Reinforced Variability and Operant Behavior

增强的可变性和操作行为

• 批准号: 7019190
• 负责人: ALLEN J NEURINGER
• 金额: $ 18.15万
• 依托单位: REED COLLEGE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-06-01 至 2008-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7019190
• 关键词: adolescence (12-20); age difference; attention deficit disorder; autism; clinical research; creativity; cues; depression; discrimination learning; ethology; human subject; laboratory rat; mental health epidemiology; negative reinforcements; operant conditionings; pigeons; problem solving; psychopathology; reinforcer; stimulus /response; young adult human (21-34)

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Behavioral variability plays an important role in operant learning, problem solving, and creativity. Abnormal levels of variability are characteristic of some psychopathologies, with high levels seen in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and low levels in depression and autism. Much research has been devoted to identifying sources of variability and ways in which it is controlled. This grant studies a potentially important source, one that has received relatively little attention in the past, namely reinforcers that are directly contingent upon variability itself. The working hypothesis is that individuals learn how, what, when and where to vary. Such learning is controlled by reinforcing consequences and discriminative stimuli: in some situations, it is adaptive to behave unpredictably or do novel things, in others, to respond repetitively and predictably. Animal models -- rats and pigeons -- are used (i) to explore the generality of reinforced variability; (ii) to test for transfer of training; and (iii) to use reinforcement-of-variability techniques to study dynamic changes that occur within operant classes. To test generality, one study compares different types of reinforcers, food versus water versus social, and asks whether levels of variability correlate with speed of learning. Another compares how positive versus negative reinforcers influence variability. And a third asks whether differences between aged and young animals can be meliorated by explicit reinforcement of variations. A theoretically important question concerns whether animals and people learn to vary as a general competency, one that can transfer across a wide array of responses and contexts, or whether specific variations are limited to specific cases. If an organism can learn "to vary," and this comes under stimulus control, then many aspects of learning and skills training could be facilitated. Lastly, to study intra-operant effects, a model is established in which two or more operant classes share a subset of response instances. Effects of intra-operant sharing on response rates, probability distributions, choices, and skills acquisition are studied. These experiments analyze an important, but still not well-understood, aspect of behavior, namely, the control over behavioral variations exerted by reinforcing consequences.

描述（由申请人提供）：行为可变性在操作学习，解决问题和创造力中起着重要作用。异常的可变性是某些心理病理学的特征，在注意力缺陷多动障碍和抑郁症和自闭症中的水平很低。许多研究致力于确定可变性的来源和控制方式。该赠款研究了一种潜在的重要来源，过去很少有人关注，即直接取决于可变性本身的增强剂。工作假设是个人学习如何，什么，何时和何时变化。这种学习是通过加强后果和歧视性刺激来控制的：在某些情况下，行为不可预测或在其他情况下做新颖的事情是自适应的，可以重复和预测地做出反应。使用动物模型（大鼠和鸽子）（i）探索增强变异性的一般性； （ii）测试培训转移； （iii）使用增强性变量技术来研究操作类别内发生的动态变化。为了测试一般性，一项研究比较了不同类型的增强剂，食物与水与社会的比较，并询问可变性水平是否与学习速度相关。另一个比较了正增强剂和负增强剂如何影响变异性。三分之一询问是否可以通过明确的变异加强年龄和年轻动物之间的差异。理论上重要的问题涉及动物和人是否学会随着一般能力而变化，可以在各种各样的回答和环境中转移的能力，或者特定的变化是否仅限于特定案例。如果有机体可以学习“变化”，并且这受到刺激的控制，那么可以促进学习和技能培训的许多方面。最后，为了研究手术室效应，建立了一个模型，其中两个或多个操作类别共享响应实例的子集。研究了术中共享对响应率，概率分布，选择和技能获取的影响。这些实验分析了行为的重要但仍然没有得到充分理解的方面，即通过加强后果对行为变化的控制。