Discrimination Reinforcement and Resistance to Change

歧视强化和变革抵制

• 批准号: 7030826
• 负责人: JOHN ANTHONY NEVIN
• 金额: $ 11.98万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-09-01 至 2009-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7030826
• 关键词: attention; behavior modification; behavior test; behavioral /social science research tag; cues; discrimination learning; memory; method development; operant conditionings; pigeons; psychoanalysis; psychological reinforcement; stimulus /response; stimulus interval

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): To effect behavior change, it is not sufficient simply to establish desirable behavior in a therapeutic setting. It is also necessary that desirable behavior be persistent in the face of daily challenges after therapy ends. In addition, the behavior must be appropriate to the varying circumstances of daily life, which requires attending to and remembering the relations between situations, actions, and consequences. Our research on this project to date has shown that reinforcing consequences affect the persistence of attention and memory in the same way as simple operant responding. Reinforcement-based teaching methods can improve learning to distinguish among different stimuli in people with developmental disabilities, and can enhance short-term memory in clinical patients with neurological deficits. Reinforcement effects on attending and remembering are also relevant to drug abuse: Drugs are potent reinforcers and therefore increase attention to events associated with drugs and make those occasions more memorable. At the same time, drug reinforcement may make attending to and remembering drug-related events more resistant to change, and those events may in turn occasion further abuse. This project will continue to explore ways in which reinforcement can establish persistent attending and remembering, and evaluate various methods for disrupting control by environmental stimuli. One goal of this project is to develop and test a new quantitative theory of attending and remembering that combines an existing model of discrimination performance with an existing model of behavioral persistence. A second goal is to develop novel experimental methods to evaluate the terms of the model. A third goal is to identify effective methods for increasing or decreasing the strength of attending and remembering in short- term working memory. The basic behavioral processes examined here are central to research and theory on learning and memory. They are also important for understanding the persistence of maladaptive behavior such as seeking and attending to cues that trigger drug abuse, and for establishing desirable discriminations that are remembered accurately and are highly resistant to change.

描述(由申请人提供)：要实现行为改变，仅仅在治疗环境中建立理想的行为是不够的。同样有必要的是，在治疗结束后，面对日常挑战，令人满意的行为要持续下去。此外，行为必须与日常生活中不同的情况相适应，这需要注意并记住情况、行为和结果之间的关系。到目前为止，我们对这个项目的研究表明，强化的结果影响注意力和记忆的持久性，其方式与简单的操作反应相同。基于强化的教学方法可以改善发育障碍患者区分不同刺激的学习能力，并可以增强临床神经功能障碍患者的短期记忆。对注意和记忆的强化作用也与药物滥用有关：药物是强有力的增强剂，因此增加了人们对与药物相关的事件的关注，使这些场合更令人难忘。与此同时，药物强化可能会使关注和记住与药物有关的事件更难改变，而这些事件反过来可能会导致进一步的滥用。该项目将继续探索强化可以建立持续注意和记忆的方法，并评估通过环境刺激扰乱控制的各种方法。这个项目的一个目标是开发和测试一种新的注意和记忆的量化理论，该理论将现有的辨别绩效模型与现有的行为持久性模型相结合。第二个目标是开发新的实验方法来评估该模型的条款。第三个目标是找出有效的方法来增加或减少短期工作记忆中注意和记忆的强度。这里考察的基本行为过程是学习和记忆研究和理论的核心。它们对于理解不适应行为的持久性也很重要，比如寻找和注意引发药物滥用的线索，以及建立人们记忆准确、高度抵制变化的理想歧视。