Abstract

GONZALEZ, Gabriel Velázquez  and  AGUIRRE, Carlos Javier Flores. Contribution of stimulus contingency on the behavior effectiveness in the structuring of supplementary fields. Acta comport. [online]. 2013, vol.21, n.4, pp. 425-434. ISSN 0188-8145.

The present study evaluated the effect of pre-exposure to stimulus contingency on the structuring of supplementary fields. In the first phase, two groups of rats were exposed to different contingency arrangements. For one group, a sound was followed consistently by a drop of water (Group Ey-Ex), whereas in the other group the sound and the water were unconsistently presented (Group Ey/Ex). In the second phase these two groups and a third group (Control Group) were exposed to a temporally-defined schedule, the sub-cycle t^D was signaled with a sound. The occurrence of at least one response during t^D resulted in the delivery of a drop of water. A high frequency of responses during sub-cycle t^D was observed in all subjects. However, the subjects of Group Ey-Ex showed a lower number of responses during sub-cycle t^Δ compared with the rest of the subjects. Results are discussed attending to the conceptual and methodological criteria that have been proposed to identify the psychological functions as Ribes and López (1985) defined.

Keywords : interbehavioral psychology; contextual function; supplementary function; temporallydefines schedules; rats.

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