Experimental alterations in the effectiveness of verbal reinforcement combinations.

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Abstract
Two experiments designed to test various hypotheses about the reinforcing effects of three verbal events were performed. The verbal events, R, W, and N, consisted of E saying "Right" (R), "Wrong" (W), or nothing (N) after 5s response. These were used in combinations, RW, RN, NW, in which the first named event followed all correct, and the second all incorrect responses. The instructions made no reference to these events. In Exp. I, 36 5s were presented with 72 trials on each of three syllable pairs intermingled in a single series. Each of these pairs was assigned to one of the three reinforcement combinations. The results were as follows: (a) Fewest errors occurred on the RW pair while the other two pairs were not differentiated in terms of number of errors. (b) The last error occurred earliest on the RW pair, and next earliest on the RN pair. (c) The number of trials intervening between the last and next-to-last error was greatest for the NW pair. In Exp. II, seven groups of 12 5s first learned to select one of each pair of syllables to mastery under RW. Six groups were then given either 12, 24, or 48 trials on a similar task, with three of the groups (R12, R24, R48) having this induction training under RN and three (W12, W24, W48) under NW. The seventh group, Group 0, had no induction training. All 5s were then exposed to 48 trials on each syllable pair under conditions similar to those used in Exp. I except that the originally learned responses were now to be reversed. Reversal learning results revealed that induction training under RN led to fewer RN errors and more NW errors than did induction training under NW, and that the effect of induction training on number of RN errors and differences in number of RN and NW errors depended on the number of induction training trials. Group 0 made fewer errors on all pairs than did the other groups. The results of these experiments seem to confirm the hypothesis that during exposure to RN, N becomes a negative reinforcer, while during exposure to NW, N becomes a positive reinforcer. There were also indications that the assumption that R and W are equally potent reinforcers may be slightly superior to the assumption that R is a much weaker reinforcer than W. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)
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