Abstract
The present experiment examined the effects of transmitted verbal descriptions on human responding under a schedule of reinforcement. An undergraduate (participant) was exposed to a multiple fixed-ratio (FR) 25 differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate (DRL) 5-s schedule. Then he was asked to describe how to obtain reinforcers. His description was presented to the next participant as instructions, prior to exposure to the same schedule. In this way, verbal descriptions generated by each participant were transmitted from one participant to the next for a total of 36 participants. Discrimination ratios, the ratios of the response rates during the FR component to the sum of the response rates during both components for these transmitted-instruction participants were higher than the ratios for no instruction participants who were exposed to the schedule with no instructions. The discrimination ratios positively correlated between successive participants with the transmitted instructions, whereas there was no correlation between the no instruction participants. These results were compared with previous results from experimental analyses of instructions and cultural transmission.
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The data that support the findings are available on the electronic supplementary material.
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All procedures performed involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments. The present experiment was reviewed and received clearance from Osaka Kyoiku University research committee, where the experiment was conducted. Informed consent and publication of findings was provided in writing by participants.
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Okouchi, H. Effects of Transmitted Verbal Descriptions on Human Responding under a Schedule of Reinforcement. Psychol Rec 72, 197–206 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-022-00507-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-022-00507-z