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. 1982 Nov;38(3):233–248. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1982.38-233

Instructed versus shaped human verbal behavior: Interactions with nonverbal responding

A Charles Catania, Byron A Matthews, Eliot Shimoff
PMCID: PMC1347864  PMID: 16812300

Abstract

Undergraduate students' presses on left and right buttons occasionally made available points exchangeable for money. Blue lights over the buttons were correlated with multiple random-ratio random-interval components; usually, the random-ratio schedule was assigned to the left button and the random-interval to the right. During interruptions on the multiple schedule, students filled out sentence-completion guess sheets (e.g., The way to earn points with the left button is to...). For different groups, guesses were shaped with differential points also worth money (e.g., successive approximations to “press fast” for the left button), or were instructed (e.g., Write “press slowly” for the left button), or were simply collected. Control of rate of pressing by guesses was examined in individual cases by reversing shaped or instructed guesses, by instructing pressing rates, and/or by reversing multiple-schedule contingencies. Shaped guesses produced guess-consistent pressing even when guessed rates opposed those characteristic of the contingencies (e.g., slow random-ratio and fast random-interval rates), whereas guesses and rates of pressing rarely corresponded after unsuccessful shaping of guesses or when guessing had no differential consequences. Instructed guesses and pressing were inconsistently related. In other words, when verbal responses were shaped (contingency-governed), they controlled nonverbal responding. When they were instructed (rule-governed), their control of nonverbal responding was inconsistent: the verbal behavior sometimes controlled, sometimes was controlled by, and sometimes was independent of the nonverbal behavior.

Keywords: rule-governed behavior, contingency-shaped behavior, instructions, verbal behavior, awareness, multiple RR RI schedule, point reinforcers, button pressing, humans

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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