Effects Of Response Requirements Research Articles

Human procrastination: effects of response requirements

Human procrastination: effects of response requirements

Learned helplessness: Effects of response requirement and interval between treatment and testing

Three experiments investigated learned helplessness in rats manipulating response requirements, shock duration, and intervals between treatment and testing. In Experiment 1, rats previously exposed to uncontrollable or no shocks were tested under one of four different contingencies of negative reinforcement: FR 1 or FR 2 escape contingency for running, and FR1 escape contingency for jumping (differing for the maximum shock duration of 10s or 30s). The results showed that the uncontrollable shocks produced a clear operant learning deficit (learned helplessness effect) only when the animals were tested under the jumping FR 1 escape contingency with 10-s max shock duration. Experiment 2 isolated of the effects of uncontrollability from shock exposure per se and showed that the escape deficit observed using the FR 1 escape jumping response (10-s shock duration) was produced by the uncontrollability of shock. Experiment 3 showed that using the FR 1 jumping escape contingency in the test, the learned helplessness effect was observed one, 14 or 28 days after treatment. These results suggest that running may not be an appropriate test for learned helplessness, and that many diverging results found in the literature might be accounted for by the confounding effects of respondent and operant contingencies present when running is required of rats.

Environmental Cues, Alcohol Seeking, and Consumption in Baboons: Effects of Response Requirement and Duration of Alcohol Abstinence

Environmental stimuli (cues) that have been paired with alcohol drinking may evoke classically conditioned states that in turn influence alcohol consumption and relapse to heavy drinking. Animal models using chained schedules of alcohol reinforcement may be useful for examining such complex interactions. Alcohol drinking was established in 4 baboons. A sequence of lights and tones was presented during daily 3-hour sessions. First, cues were presented alone and no programmed contingencies were in effect. Second, cues were paired with 3 linked components consisting of different behavioral contingencies leading to and concluding with access to alcohol for self-administration in the last component (i.e., a chained schedule of alcohol reinforcement). Third, the effects of withholding alcohol access (i.e., forced abstinence) and increasing the number of lever responses required per drink were evaluated. Cues paired with a chained schedule of alcohol reinforcement engendered behaviors that brought baboons into contact with alcohol-related cues and occasioned operant responding that facilitated access to alcohol (alcohol seeking) during components that preceded alcohol access. Increasing the response requirement for each drink decreased the number of drinks and volume of alcohol consumed, but did not alter alcohol seeking. On the first session after 14 days of alcohol abstinence, latency to complete the operant requirement that produced alcohol access was decreased while both alcohol self-administration and volume of alcohol consumed were increased. Alcohol self-administration and consumption were sensitive to increases in response requirement and duration of alcohol abstinence, while seeking was only enhanced by duration of alcohol abstinence. This animal model may be useful to further examine the interactions between environmental cues and behaviors associated with seeking and consumption of alcohol and to evaluate the efficacy of potential alcohol treatment drugs on these behaviors.

Effects of response requirement and the availability of an alternative reinforcer on cigarette smoking by schizophrenics.

Cigarette smoking and other forms of drug abuse are more prevalent among schizophrenics than the general population. Despite the clinical importance of this problem, there has been relatively little experimental study of schizophrenic drug use. We examined under controlled laboratory conditions the effects of response requirement and the availability of an alternative (monetary) reinforcer on cigarette smoking by schizophrenics. Subjects were six heavy smokers with diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Before each session, subjects provided carbon monoxide samples indicating recent smoking abstinence. During 3-h sessions, subjects obtained opportunities to smoke (2 puffs/opportunity) under a fixed ratio (FR) schedule of reinforcement, which varied across sessions from FR50 to FR6400. In half of the sessions, subjects also were able to earn a small amount of money ($0.25/ratio completed) under an FR400 schedule. Increasing the response requirement for smoking decreased smoking and increased smoking-maintained responding. The availability of the monetary reinforcer decreased smoking and smoking-maintained responding by approximately half. These results are consistent with those seen previously in community volunteers without major mental illness studied under the same experimental conditions, suggesting that smoking by these two populations is controlled, at least in part, by a common set of determinants.

Human methadone self-administration

The effects of response requirement and small doses of methadone on human oral self-administration of methadone were examined. Three methadone maintenance patients stabilized at a dose of 80mg methadone per day were recruited as subjects. Completing a response requirement, fixed ratio (FR) of 32, 64 or 128 responses (FR32, FR64, FR128) on one button dispensed 10ml of drug solution. Completing the equivalent response requirement on a second concurrently available response button dispensed 10ml of vehicle. The opportunity to respond was unavailable until the drug or vehicle had been consumed. Each 10ml of drug solution contained methadone doses of 0.027, 0.054 or 0.108mg/ml. The frequency of deliveries was limited so that subjects could not ingest more than 54mg of methadone; the difference between the 80mg daily methadone dose and the methadone consumed in session was administered 30min post-session. At FR64 and FR128 the frequency of deliveries decreased, at the 0.054 and 0.027mg/ml doses, relative to the frequency of deliveries at FR32. The amount of methadone consumed increased with increases in methadone dose and decreased with increases in FR size. These results demonstrate the reinforcing effects of small unit doses of methadone. This procedure provides a sensitive baseline for examining effects of other pharmacological interventions on methadone ingestion in humans.

Effects of Response Requirements and Reinforcement Probability on the Latency to Depress a Foot Treadle

Some previous studies have shown response latency to be a relatively sensitive measure of the effects of many experimental manipulations. However, when key pecking is the required response topography, the effects on latency of the independent variable may be confounded by respondent influences. The present study attempts to separate operant from respondent influences on response latency by requiring pigeons to depress a foot treadle, a topography unlikely to have respondent components. Three pigeons responded under a multiple fixed-ratio fixed-ratio schedule of food delivery with a 5-s intertriai interval. For two subjects, the independent variable was the number of responses required in each component. For another subject, the probability of reinforcement associated with each component constituted the independent variable. In general, response latencies were found to be shorter to the stimulus associated with the smaller response requirement or greater probability of reinforcement. However, unlike previous findings, these results were obtained only after quite large differences between response requirements or reinforcement probability were arranged. Further, birds reliably pecked the stimulus key even when this response was not required for reinforcement.

Effects of response requirement upon human sedative self-administration and drug-seeking behavior

Five male volunteers with histories of sedative drug abuse were given the opportunity to self-administer up to 20 oral doses per day of either diazepam (10 mg per dose) or sodium pentobarbital (30 mg per dose). Each dose was purchased with tokens earned by exercising on a stationary exercise bicycle. Each two minutes of exercise earned one token. In a mixed order across days the number of tokens required to purchase each dose was varied among 1, 3, 5, 8 and 10. Drug intake decreased as a function of increased response requirement for purchasing the drug. Response output for drug tended to be an inverted-U shaped function of the response requirement. Thus, the cost of drug doses acts as a powerful environmental influence upon both of these aspects of drug abuse behavior — amount of drug consumed and amount of drug-seeking behavior.

Effects of response requirements on the location of clicks superimposed on sentences

Two methods of identifying the location of clicks superimposed on sentences were compared. When Ss first wrote out the entire sentence and then marked the location of the clicks, the perceived clicks tended to migrate toward the major constituent breaks of the sentences. This trend was not observed when Ss responded by marking the position of clicks on prepared scripts of the stimulus sentence. In addition, both response procedures resulted in a significant trend for the perceived clicks to be located before the actual click locations. The findings of this study resolved the conflicting results obtained from previous investigations in this area.