Human Response Rates and Causality Judgments on Schedules of Reinforcement

Abstract

Experiments examined the effect of various relationships between a response (an investment made in the context of a game) and an outcome (a return on the investment) on judgments of the causal effectiveness of the response. In Experiment 1, the time between successive outcomes obtained on a variable ratio (VR) schedule became the successive interval criterion for a yoked variable interval (VI) schedule. Response rates were higher on the VR than the VI schedule. In Experiment 2, the number of responses required per outcome on a VR schedule was matched to that on a master VI 20-s schedule. The ratings of causal effectiveness of the response, and the response rate, were higher in the VR schedule. In Experiment 3, a VI schedule with a reinforcement requirement for a short IRT produced higher response rates and higher causality judgments than a simple VI schedule. These results are taken to corroborate the view that schedules are a determinant of both response rates and causal judgments in humans.