The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of changing reinforcement schedules with accompanying rules on sensitivity to reinforcement schedules of behavior. Five of ten students in one group were instructed to press three buttons for avoiding pointloss under a single set of multiple schedules with accompanying correct rule labels, and another five students in another group were exposed to the other set which changed once during the avoidance training. Rule labels which described reinforcement schedules, were always correct in both two groups. The group, exposed to the single set of multiple avoidance training without change, continued responding as previous training, under following test phase in which no avoidance schedule and rule label. The other group, exposed to the sets of avoidance training with a change, decreased the rate of responding under the subsequent test phase. These results suggest if the sets of reinforcement schedules with accompanying rules changed and then participants followed them, sensitivity to changing reinforcement schedules is enhanced. Hence, this study demonstrated that the history of rule following does not necessarily decrease sensitivity to reinforcement schedules of behavior but increase when one experienced changed reinforcement schedules with accompanying rules.

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