Stimulus over-selectivity refers to the phenomenon whereby behavior is controlled by a subset of elements in the environment at the expense of other equally salient aspects of the environment. The experiments explored whether this cue interference effect was reduced following a surprising downward shift in reinforcer value. Experiment 1 revealed…

Previous attempts at lie detection, such as the polygraph, have relied on physiological arousal to identify deception--but these responses have not proven to be as reliable as is necessary for widespread use. Conditioning procedures have been shown to increase the discriminative physiological arousal exhibited during deception, but have targeted…

In three experiments, human participants pressed the space bar on a computer keyboard to earn points on random-ratio (RR) and random-interval (RI) schedules of reinforcement. Verbalized contingency awareness (CA) for each schedule was measured after the entire task (Experiments 1 and 2), or after each RR-RI trial (Experiment 3). In all three…

Stimulus over-selectivity refers to behavior being controlled by one element of the environment at the expense of other equally salient aspects of the environment. This is a common problem for many individuals, including those with autism spectrum disorders, and learning difficulties, and presents a considerable problem for information processing…

Memory deficits have been shown to hamper decision making in a number of populations. In two experiments, participants were required to select one of three alternatives that varied in reinforcer amount and delay, and the effect of a concurrent task on a behavioral choice task that involved making either an impulsive, self-controlled, or optimal…

The study examined the role of caffeine consumption in caffeine reinforcement. Previous findings have shown that caffeine reinforced flavor preference in moderate caffeine consumers who are caffeine deprived. However, most of these studies have employed rating procedures only, and have not shown the effectiveness of caffeine to reinforce behaviors…

The experiment was carried out to determine whether exposure to an uncontrollable relationship between an action and its outcome during a non-aversive pretreatment phase would affect subsequent ratings of perceived control emitted by human participants. Its other aim was to investigate the effect of such pre-exposure on the attentional focus of…