CHOICE IN HUMANS - TECHNIQUES FOR ENHANCING SENSITIVITY TO REINFORCEMENT IMMEDIACY

In a single session adults chose between schedules in which the reinfo rcer was a video derived from popular TV programs. One choice response occurred per trial. Delay of reinforcement was defined as the time be tween the response and onset of the video, amount of reinforcement as the period for which the tape played before it was interrupted. Schedu le durations (reinforcement time plus waiting time before and after re inforcement) were equated so that an immediate reinforcer could not be accessed more quickly than a delayed reinforcer. Under ''informative' ' instructions stating that the schedules might differ in delay and/or amount of reinforcement, most subjects preferred large to small and i mmediate to delayed reinforcers. Without this information, no systemat ic preferences occurred unless remediation training was conducted in w hich responding to one key was reinforced while responding to the othe r key was extinguished. Consequences such as points that fail to gener ate a preference for reinforcement immediacy probably function more as discriminative stimuli than as reinforcers and are therefore unsuitab le for testing generalizations from animal research.