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The Effects Of Instructions On Human Matching

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Abstract

In order to investigate the effects of instructions describing features of schedules on choice under concurrent variableinterval schedules, 15 human subjects, in three groups, were exposed to five concurrent schedules. In addition to basic instructions describing a task, subjects in different groups received different additional instructions. Subjects in one group received instructions describing features of variable-interval schedules such as time-dependent programming and unpredictable availabilities of points (Instruction-S). Subjects in a second group received instructions describing frequencies of reinforcement obtained from two variable-interval schedules (Instruction-F). Subjects in a third group received both InstructionS and Instruction-F. In contrast to results reported in previous studies on human choice, most subjects showed systematic variations of choice ratios with reinforcement ratios. In addition, the slopes of the functions corresponding to the generalized matching law for the second and third groups were higher than those for the first group, indicating that Instruction-F had a stronger effect than Instruction-S. These results are consistent with the view that human choice conforms to the generalized matching law when subjects verbally formulate correct rules regarding concurrent variable-interval schedules.

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Author notes

  1. Tohru Shimakura

    Present address: Ministry of Justice of Japan, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology. Faculty of Letters, Hokkaido University, Kita-10, Nishi-7, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060, Japan

    Masaharu Takahashi & Tohru Shimakura

Authors
  1. Masaharu Takahashi
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  2. Tohru Shimakura
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Additional information

This research was supported by a Grant from the Ministry of Education of Japan (60790004).

We thank Prof. Takashige Iwamoto for his advice in planning the research.

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Takahashi, M., Shimakura, T. The Effects Of Instructions On Human Matching. Psychol Rec 48, 171–181 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395264

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