title: Effects of schedule of reinforcement on over-selectivity.
abstract: Stimulus over-selectivity refers to behavior being controlled by one element of the environment at the expense of other equally salient aspects of the environment. Four experiments trained and tested non-clinical participants on a two-component trial-and-error discrimination task to explore the effects of different training regimes on over-selectivity. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed no differentiation between partial reinforcement (PR) and continuous reinforcement (CRF) on over-selectivity. Experiments 3 and 4 both found that a change in reinforcement (from CRF to PR in Experiment 3, and from PR to CRF in Experiment 4) did not reduce levels of over-selectivity, but rather continuing training with the same contingency (either CRF or PR) did reduce over-selectivity. The results support assumptions made by the comparator hypothesis, extending the growing body of literature explaining over-selectivity as a post-acquisition, rather than attention, failure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK. 478554@swansea.ac.uk
authors.forename: Gemma
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Reynolds
authors.forename: Phil
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Reed
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012016:Reference Values; D012055:Reinforcement Schedule; D012057:Reinforcement, Verbal; D012201:Reward; D055815:Young Adult