Correspondence between instructions, performance, and self-descriptions ina conditional discrimination task: The effects of feedback and type of matching response

Four experiments were designed to evaluate the functional correspondence of effective performance with correct or incorrect instructions and correct o r incorrect self-descriptions in a first-order matching-to-sample task. The se studies included verbal or nonverbal matching responses and provided fee dback or not after the participants described their matching performance. T he results point to three possible discrimination learning processes in hum ans: (1) learning through instructions, with a possible insensitivity to co nsequences unless the correspondence between instructions and feedback brea ks down; (2) learning through feedback, with an inability of participants t o describe their own behavior; and (3) a genuine "rule-governed" behavior c onsisting of successful task performance and explicit verbal behavior descr ibing the actual contingencies effective for such performance.