FACTORS IMPACTING EMERGENCE OF BEHAVIORAL CONTROL BY UNDERSELECTED STIMULI IN HUMANS AFTER REDUCTION OF CONTROL BY OVERSELECTED STIMULI

• Published in: Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior Vol. 94; no. 2; pp. 125 - 133
• Main Authors: Broomfield, Laura, McHugh, Louise, Reed, Phil
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2010; Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior; Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Inc
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Adults; Autism; Autism Spectrum Disorders; Behavior; Behavior Control - psychology; Behavioral Science Research; College Students; Comprehension; Conditioning; Conditioning, Operant; Cues; Developmental Disabilities; Discrimination Learning; Environment; Environmental Influences; Experiments; Eye Movements; Feedback (Response); Female; Human subjects; Humans; Leaders; Male; Models, Psychological; Neuropsychological Tests; Novelty (Stimulus Dimension); overselectivity; Pervasive Developmental Disorders; Psychology; re-emergence of control; Reinforcement Schedule; Stimuli; Time Factors; Visual Stimuli; Young Adult; overselectivity; re-emergence of control; humans; discrimination learning
• ISSN: 0022-5002; 1938-3711; 1938-3711
• DOI: 10.1901/jeab.2010.94-125

Stimulus overselectivity occurs when only one of potentially many aspects of the environment controls behavior. Adult participants were trained and tested on a trial‐and‐error discrimination learning task while engaging in a concurrent load task, and overselectivity emerged. When responding to the overselected stimulus was reduced by reinforcing a novel stimulus in the presence of the previously overselected stimulus in a second trial‐and‐error discrimination task, behavioral control by the underselected stimulus became stronger. However, this result was only found under certain circumstances: when there was substantial overselectivity in the first training phase; when control by the underselected stimulus in the first phase was particularly low; and when there was effective reduction in the behavioral control exerted by the previously overselected stimuli. The emergence of behavioral control by the underselected stimulus suggests that overselectivity is not simply due to an attention deficit, because for the emergence to occur, the stimuli must have been attended to and learned about in the training phase; but that a range of additional learning factors may play a role.