Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior最新文献

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.

This study investigates the mechanisms that underlie pigeons' performance in the number-left task. After producing x light flashes, pigeons had to choose between a standard option that delivered reinforcement after a fixed number of additional flashes, S = 4, and a number-left option that delivered reinforcement after a variable number of additional flashes, L = 8 − x. In Experiment 1, pigeons were trained with forced and choice trials with 1 ≤ x ≤ 7. During testing, the number of choice trials was simply increased. In Experiment 2, pigeons were trained only with the anchor numerosities x = 1 and x = 7 and during testing unreinforced probe trials introduced the intermediate numerosities, x = 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Performance was similar in both experiments and consistent with a computational mechanism. To test whether performance in the previous experiments was due to the substantial overlap in the induced generalization gradients around the anchor numerosities, in Experiments 3a and 3b, we selected anchor numerosities that were farther apart (x = 5 and x = 50, with S = 12 and L = 53 − x). Yet, pigeons' performance remained similar. We discuss the implications of these findings for the mechanisms that underlie numerosity discrimination.

Two experiments examined pigeons' discounting of probabilistic food reinforcers using a concurrent-chains procedure within sessions combined with an adjusting-amount procedure across sessions. The study is the first to evaluate probability discounting functions in nonhuman animals in which the obtained probability equaled that programmed in each session. In Experiment 1, pigeons chose between a smaller, certain and a larger, but probabilistic food reinforcer. In Experiment 2, the probabilities of receiving both reinforcement options were reduced by a common factor, creating a choice situation in which both options were probabilistic: a smaller, more probable reinforcer and a larger, but less probable reinforcer. Results revealed that regardless of whether choices involved a certain versus a probabilistic reinforcer or they involved two probabilistic reinforcers, subjective value decreased systematically as a function of the odds against receipt of the reinforcer and that the data were well described by the hyperboloid discounting function. In addition, no significant effect of reinforcer amount on degree of probability discounting was observed, consistent with results from studies of the discounting of delayed reinforcers by nonhuman animals.

As a data-driven science, the field of behavior analysis necessitates accumulating evidence for research and theory development and clinical intervention. The most comprehensive evidence will come from systematic review and meta-analysis of a given topic. Systematic reviews comprise an established set of methods for collecting and synthesizing a body of research to identify trends, examining the strength of evidence and potential sources of bias, and identifying areas in need of further investigation. Despite their utility and widespread use in other disciplines, systematic reviews are underused in many behavior analysis domains. This technical report is part of a series on research synthesis methods in behavior analysis, with Part 1 focusing on systematic reviews and Part 2 focusing on meta-analysis. In Part 1, we provide a step-by-step guide to conducting systematic reviews using current best practices and adhering to international guidelines. Examples of tables and figures commonly included in these types of reviews are also provided. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of these reviews for behavior analysis research, practice, and theory and calling for increased numbers of published systematic reviews in behavior analysis. Finally, we provide annotated references to additional in-depth methodology resources for the interested behavior analyst.

Discounting is a pervasive phenomenon in human decision making and has been extensively studied across disciplines. This article focuses on area under the curve (AUC) as a popular measure of discounting. We provide a comprehensive review of AUC in relation to discounting, focusing on its atheoretical underpinnings and methods to calculate the measure. Additionally, we delve into the limitations of traditional AUC measures and limitations of more recent modifications of AUC (i.e., ordinal and logarithmic AUC). First, authors using AUC do not routinely report whether and how they impute an indifference point at the y-intercept, which is critically important when using the ordinal or logarithmic versions. Additionally, the ordinal version of AUC requires removing the x-axis information (e.g., delay, odds against, social distance, etc.) and replacing them with ordinal values. The logarithmic version of AUC often introduces nonintuitive values on the x-axis that lead to a high likelihood of miscalculations. We propose that authors always impute an indifference point at the y-intercept—when such data were not collected—and propose a novel method to shift indifference points that leads to a more intuitive logarithmic AUC calculation. An R package and Excel workbook to help calculate AUC are also provided and discussed.