There is abundant evidence that behavioral variability is more predominant when reinforcement is contingent on it than when it is not, and the interpretation of direct reinforcement of variability suggested by Page and Neuringer, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 11(3), 429–452 (1985) has been widely accepted. Even so, trying to identify the underlying mechanisms in the emergence of stochastic-like variability in a variability contingency is intricate. There are several challenges to characterizing variability as directly reinforced, most notably because reinforcement traditionally has been found to produce repetitive responding, but also because directly reinforced variability does not always relate to independent variables the same way as more commonly studied repetitive responding does. The challenging findings in variability experiments are discussed, along with alternative hypotheses on how variability contingencies may engender the high variability that they undeniably do. We suggest that the typical increase in behavioral variability that is often demonstrated when reinforcement is contingent on it may be better explained in terms of a dynamic interaction of reinforcement and extinction working on several specific responses rather than as directly reinforced.

中文翻译：

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对可变性作为操作维度的支持的批判性回顾

有大量证据表明，当强化取决于行为时，行为变异性比不依赖强化时更占主导地位，Page 和 Neuringer 提出的直接强化变异性的解释，《实验心理学杂志：动物行为过程》，11(3)， 429–452 (1985) 已被广泛接受。即便如此，试图确定变异性意外事件中出现类随机变异性的潜在机制仍然是复杂的。将变异性描述为直接强化存在一些挑战，最显着的是因为传统上发现强化会产生重复响应，但也因为直接强化变异性并不总是像更常见的研究重复响应那样与自变量相关。讨论了变异性实验中具有挑战性的发现，以及关于变异性意外事件如何产生不可否认的高变异性的替代假设。我们认为，当强化取决于它时，通常会表现出行为变异性的典型增加，这可以更好地用强化和消退作用于几个特定反应的动态相互作用来解释，而不是直接强化。