CONTICEPTION - A PROGRAM TO STUDY THE EFFECTS OF CONTINGENCY PARAMETERS ON JUDGMENTS OF CONTROL

Little is known about the heuristics people use in evaluating the degr ee to which they control events. The DOS-based CONTICEPTION program al lows users to independently set the extent to which subjects' actions are necessary and sufficient (the two components of contingency) to ca use a change in an animated display. Up to four subject actions (keypr esses) can each cause up to four dimensions of the display to change a ccording to independently set contingencies. The task within which sub jects judge their control involves interacting with the display in rea l time. To facilitate modeling of the possible algorithms used by diff erent groups of subjects or under different conditions, the program pr ovides several calculations of contingency magnitude and algebraic rul es upon which the literature suggests subjects might base their contro l judgments. The program also allows sessions (trial sequences) to be saved and provides raw and summarized data output.