Unique Outcome Expectations as a Training and Pedagogical Tool

Abstract

In everyday life, many of our behaviors are learned and reinforced through the availability of rewarding consequences. We work to be rewarded with desirable outcomes, and different people work for different rewards. Many of us have fond memories of our favorite teacher sticking a fancy star on an assignment well done and of how we would look forward to these stickers.A key aspect of real life is that we are constantly challenged with decisions to make and, almost without exception, every choice comes with a consequence. Very often, such consequences are unique to the particular choices we have made given the presenting problems. For example, when we want specialty coffee, we learn that we can get some at Starbucks. But

Emergence of auditory–visual relations from a visual–visual baseline with auditory‐specific consequences in individuals with autism

“…The results also make contact with studies showing that discrimination learning is faster and more accurate with specific consequences (differential outcome effects, Mok, Estéves, & Overmeier, ; Trapold, ; Urcuioli, ) than with common consequences involved in the contingencies for discriminative training (see also Davison and Nevin, , on sensitivity of behavior to both stimulus–behavior and behavior–stimulus relations). Together, these studies suggest that specific consequences are important if the goal is simply to establish isolated discriminations, or to establish a baseline of discriminations for the emergence of new relations and stimulus class formation.…”

Short-term retrospective versus prospective memory processing as emergent properties of the mind and brain: Human fMRI evidence

“…Experiencing cue-unique response outcomes under the DO training procedure has been shown to lead to more accurate and faster learning, in comparison to experiencing a common and non-unique outcome (CO), or random and unpredictable outcomes (NDO). This learning enhancement effect is termed as the differential outcomes effect (DOE) and it has been demonstrated in several animal species and in humans as well, across children and adults, both typically-functioning and learning-challenged (see Goeters et al, 1992;Mok et al, 2010). The behavioral DOE was produced in experimental participants using a concurrent-task, within-subject design.…”

El efecto de consecuencias diferenciales: un caso de investigación traslacional

“…De manera paralela a la indagación y extensión del ECD en trastornos diversos, otra clase de estudios (de forma relativamente reciente), se ha enfocado en explorar las aplicaciones del PCD en contextos educativos (e.g., Mok et al, 2010) como la enseñanza de idiomas y matemáticas, mostrando hallazgos robustos en condiciones no clínicas que han puesto la atención en la contribución de este procedimiento para la formación de clases de estímulos equivalentes (e.g., Easton et al 2011;Joseph et al, 1997;Minster et al, 2006).…”