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BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS AND REVALUATION
Author(s) -
Donahoe John W.,
Burgos José E.
Publication year - 2000
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.2000.74-331
Subject(s) - reinforcement , psychology , lever , operant conditioning , stimulus (psychology) , classical conditioning , aversive stimulus , conditioning , cognitive psychology , animal behavior , behavioral analysis , neuroscience , developmental psychology , social psychology , statistics , zoology , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , biology
Revaluation refers to phenomena in which the strength of an operant is altered by reinforcer‐related manipulations that take place outside the conditioning situation in which the operant was selected. As an example, if lever pressing is acquired using food as a reinforcer and food is later paired with an aversive stimulus, the frequency of lever pressing decreases when subsequently tested. Associationist psychology infers from such findings that conditioning produces a response—outcome (i.e., reinforcer) association and that the operant decreased in strength because pairing the reinforcer with the aversive stimulus changed the value of the outcome. Here, we present an approach to the interpretation of these and related findings that employs neural network simulations grounded in the experimental analysis of behavior and neuroscience. In so doing, we address some general issues regarding the relations among behavior analysis, neuroscience, and associationism.