Adaptation to a Multiple Operant Schedule: Insensitivity and the Role of Verbal Control

Abstract

The role of verbalized rules in adaptation to learning contingencies is not well understood. Rules often facilitate behavioral contingency adaptation, but the opposite is also seen. The present research, using human student subjects, investigated the role of rules in behavioral adaptation to two alternating and independent contingencies, one instructed left/right position contingency, the other a noninstructed force of pressing contingency. The position contingency was arranged as easy to facilitate formulation of a functional rule, or as difficult to make a functional rule hard to verbalize. Under the easy position contingency, subjects demonstrated reliable adaptation, but sensitivity to the alternating force contingency was poor. Under the difficult position contingency, however, reliable sensitivity to both the position and the force contingencies was observed. A third group receiving the simple and difficult position contingencies demonstrated behavioral sensitivity to the simple contingency but insensitivity to the difficult contingency. These results indicate that given multiple contingencies, behavioral sensitivity to a target schedule component is reduced if responding is highly functional under another schedule component in the situation, and is increased if responding under the other component is less functional. Possible explanations of these findings are discussed.