Reinforcement accumulation and collateral behavior in humans

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Raúl Ávila
Anthony G. Tapia
Andrea Aceves
Dafne M. Vizuet

Abstract

An accumulation procedure with humans was evaluated. Each click to an accumulation square, presented on the display of the computer, resulted in an access period to a video (the reinforcer) which could be collected with an obtained response in another square. The video could be reproduced by clicking on a third square. With this procedure, the effects of a 20 or 40 s delay between the accumulation and obtained responses were evaluated, with or without a collateral operandum added to the procedure. It was found that for the participants with the “collateral” operandum available, the 20 s delay between responses resulted in higher accumulation responses than the 40 s delay; by contrast, for the participants without the “collateral” operandum present, there were more accumulation responses during the 40 s delay that in the 20 s delay. These outcomes were interpreted as congruent with the cost or effort hypothesis proposed by the research on accumulation with rats as subjects.

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How to Cite
Ávila, R. ., Tapia, A. G., Aceves, A. ., & Vizuet, D. M. . (2022). Reinforcement accumulation and collateral behavior in humans. Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis, 48(2). https://doi.org/10.5514/rmac.v48.i2.84458