Conditioning history and the control of human avoidance and escape responding

Derived Stimulus Relations and Their Role in a Behavior-Analytic Account of Human Language and Cognition

This article describes how the study of derived stimulus relations has provided the basis for a behavior-analytic approach to the study of human language and cognition in purely functional-analytic terms, with a focus on basic rather than applied research. The article begins with a brief history of the early behavior-analytic approach to human language and cognition, focusing on Skinner's (1957) text Verbal Behavior, his subsequent introduction of the concept of instructional control (Skinner, 1966), and Sidman's (1994) seminal research on stimulus equivalence relations. The article then considers how the concept of derived stimulus relations, as conceptualized within relational frame theory (Hayes et al., 2001), allowed researchers to refine and extend the functional approach to language and cognition in multiple ways. Finally, the article considers some recent conceptual and empirical developments that highlight how the concept of derived stimulus relations continues to play a key role in the behavior-analytic study of human language and cognition, particularly implicit cognition. In general, the article aims to provide a particular perspective on how the study of derived stimulus relations has facilitated and enhanced the behavior analysis of human language and cognition, particularly over the past 25-30 years.

The psychological present

The present paper compares behavior-analytic and cognitive treatments of the concept of psychological history with regard to its role in current action. Both treatments take the position that the past bears some responsibility for the present, and are thereby obligated to find a means of actualizing the past in the present. Both do so by arguing that the past is brought to bear in the present via the organism. Although the arguments of the two positions differ on this issue, neither provides a complete account. An unconventional treatment of psychological history is proposed, the logic of which is exemplified in anthropological, biological, and psychological perspectives. The unconventional treatment in psychological perspective holds that (a) the organism's interaction with its environment, not the organism itself, changes with experience; and (b) the past interactions of an organism exist as, and only as, the present interactions of that organism. This solution to the problem of psychological history provides obligations and opportunities for analysis that are not available when the more conventional positions of cognitivism and behavior analysis are adopted.

Pigeons respond to produce periods in which rewards are independent of responding

Pecks by pigeons on a response key produced an ON state during which intermittent rewards were freely available, i.e., independently of responding. Pecks during the ON state caused it to remain ON. If no pecks occurred, the state changed to OFF-the key color changed-and rewards were not presented. The state remained OFF until the next response. Thus, responses controlled the state in the chamber but did not cause immediate reinforcement. Four dimensions of the schedule were varied: the rates of response-independent rewards during ON; the duration of ON produced by each peck; the pattern of rewards during ON; and the presence vs absence of exteroceptive cues during ON and OFF. The results showed that rates of responding were primarily controlled by the duration of ON produced by each response. When each response caused a long period of ON, pecks occurred infrequently; when each response caused a brief period of ON, pecks were frequent.

Handwriting as an operant

An apparatus was designed to monitor handwriting behavior. Two subjects were studied under various schedules of monetary reinforcement for handwriting. The different schedules engendered and maintained distinctive response patterns but the rates of sustained responding did not vary across schedules. The development of fixed-interval performance following continuous reinforcement resembled the same transition in lower animals. In one subject, availability of reading material interacted with the schedule to determine response pattern. It was suggested that handwriting may be a more appropriate response for the experimental analysis of human behavior than the more frequently used button-pushing or lever-pulling responses.

Development and modification of a response class via positive and negative reinforcement: a translational approach

When responses function to produce the same reinforcer, a response class exists. Researchers have examined response classes in applied settings; however, the challenges associated with conducting applied research on response class development have recently necessitated the development of an analogue response class model. To date, little research has examined response classes that are strengthened by negative reinforcement. The current investigation was designed to develop a laboratory model of a response class through positive reinforcement (i.e., points exchangeable for money) and through negative reinforcement (i.e., the avoidance of scheduled point losses) with 11 college students as participants and clicks as the operant. Results of both the positive and negative reinforcement evaluations showed that participants usually selected the least effortful response that produced points or the avoidance of point losses, respectively. The applied implications of the findings are discussed, along with the relevance of the present model to the study of punishment and resurgence.

A contemporary behavior analysis of anxiety and avoidance

Despite the central status of avoidance in explaining the etiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders, surprisingly little behavioral research has been conducted on human avoidance. In the present paper, first we provide a brief review of the empirical literature on avoidance. Next, we describe the implications of research on derived relational responding and the transformation of functions for a contemporary behavioral account of avoidance, before providing several illustrative research examples of laboratory-based analogues of key clinical treatment processes. Finally, we suggest some challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for behavioral research on anxiety and avoidance.

Contingency knowledge is necessary for learned motivated behaviour in humans: relevance for addictive behaviour

AIMS

Many forms of human conditioned behaviour depend upon explicit knowledge of the predictive contingency between stimuli, responses and the reinforcer. However, it remains uncertain whether the conditioning of three key behaviours in drug addiction-selective attention, instrumental drug-seeking behaviour and emotional state--are dependent upon contingency knowledge. To test this possibility, we employed an avoidance procedure to generate rapidly these three forms of conditioned behaviour without incurring the methodological problems of drug conditioning.

DESIGN

In two experiments, participants (16 students) were trained on a schedule in which one stimulus (S +) predicted the occurrence of a startling noise, which could be cancelled by performing an instrumental avoidance response.

MEASUREMENTS

The allocation of attention to the S + and the rate and probability of the avoidance response in the presence of S + were measured. Following training, participants were tested for their knowledge of the stimulus-noise contingencies arranged in the study and rated the emotional qualities of the stimuli.

FINDINGS

Both experiments showed that S + gained control of selective attention, instrumental avoidance behaviour and subjective anxiety, but only in participants who reported explicit knowledge of the Pavlovian contingency between the S + and the startling noise.

CONCLUSIONS

The implication of the present findings is that the control of selective attention, instrumental drug-seeking behaviour and emotional state by drug-paired stimuli is mediated by cognitive knowledge of the predictive contingency between the stimulus and the drug.

Avoidance of 20% carbon dioxide-enriched air with humans

Four college students were exposed to a Sidman avoidance procedure to determine if an avoidance contingency involving 20% carbon dioxide-enriched air (CO2) would produce and maintain responding. In Phase 1, two conditions (contingent and noncontingent) were conducted each day. These conditions were distinguished by the presence or absence of a blue or green box on a computer screen. In the contingent condition, CO2 presentation were delivered every 3 s unless a subject pulled a plunger. Each plunger pull postponed CO2 presentations for 10 s. In the noncontingent condition, CO2 presentations occurred on the average of every 5 min independent of responding. Following stable responding in Phase 1, condition-correlated stimuli were reversed. In both conditions, plunger response rate was high during the contingent condition and low or zero during the noncontingent condition. Furthermore, subjects avoided most CO2 presentations. However, CO2 presentations did not increase verbal reports of fear. Overall, the results from the present study suggest that CO2 can be used effectively in basic studies of aversive control and in laboratory analogues of response patterns commonly referred to as anxiety.

Reinforcement history: a concept underutilized in behavior analysts

Some years ago Underwood (1964) grappled with the problem of explaining his finding that rate of forgetting was not a function of the rate of learning but rather seemed to reflect the level of learning achieved. He likened different rates of learning to filling an Erlenmeyer flask of water at different rates and the process of forgetting to the rate of evaporation, which in turn is a function of the exposed surface area. Since an Erlenmeyer flask is cone-shaped, the surface area becomes smaller as the flask is filled, thus the greater the amount of learning achieved, or water added, the less the rate of evaporation independent of how quickly or slowly the flask was filled. I give this example because it is such a clear description of history kept simple, in the psychological process of learning and forgetting. Indeed it is as simple as Charles Dickens' description of how students are to be taught, that is, by considering them to be "little vessels...ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim" (Dickens, 1961, p. 12). The object of this paper is to show how our neglect in specifying the history of reinforcement and other behavior analytic concepts has resulted in our ceding much of our field to cognitive psychologists even though our knowledge of conditioning enables us to study it more thoroughly than they can.

Effects of reinforcement history on responding under progressive-ratio schedules of reinforcement

The effects of experimental history on responding under a progressive-ratio schedule of reinforcement were examined. Sixteen pigeons were divided into four equal groups. Groups 1 to 3 were trained to peck a key for food under a fixed-ratio, variable-ratio, or differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedule of reinforcement. After training, these pigeons were shifted to a progressive-ratio schedule, later were shifted back to their original schedule (with decreased rates of reinforcement), and finally were returned to the progressive-ratio schedule. Pigeons in Group 4 (control) were maintained on the progressive-ratio schedule for the entire experiment. To test for potential "latent history" effects, pigeons responding under the progressive-ratio schedule were injected with d-amphetamine and given behavioral-momentum tests of prefeeding and extinction. Experimental histories affected responding in the immediate transition to the progressive-ratio schedule; response rates of pigeons with variable-ratio and fixed-ratio histories were higher than rates of pigeons with differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate and progressive-ratio-only histories. Pigeons with differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate histories, and to a lesser degree pigeons with variable-ratio and fixed-ratio histories, also had shorter postreinforcement pauses than pigeons with only a progressive-ratio history. No consistent long-term effects of prior contingencies on responding under the progressive-ratio schedule were evident. d-Amphetamine and resistance-to-change tests failed to reveal consistent latent history effects. The data suggest that history effects are sometimes transitory and not susceptible to latent influences.

Human avoidance responding with added point loss: effects of tobacco and abstinence

Male smokers responded on a free-operant avoidance schedule with a response--point loss interval of 20 seconds and a point loss--point loss interval of 5 seconds. Unavoidable point losses were presented at variable times during the sessions. In Experiment 1 subjects were exposed to three tobacco abstinence conditions and an ad lib smoking condition. The conditions were nicotine gum, placebo gum, and no gum or cigarettes. In Experiment 2 subjects were administered tobacco smoke which delivered varying doses of nicotine. The smoke was administered by the spirometric method. Responding in each experiment was assessed during the session and also for 10 seconds following each of the unavoidable point losses. Results for Experiment 1 showed that the effect of smoke/nicotine abstinence on overall responding and for the interval following point losses differed across subjects. Results for Experiment 2 showed very little effect of acute nicotine dosing on the overall responding and varying effects on the responding during the interval following unavoidable point losses. These results are contrasted with previous research which has investigated tobacco smoke/nicotine abstinence and acute tobacco smoke dosing in experimental situations which were established as social via instructions.