Response dependent and response independent environmental changes: a study on the effects of contiguity versus contingency / Alterações ambientais dependentes e independentes da resposta: uma investigação dos efeitos de contigüidade versus contingência

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

The effects of presenting stimuli that are well established as reinforcers independently of responding have been studied under two different perspectives. On the first perspective, through a procedure called accidentally reinforcement, stimuli are presented non-contingently, resulting in the accidental selection of a response, an effect called superstition. On the other perspective, in a procedure called uncontrollability stimuli are presented independently of responding resulting in a difficulty in learning when another contingency is presented, a behavioral effect called learned helplessness (LH). It has been suggested that the interval from the non-contingent presentation of the stimulus and the response may have an important role in producing either one of two behavioral effects. The goal of this study was to investigate: (a) the effects of different duration of an aversive auditive stimuli on the possibility of establishing contiguity between responding and the ending of the stimulus; (b) the effects of the different stimulus-response intervals on the responding pattern; (c) the effects of different manipulations of stimuli presentation (response dependent, response independent, and delayed dependent) on the participants performances in a new escape contingency. Fifty participants were assigned to five groups: contingent (CON), yoked non-contingent (YNC), non-contingent (NC), contingent with delay (CD), and control. Four groups were exposed to two experimental phases: training and testing. In the training phase, each group experienced a different contingency: CON participants could escape from the aversive stimuli; YNC participants experienced the same aversive stimuli (order and duration) as CON participants, but could not escape; NC participants experienced 5s stimuli along the training phase and could not turn them off; CD participants could escape from the stimuli, but the emission of the response started a delay that was dependent upon the interval between the end of the stimulus and the preceding response emitted by a NC participant. The control participants were not exposed to a training phase. During test, all participants could escape from the aversive stimuli by emiting a new escape response. Results show that: a) 12 out of 40 participants showed some accidentally selected behavioral pattern during training. In the testing phase, all this 12 participants learned the new escape response. Other twenty-four participants had their performance in the testing phase classified as learned helplessness: 13 from NC and YNC groups, 4 from CON, 4 from control and 2 from CD; b) stimulus duration did not seem to determine the interval between the end of the stimuli and the preceding response; c) for some participants, temporal contiguity between the end of the stimulus and the preceding response was enough to select a behavioral pattern, but the contingent relation between these two events was a powerful variable in the selection and maintenance responding, even for those participants who were exposed to a contingent but not contiguous (delayed) stimuli-response relation

ASSUNTO(S)

psicologia experimental contiguity contingência avaliacao do comportamento. contigüidade comportamento supersticioso contingency superstitious behavior desamparo aprendido learned helplessness

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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