O efeito de diferentes durações do estímulo condicional na supressão condicionada em humanos

Abstract

The present work intended to create some conditions for the study of the conditional suppression with human beings. Counting on seven participants, the study involved an activity in the computer in which the participants would have to click with the mouse s cursor on a small circle that moved through the screen of a computer in sessions lasting 15 minutes. Two conditions had been simultaneously presented: one produced reinforces for clicks in mouse in VI 60 s schedule of reinforcement, and another reinforcer was provided for participation in the session under FT 1 s schedule. Two arrangements had been conducted: for four participants R$0,50 were produced and accumulated in a counter presented the screen of the computer under the schedule VI 60 s and 0,01 point was accumulated in another counter under schedule FT 1 s. To the others three participants 1,00 point was produced under schedule VI 60 s for the clicks and R$0,01 was produced under schedule FT1 s. After the stabilization of the rates of responses or a maximum of four sessions, over the schedules already presented was added to the sessions an association between a tone and three events: the appearance of a person smiling and pointing in the direction of the participant, a sound of laugh (both with 3 s of duration) and the loss of 50% of the value of the reinforcement accumulated for the FT schedule (whose decrease lasted 1 s). The duration of the tone had been manipulated differently for two groups of participants. In the last session just the presentation of the tone was maintained in a respondent extinction. The data had shown to clear or occasional suppressions during the tone for four participants; two of them showed an induction of responses when the duration of the tone raised and an alteration in the stability of the suppression rates during shorter presentations of the tone