The Performance of Hyperactive and Normal Boys Under Differing Reward and Punishment Schedules

Abstract

Hyperactive and normal control boys were administered a discrimination learning task under feedback conditions of reward (winning marbles for correct responses) and punishment (losing marbles for incorrect responses) with continuous and partial schedules. In general, both groups of children learned more quickly under conditions of punishment than under conditions of reward and under continuous rather than partial feedback schedules. The differential effect of reward and punishment on learning was greater for the younger hyperactive boys (mean age = 9.0 years), whereas the older hyperactive (mean age = 10.6 years) and normal control group boys were not as sensitive to these feedback effects. Although all boys showed greater resistance to extinction after the punishmment condition, the hyper¯actives did not perform as well as normal boys during extinction. Hyperactive boys did not exhibit differences in response latencies from normal boys, but they did demonstrate a trend for greater variability in latency under conditions of reward. Other differences between hyperactive and normal control group boys were predicted, but they were not demonstrated in this study.