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OBSERVING BEHAVIOR IN A COMPUTER GAME
Author(s) -
Case David A.,
Ploog Bertram O.,
Fantino Edmund
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1990.54-185
Subject(s) - reinforcement , unavailability , uncorrelated , schedule , stimulus (psychology) , psychology , stimulus control , lever , computer science , cognitive psychology , social psychology , statistics , mathematics , neuroscience , physics , quantum mechanics , nicotine , operating system
Contingencies studied in lever‐pressing procedures were incorporated into a popular computer game, “Star Trek,” played by college students. One putative reinforcer, the opportunity to destroy Klingon invaders, was scheduled independently of responding according to a variable‐time schedule that alternated unpredictably with equal periods of Klingon unavailability (mixed variable time, extinction schedule of reinforcement). Two commands (“observing responses”) each produced stimuli that were either correlated or uncorrelated with the two components. In several variations of the basic game, an S‐, or bad news, was not as reinforcing as an S+, or good news. In addition, in other conditions for the same subjects observing responses were not maintained better by bad news than by an uninformative stimulus. In both choices, more observing tended to be maintained by an S— for response‐independent Klingons when its information could be (and was) used to advantage with respect to other types of reinforcement in the situation (Parts 1 and 2) than when the information could not be so used (Part 3). The findings favor the conditioned reinforcement hypothesis of observing behavior over the uncertainty‐reduction hypothesis. This extends research to a more natural setting and to multialternative concurrent schedules of events of seemingly intrinsic value.