Influence of schizotypy on responding and contingency awareness on free-operant schedules of reinforcement

Schedules of reinforcement typically produce reliable patterns of behaviour, and one factor that can cause deviations from these normally reliable patterns is schizotypy. Low scorers on the unusual experiences subscale of the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences performed as expected on a yoked random-ratio (RR), random-interval (RI) schedule of reinforcement, with significantly higher rates of responding on the RR schedule than in the RI schedule. However, high scorers in UE showed no such differences between response rates between the RR and RI schedules. In addition, contingency awareness scores were high, and did not differ in low UE scorers for both types of schedule, whilst awareness scores differed significantly between the schedules in high UE scorers, with more awareness of the RR schedule than the RI one. These results suggest that, as well as being unable to differentiate between the RR and RI schedules in terms of response rates, high UE scorers are also unable to verbally describe the RI schedule parameters.

► Schedules of reinforcement typically produce reliable patterns of behaviour, and deviations from these reliable patterns can be associated with personality characteristics, such as psychometrically-measured schizotypy.
► Low scores on an unusual experiences measure had significantly higher rates of responding on a random ratio schedule than on a random interval schedule. However, high scorers showed no such differences between response rates between the RR and RI schedules.
► Contingency awareness scores were high in low scorers for both types of schedule, whilst high UE scorers had more awareness of the RR schedule than the RI schedule.
► These results suggest that, as well as being unable to differentiate between the RR and RI schedules in terms of response rates, high UE scorers are also unable to verbally describe the RI schedule parameters.