Contingent Incentive Value in Human Operant Performance

Abstract

It was suggested that “real world” contingencies for humans make both incentive value and delivery of reinforcers response contingent in order to induce behavior change. It was proposed that a number of specialized contingencies fall under the general rubric of contingent incentive value. The main purpose of the present studies was to demonstrate the efficacy of such contingencies within the human operant laboratory context, in some cases with expanded versions of correlated reward where there was not a simple monotonic correspondence between responding and reward magnitude and in others where novel contingencies were tested. Generally, the results showed that contingent incentive value was effective in producing rapid and appropriate changes in performance. It was suggested that these special schedules may allow the laboratory to provide a more valid or faithful representation of contingencies in the “real world.”