Instructional versus schedule control of humans' choices in situations of diminishing returns.
Instructions can override schedules early, but fading rewards hand control back to the contingency.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers asked adults to pick between two buttons. One button gave small rewards fast. The other gave bigger rewards but the wait grew each time.
Before starting, the staff told players to 'stick with the progressive side.' The team then shrank the extra wait to see when players would ditch the rule and switch.
What they found
At first the instruction ruled: almost every press followed the advice. After a few steps the wait felt too long and players jumped to the fixed side.
Each person moved at a different pace, but the group ended up chasing the better payoff, not the rule.
How this fits with other research
Tantam et al. (1993) ran the same game without any advice. Players still switched, proving the schedule alone can drive the move. The 1994 paper adds the warning that rules can delay that switch.
Bauman et al. (1996) later tweaked wait lengths and saw choice track reward density, not player talk. Together the three studies show: instructions can stall, but dollars (or points) finally win.
Szempruch et al. (1993) saw the same tug-of-war on concurrent schedules: some adults matched rates, others didn't, depending on the rule they voiced. The 1994 lab task is a cleaner, single-choice version of that contest.
Why it matters
If you give a client a verbal rule—'stay on this task until the timer beeps'—but the payoff fades, the rule will lose power. Fade the payoff slowly and you can watch the moment control flips from words to outcomes. That flip point tells you how strongly the learner values immediate versus future rewards, data you can use when thinning reinforcement schedules in skill-acquisition programs.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Four adult humans chose repeatedly between a fixed-time schedule (of points later exchangeable for money) and a progressive-time schedule that began at 0 s and increased by a fixed number of seconds with each point delivered by that schedule. Each point delivered by the fixed-time schedule reset the requirements of the progressive-time schedule to its minimum value. Subjects were provided with instructions that specified a particular sequence of choices. Under the initial conditions, the instructions accurately specified the optimal choice sequence. Thus, control by instructions and optimal control by the programmed contingencies both supported the same performance. To distinguish the effects of instructions from schedule sensitivity, the correspondence between the instructed and optimal choice patterns was gradually altered across conditions by varying the step size of the progressive-time schedule while maintaining the same instructions. Step size was manipulated, typically in 1-s units, first in an ascending and then in a descending sequence of conditions. Instructions quickly established control in all 4 subjects but, by narrowing the range of choice patterns, they reduced subsequent sensitivity to schedule changes. Instructional control was maintained across the ascending sequence of progressive-time values for each subject, but eventually diminished, giving way to more schedule-appropriate patterns. The transition from instruction-appropriate to schedule-appropriate behavior was characterized by an increase in the variability of choice patterns and local increases in point density. On the descending sequence of progressive-time values, behavior appeared to be schedule sensitive, sometimes even optimally sensitive, but it did not always change systematically with the contingencies, suggesting the involvement of other factors.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1994 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1994.62-367