Long-Term Interaction: Learning the 4 Rs

Conference companion on Human factors in computing systems common ground - CHI '96, 1996

In long-term interaction (over minutes, hours, or days) the tight cycle of action and feedback is broken. People have to remember that they have to do things, that other people should do things and why things happen when they do. This paper describes some results of a study into long-term processes associated with the running of the HCI'95 conference. The focus is on the events which trigger the occurrence of activities. However, during the study we also discovered a recurrent pattern of activities and triggers we have called the 4Rs. For a longer report see .

2015

The authors establish a phenomenological perspective on the temporal constitution of experience and action. Retrospection and projection (i.e. backward as well as forward orientation of everyday action), sequentiality and the sequential organization of activities as well as simultaneity (i.e. participants’ simultaneous coordination) are introduced as key concepts of a temporalized approach to interaction. These concepts are used to capture that every action is produced as an inter-linked step in the succession of adjacent actions, being sensitive to the precise moment where it is produced. The adoption of a holistic, multimodal and praxeological perspective additionally shows that action in interaction is organized according to several temporal orders simultaneously in operation. Each multimodal resource used in interaction has its own temporal properties

Animal Learning & Behavior, 1992

Rats pressed levers for Noyes pellets or keys for sweetened condensed milk reinforcers delivered by multiple schedules. Session length and baseline rates of reinforcement were varied in two experiments. Rates of responding increased during the early part of the session and then decreased for both responses and reinforcers, as weIl as for all subjects and values ofthe independent variables. Changes in response rates across the session sometimes exceeded 500%. Response rates peaked approximately 20 min after the beginning of the session, regardless of session duration, when subjects responded on a multiple variable intervall-min variable intervall-min schedule. The function was flatter for longer sessions than it was for shorter sessions. The function was flatter, more symmetrical, and peaked later for lower rates ofreinforcement than for higher rates of reinforcement. The function appeared early in training, and further experience moved and reduced its peak. Variables related to reinforcement exerted more control over some aspects ofthis function than did variables related to responding. These within-session patterns ofresponding may have fundamental implications for experimental design and theorizing.

European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2002

Four experiments deal with the acquisition of knowledge for the control of voluntary behaviour. Subjects had to accomplish a computer-controlled learning task that required them to learn which one of four actions (R) had to be performed in order to attain a certain one of four outcomes (O) in the presence of one of four situational contexts (S). Reinforcements were assigned to actions according to two schedules: In the S-R condition each of the four actions was consistently reinforced in the presence of a certain situation, whereas in the R-O condition each of the actions was either always (Experiments 1-3) or mostly (Experiment 4) reinforced if a certain outcome was required. Furthermore, the type of feedback was varied. In Experiment 1, only positive or negative reinforcements were fed back, whereas in Experiments 2-4 the actions resulted in outcomes that had to be compared with the required outcomes in order to determine successes and failures. The results indicate a preference for learning R-O contingencies over learning S-R contingencies. Most subjects were so fixated on learning R-O relations that they remained completely blind to the consistent reinforcement of S-R mappings. The data suggest that, in line with the ideomotor principle, the acquisition of behavioural competence is based primarily on the formation of bidirectional action-outcome relations. Specifications of the underlying learning mechanisms are discussed. This paper deals with a simple and ubiquitous learning task, namely to learn what to do in order to attain a certain goal. Humans accomplish this learning task rather effortlessly under everyday circumstances. People easily learn for example what to do in order to switch on a radio, to open a bottle, to enter a multi-storey car park and so on, for millions of simple goals. Moreover, folk psychology gives an obvious account on how people acquire such behavioural

Behavioural Processes, 1994

Four pigeons pecked keys for food reinforcers delivered by variable interval I-min schedules during two successive SO-min sessions or one IOO-min session. When 50-min sessions were conducted, they were separated by a 0-, IO-or 30-min delay, spent either inside or outside of the experimental enclosure. Responding usually increased to a peak and then decreased within sessions. This pattern was not altered by either the length of the delay between sessions or by the place where the subjects spent the delay. These results suggest that the beginning of the session or the passage of a short time between sessions restores the conditions necessary to produce within-session changes in responding. The results are incompatible with theories that explain these changes in terms of recovery from the handling routine, accumulation of arousal, priming, fatigue, or satiation. They can be reconciled with theories that attribute within-session changes in responding to reinstatement of memory or changes in attention only by arguing that memory and attentional adjustments are erased quickly between sessions.

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2013

2014

Investigations of the microfoundations of recurrent action patterns?which encompass individual habits as well as the collective performance of routines, administrative procedures and systematic processes?typically assume trait-based, behaviorist or type theories of personality and individual psychology. However, a number of leading psychologists reject such theories as over-simplifications. They propose, and my paper adopts, a novel social cognitive theory of human personality and individual psychology. From this alternative perspective, context and situational contingency become central factors in the explanation of recurrent action. Complex intra-psychic processes also play a central role. My paper builds upon such a perspective to explain the microfoundations of recurrent action in terms of the complex interactions between situational contingency and psychological processes. The resulting theory proposes that habits, routines and other types of collective performance evolve from ...

Behavioural Processes, 1996

were conducted during which undergraduates responded during a variable-interval (VI) 60-second operant task. The first experiment consisted of either three 60-minute sessions or three 30-minute sessions. During Experiment 1 subjects were informed as to the length of the session and the number of sessions that would be conducted. During the second experiment subjects were told that they would be participating in three 60-minute sessions but they actually participated in one 30-minute session. During Experiment 1 the rate of responding increased significantly within the sessions for 30-minute sessions but did not change significantly for 60-minute sessions. Response rate did not change during the 30-minute session in Experiment 2. The results of these experiments demonstrate that, under certain circumstances, rate of responding changes within-sessions for humans. The experiments also provide some evidence that a prospective factor influences the rate of responding within an experimental session for human subjects. 03%6357/96/$15.00 6 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0376-6357(95)00010-O J.M. Roll et ul./Behauiourcrl Procrs.ses 36 (1996) I-10 3

Animal Learning & Behavior, 1994

Rats and pigeons responded for food delivered according to multiple schedules. The session length varied from 10 to 120 min, and the programmed rate of reinforcement varied from 15 to 240 reinforcers per hour. Response rates usually changed systematically within experimental sessions. For both rats and pigeons, responding reached a peak after an approximately constant amount of time since the beginning of the session, regardless of session length. When rats, but not pigeons, served as subjects, the peak rates of responding occurred later in the session and the within-session changes were smaller for lower than for higher rates of reinforcement. The similarities between the results for rats and for pigeons when session length varied suggest that at least one of the factors that produces the within-session changes in responding is shared by the present species, responses, and reinforcers. The differences in results when rate of reinforcement varied are more difficult to interpret.

Behavioural Processes, 2009