title: The effects of instructions on the sensitivity of negatively reinforced human behavior to extinction.
abstract: The effects of instructions on the sensitivity of negatively reinforced (escape) behavior to extinction were studied. Initially, responding produced timeouts from pressing a force cell on a variable-ratio (VR) schedule, which was then discontinued (extinction). Based on extinction data, participants were distributed into two groups. Participants in the Persistence Group (for which response rates were low in extinction) were instructed that the experimenter expected them to continue responding in extinction after a second exposure to the VR schedule. Participants in the Extinction group (for which response rates were high in extinction) were instructed that the experimenter expected them to stop responding in extinction. Relative to the condition in which instructions were absent, extinction-response rates increased and decreased, respectively, for participants in the Persistence and Extinction groups. These results replicate and extend to negatively reinforced responding previous findings that showed behavioral control by instructions formulated as explicit experimenter demands or expectations.
authors.affiliation: University of Lille, CNRS, UMR 9193 - SCALab - Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives, F-59000 Lille, France. Electronic address: jerome.alessandri@univ-lille3.fr.
authors.forename: Jérôme
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Alessandri
authors.affiliation: Universidade de Brasília, Brazil.
authors.forename: Carlos R X
authors.initials: CRX
authors.lastname: Cançado
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Button pressing; Demand characteristics; Humans; Instruction following; Negative reinforcement; Sensitivity; Timeout from force requirement