

Go/no-go successive matching (GNG-matching) tasks are one of several procedures used to establish conditional discriminations. This study presents a systematic review aimed at comparing procedures and outcomes of empirical studies using GNG-matching tasks for the emergence of symmetry, transitive, and global equivalence relations in humans and non-humans. A total of 22 articles were analyzed—nine with nonhumans and thirteen with humans. Procedural variables, including trial parameters, stimulus characteristics, and training and testing conditions, were documented alongside the number of participants meeting baseline, symmetry, and global equivalence criteria per experiment. Results showed that 87.5% of human participants demonstrated symmetry, while 58.81% passed global equivalence tests. Among nonhumans, 41.22% demonstrated symmetry, while transitivity was minimally explored, with a 34.83% success rate. A meta-analysis revealed correlations between trial structure, training/testing parameters, and the immediate emergence of symmetry relations in humans. Variability in outcomes across species may stem from differences in prerequisite skills or procedural inconsistencies. Standardizing parameters is essential to distinguish phylogenetic from procedural influences, as current cross-species inconsistencies confound results. These findings provide a framework for refining experimental methods, identifying research gaps, and informing discussions on the critical conditions for equivalence-class formation.

Every day we encounter situations in which decisions require trade-offs between the delay to one reward and the likelihood of receiving another reward. The current study was designed to extend a general discounting framework to gain insights into this fundamental trade-off process. Forty-three undergraduates adjusted the probability of receiving an immediate hypothetical monetary reward (either $200 or $10,000) until that probabilistic reward was judged subjectively equal in value to the same reward received with certainty after a delay (ranging from 1 month to 25 years). We replicated previous findings that demonstrated a linear relation between log(delay) and log(odds-against), derived from the subjective probabilistic values. This linear relation was predicted when these choices were analyzed with the hyperboloid functions that describe simple delay and probability discounting in human decision making. Additionally, we extended the discounting framework and showed that the trade-off between risk and delay was well described by a modified hyperboloid discounting model (R²s = .99). These findings suggest that the discounting framework provides a valuable approach for capturing complexities of human decision making.

Cooperation involves an individual's choice that benefits both themself and others —in contrast to selfishness, which benefits the individual only—and has been suggested to be more likely when the benefit to others, discounted as a function of their social distance (i.e., social discounting), exceeds the undiscounted cost to the cooperator. To test this hypothesis, we exposed 126 participants to eight, one-shot reward matrices of prisoner's dilemma games, among which socially discounted benefits and undiscounted costs systematically varied. Increasing benefits and increasing costs increased and decreased, respectively, the percentage of cooperators across the matrices. Then, 111 participants from the original sample completed one of five iterated, 40-trial reward matrices programmed to play a tit-for-tat strategy, among which benefits and costs varied. Overall, increasing benefits and increasing costs increased and decreased, respectively, cooperation across trials. This tendency, however, was more clearly observed in later than earlier trials. Both in one-shot and in iterated games, the effect of costs was greater than that of benefits and the effects of both benefits and costs decreased at extreme values. These findings suggest that cost–benefit balance, modulated by social discounting, determines degree of cooperation in both one-shot and repeated-trial cooperation tasks.

Research in behavioral economics and the experimental analysis of behavior have involved concurrent progressive ratios (PRs) to examine relative reinforcing efficacy and response allocation between competing alternatives. Despite their ubiquity in the literature, PRs are limited by a lack of generality outside the lab. Duration-based schedules of reinforcement, particularly progressive durations (PDs), may address such limitations. Previous research has identified several similarities between PRs and PDs, but there are no examples of concurrent PDs in the basic literature, limiting their integration within behavioral economics. The present study sought to develop a novel concurrent PD schedule and compare outcomes to a concurrent PR arrangement across several dimensions. The results showed similarities in post-reinforcement pause and differences in breakpoint variability and reinforcers earned. A unit price analysis of switchover patterns revealed differences in predictive fit between concurrent PRs and concurrent PDs.