Association of neutral objects with rewards: effects of reward schedules on reward expectancy, verbal evaluation, and selective attention

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects on three dependent measures when neutral objects were associated with three schedules of reward. The dependent measures concerned reward expectancy, verbal evaluation, and selective attention. The conditioning apparatus was a spin-wheel game in which a pointer stopped on one of two nonsense syllables. One syllable occasioned reward (1 penny) and another occasioned frustration (nondelivery of penny). A third, equally familiar, nonsense syllable was included which was neutral, neither having been associated with rewarding or frustrating events. Thirty-six Ss received conditioning sessions on each of 4 days. The dependent measures indicated that (a) the amount of expectancy of reward was an increasing monotonic function of the percentage of reinforcement during conditioning, and (b) relative to the frustrating and neutral stimuli, the rewarded stimulus received a higher score on positive verbal evaluation and was looked at more in a measure of selective attention, irrespective of schedule of reward.